Grand Theft Auto has always been known as a series for its satirical take on American culture, creating pastiches of everything from major American cities to different brands of Scientology. Fans of the franchise, however, have received little news about the future of the series beyond rumors, and have even been told by some of the voice actors behind Grand Theft Auto 5 not to expect the next game any time soon. Saints Row 5, on the other hand, could be just around the corner.
Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto have a long history, with the former starting off as a direct rival to GTA, eventually developing its own unique over-the-top identity that took Rockstar’s satire to new levels of irreverent absurdism. While GTA has stayed relatively down-to-earth even in its silliest moments, Saints Row has taken players to space, the Oval Office, and hell itself, giving it a unique advantage in tackling 2020 that Volition could never have predicted when the last game released back in 2015.
Grand Theft Auto is faced with a problem. Rockstar’s co-founder, Dan Houser, has since left the studio, but nonetheless summed up the anxiety the developers have felt about developing GTA 6 in the current political climate. Houser said that the current state of politics has made it “really unclear what we would even do with [GTA 6], let alone how upset people would get with whatever we did.”
“It is scary but it’s also strange,” Houser continued, adding that “it’s hard to satirize for those reasons. Some of the stuff you see is straightforwardly beyond satire. It would be out of date within two minutes, everything is changing so fast.” The problem at Rockstar appears to be that GTA’s tone of satire wouldn’t mesh well with the very immediate way that current events are affecting people’s lives, but that if the studio was to veer away from their trademark satirical edge, GTA simply wouldn’t feel like GTA.
It’s hard to poke fun at parts of American culture like violent movies, for example, when violence has featured heavily in the lives of many Americans. It’s unclear how the games could take current events and satirize them through an over-the-top lens while still staying down to earth in any way when current events already feel so absurd. Ultimately, the biggest problem for the game series is this: how can the studio acknowledge the year 2020, all that led up to it, all that is still to come, and still feel fun?
This is where Saints Row has a significant advantage over GTA. While GTA has always had ridiculous car-chases, larger than life characters like Trevor Phillips, and a keen eye for whatever era it’s targeting, Saints Row throws subtlety straight out the window entirely. The series really took a turn with Saints Row 3, and escalated even further with the sequel which saw players start the game disarming a nuke by hand before skydiving away from the explosion straight into the Oval Office to become President of the United States. This is before they gain superpowers. And get captured by Satan.
While GTA’s brand of satire could be exhausting for many players, the Saints Row franchise is in a better position. It could not only provide plenty of of escapism, but lean into its own irreverence and ridiculousness. In Saints Row 4, for example, the cover art shows the Saints’ Boss leading the Saints in a parody of Washington crossing the Delaware while holding up an American flag where the stars have been replaced by the Saints’ logo. There’s no doubt that in that one image alone Volition is poking fun at American jingoism, the fact that America’s national identity can sometimes resemble something more like a corporate brand identity, and the fact that many politicians relentlessly reference the nation’s founding.
The Saints are cathartically irreverent. There’s a huge difference between satire like GTA‘s where Rockstar could struggle to tackle topics like the pandemic in a way that feels fun and a broader lampooning of American culture that Saints Row runs with. While Rockstar would likely struggle to figure out how to deal with depressing events in the news and social media, Saints Row is able to snipe from miles above while still providing players with an enjoyably escapist experience.
There is one problem. One recent Saints Row 5 leak suggests that the series might be returning to its roots, with Saints Row 4 and Gat Out of Hell being ret-conned as a Saint Row TV show while the next game will be a direct sequel to Saints Row 3. The idea of a ridiculous in-universe TV show, rather than those events literally taking place, is far more in-line with GTA’s brand of satire, though. With the leaks suggesting that the Saints have become a soulless corporate empire since the death of Johnny Gat, Volition will have to be very careful not to back itself into the same corner as Rockstar. Given that this remains an unverified leak in many ways, fans should take it with a massive grain of salt, and while being mildly believable, this leak deserves it in one regard.
Saints Row‘s extreme silliness, moreover, is how the series distinguished itself from GTA‘s brand, and it’s unlikely Volition will undermine that or disappoint fans by giving that up any time soon. If there’s any series that can turn feelings of chaos and despair into a hilarious and enjoyable game, it’s Saints Row, and many fans will be excited to see what take Volition has in store for Saints Row 5.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is reportedly in development. Saints Row 5 is currently in development for unknown platforms.
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