Saints Row and the theory nobody talks about: the protagonists were an intentional parody
I started the franchise directly from the reboot, never having touched the older games. And I have a theory I'm becoming more and more convinced is true: **the Boss Factory crew and the Saints were designed as a parody of gangster games** — basically One Punch Man applied to the open world crime genre.
Think about it: you have massive gangs, ruthless criminals who act untouchable, organizations with entire armies behind them — and then four broke kids who can't even pay rent show up and wipe them all out without breaking a sweat. It's the exact same dynamic as One Punch Man: the villains deliver these epic speeches about how powerful and dangerous they are, and then some random nobody sends them packing in seconds. **The problem is that almost nobody read it that way**, and the game never had the narrative space to make that reading explicit enough.
Why? Because the story is incredibly short and rushed. In San Andreas — a game from 2004 — you learn every neighborhood, every gang, every social dynamic. You genuinely feel like you're living in Los Santos, San Fierro, Las Venturas. I still remember the names of those cities years later. I barely remember anything about Santo Ileso (had to look that up), because the game never gives you the time to actually inhabit it. The Idols, the most visually interesting faction, last about half an hour and then disappear.
Looking at the credits and the team photos, the reasons behind the failure become clear: development happened in the middle of a pandemic, remote work with all its complications, and a lot of first-time developers. The ideas were there, and honestly I think they were good ones. But without the time and resources to execute them properly, what's left is a bug-riddled game with a story that never manages to take off.
A massive shame, because with a more experienced team and a story twice as long, Saints Row could have been something genuinely original in the open world landscape. Instead it remains half an idea.