Saints Row Design Director Has Been Haunted About Prequel Plan

It looks like Saints Row may indeed be dead, as the original design director's pitch for a 1970s prequel has been 'ghosted' by Embracer.

While there are plenty of problematic franchises out there, I'd argue that no series has had a crueler ending than Saints Row. After four beloved games (albeit for very different reasons, depending on who you ask) and several spin-offs, Volition's attempt to reboot the series in 2022 was met with very mixed reviews for its cringeworthy story, underwhelming gameplay, and poor condition at launch.

In fact, the Saints Row reboot was so bad that it unfortunately ended up bringing Volition with it, as the studio shut down in 2023. It has led many to believe that the series was dead and buried, but Chris Stockman, the head of design on the original Saints Row, had a very interesting idea to bring it back with a grounded prequel that had been set to be the perfect 1 to Saints 1.

Don't count on the 1970s Saints Row Prequel

We can't have nice things

Unfortunately, it looks like that won't happen. As pointed out by papaRPG on Twitter, Stockman recently shared an update on the project in a Discord chat, and it looks incredibly unlikely that it will ever see the light of day. Stockman revealed that his pitch for a prequel has been “ghosted” by Embracer.

Saints Row 4 screenshot of The Boss jumping through the air towards aliens on a rooftop.

Family

Saints Row 4 was the beginning of the end

Love it or hate it, Saints Row 4 started the first domino that led to the end of the series as we knew it.

With his offer of the “best way forward” ignored, Stockman said he believes the franchise is “dead” and that Embracer has “zero ability to do anything with it”. Overall, it sounds like Embracer just isn't interested in reviving Saints Row, and would rather do nothing about it than take another risk, even if Stockman's idea sounds pretty perfect.

Yes, and frankly, I think the franchise is dead, unfortunately. I understand that Embracer has no ability to do anything with it. I wish things were different. – Chris Stockman

There's a very small chance that Embracer eventually returns to Stockman's idea or the series as a whole, but it seems very likely that Saints Row will continue to be a series we all look back on with sad fondness. I hope that's not the case, but I'm not exactly holding my breath.