GamerZines: Saints Row: The Third features a new engine. What are the advantages of utilising this new tech?
Drew Holmes (lead writer on Saints Row: The Third) : We’ve built the engine from the ground-up with open-world games in mind, incorporating a lot of the things that we’ve learned while working on Saints Row and Saints Row 2. We know what works and what doesn’t, so we’ve optimised the engine to take advantage of that stuff.
Iteration is the big selling point in terms of our tech. Before everything was built in 3ds Max, so once a portion of the city was done – it was done! It took us weeks and weeks to go back and change stuff. This time around if a section of gameplay isn’t working we can rip it out, and it’s super fast for our artists to build stuff and our designers to iterate. Our animation team has also been killing it by throwing in lots of new animations and custom stuff like melee actions, wrestling moves, throwing people across the street etc. And that helps with a lot of the fluidity and the feel of movement, so it looks more natural in the terms of how you move through the city. In terms of the engine, it’s pushing the look and gameplay giving us a more stylised and distinct feel across the board.
GZ: The other element which has been hinted at but not really talked about in detail is the RPG factor for Saints Row The Third. Can you break down how it will work? Will it be like GTA: San Andreas with avatars getting fatter if they eat too much etc.
DH: The way that element works is that body customisation is completely up to you. If you want to make a fat person that’s fine, but you only eat for health.
In terms of customised play, this time around respect is used essentially as currency, not to unlock missions as it was previously. Respect is now used to upgrade gang weaponry, homie abilities and your stronghold. When it comes to the activities and missions themselves, you a can play right through those, it doesn’t conflict at all.
GZ: Have you changed that aspect so that side-missions feel more incorporated with the main campaign?
DH: Yeah, this time we’re making everything more cohesive, in terms of the way that you play through the game. When you do anything in the city, you’ll be rewarded with new districts. It’s going to be focused on wherever you’re playing – whether you’re taking part in activities or going around screwing with people – you’re going to be rewarded control for that area. Before you’d complete a mission and you’d be rewarded a district on completely the other side of the map and it felt weird and disjointed. Now it works altogether, in terms of how you take over the city.
GZ: Will players still have to fight to keep districts under their control?
DH: We have a couple of things we’ll be revealing at a future point, with regards to how you take over the city and how gangs fight back. There will be a lot of different options, so you can customise how you want to take over the city and make it your own.
GZ: As you’ve mentioned before the Saints have become an international franchise within the game’s lore, does that allow you to do a lot more funny things with media and radio stations in-game?
DH: We’ve got a giant stable of radio commercials that build up Saints Row as a brand. A lot of world building goes on in the background, in terms of setting up where the Saints are and also the other brands in the universe and how they fight against each other into trying to monopolise the entire world. The idea that the Saints are a brand is ingrained into the world. In a mission a fan might run up to you and ask for an autograph – everyone knows who the Saints are. They might not like them, but they tolerate them.
GZ: It’s very interesting how they have evolved, as the Saints started out as an underground thing and now they are almost like a company building a franchise…
DH: Yeah they branched out, they have globalised. The Saints are very much indicative of the cult of the celebrity. They are in love with themselves and as a result the world is in love with them as well.
GZ: It’s an interesting dichotomy because Saints Row has always been about the cult of celebrity to certain extent which is why you guys have hired such well known voice talent in the past. Can you give us any hint regarding what sort of names you’ll get for the sequel? Does Tera Patrick get another run-out?
DH: I think when we finally announce a cast list, there will be some surprises. However I’d say in terms of what we’ve done in the past, I would expect nothing less.
GZ: The sex appeal metre in character customisation is awesome, as so many games do the whole ‘chest’ thing when you design your character, but they don’t really deal with bulges so much. What made you guys go for that?
DH: It’s all about what is over-the-top and what is crazy. If it makes people laugh, we’re seriously going to consider putting it in the game. This time around the dark and weird things that didn’t necessarily fit the theme of the Saints Row 2 are all out of the window. The Third has a very cohesive look making things fun and enjoyable. We don’t want you to ever stop smiling or having fun.
GZ: How different is Steelport from the previous game’s setting of Steelwater?
DH: The amount of gameplay we’ve packed in is a lot different from what we had in Steelwater. You won’t necessarily be driving across great distances to get to the next activity. There’s always going to be something to do in that immediate area you are in. It’s a lot more about maximising the space rather than building a giant city where ultimately there will be a lot of dead space. We want players to always be engaged and having fun with something.
GZ: You said that the handling model has been improved as well. Getting into cars and moving around in Saints Row 2 felt really rigid and there wasn’t any depth to it. Will the handling model be a bit deeper?
DH: It’s a little bit deeper, but it isn’t a driving sim by any means. It isn’t going to take a long time to figure out what the controls are. Every car in Saints Row 2 drove the same way – a sports car was a sports car and there was no difference between that and a mid-sized Sudan or whatever. This time around the cars will behave a bit differently and it’s hard to explain without giving you a controller, but it feels more natural and a bit more action-orientated.
GZ: The great thing with Saints Row 2 was that when you looked at that game for three minutes, you not only got what it was, but you were also really entertained with what was happening on-screen. It seems like the perfect game to have built-in YouTube functionality or other social features. Have you guys considered that?
DH: We will be announcing similar things like that in the future. We aren’t going into any depth right now, but things that are fun, things that keep people engaged, those are the sorts of things you can expect to be in Saints Row: The Third.
GZ: Thanks for your time Drew.
Saints Row: The Third will be released for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 18th.
Tags: Saints Row The Third
Crysis 3, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Borderlands 2 and Far Cry 3 previews plus reviews for Prototype 2, Sniper Elite V2 and The Witcher 2.
Download Now!
