SAINTS Row reviews have been disappointing to say the least. However, it wasn’t the bugs, or the uninspiring story that the devs regret, but the rain.
While the latest game hoped to reboot the series, an underwhelming open world and game breaking bugs left fans wanting.
The developer had to choose between dust clouds and rain.
The console version of Saints Row is sitting at a disappointing 65 on metacritic, but what would the developers change if they had the chance to do it all again?
GLHF spoke to Brian Traficante, creative director for the reboot, about which features he wished could have made the cut.
Rather than expanding the world or adding more of the outlandish story elements fans of the series have grown to love, Traficante was fixated on the weather.
He said: “I wanted rain so bad. There’s just something about it, right?
“The world state changes, the overcast, the clouds, you see the umbrellas come out, people are reacting to it, and everything shiny looks great.”
There were a number of reasons the team couldn’t make it work.
The team built everything from the ground up, including the development tools to make the game.
Traficante explains: “We started from nothing. At one point early in research and development we let everything go and rebuilt from the ground up.
“So, it’s one of those game stories that, unfortunately, becomes common where you’re building your tech while you’re building your game, which is the biggest no-no in development.”
Graphically the new Saints Row is a big step up from previous games. Saints Row 4 didn’t include any weather conditions at all.
The latest game’s lighting engine helps the world sparkle with beautiful vistas, and a realistic day and night cycle.
However, when it came to weather there was only room for one, and set in a city based on Las Vegas, the team settled for dust storms.
He says, “We’ve got a nice dust storm system, and that was sort of the trade-off where you could see these storms grow, build from a light storm into moderate, and things will get dusty.”
With these compromises between different additions to the game, we can see why some people felt Saints Row needed more polish.
While fans are often angered by game delays, much like Hogwarts Legacy, we wonder if Saints Row might have done better with a bit more time.
Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.
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