Saints Row 4 considered "end of that saga," future games to go in different direction

Saints Row IV is a game in which you play as a psychopathic president given superpowers while trapped inside a virtual reality city by aliens. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Volition are considering a different direction for any future sequels in the series. They'd struggle to take the current gangs and characters into a more bombastically ridiculous place than they already have.

"I remember telling people: 'I don't know how we're going to top [Saints Row: The Third]," admits design director Scott Phillips in an interview with GameReactor . "We've got a mission on Mars, we've got a heli-carrier, we've got zombies. Where do we go from here?'

"But everybody took a vacation, we came back, started fresh, and very quickly we came up with: 'Well we've got to have… let's do superpowers. It's something we've always been talking about. Wouldn't it be great to run as fast as a car, or jump over a building, or be able to pick up somebody with your mind and throw them across the city.'

"Things started snowballing from there. You know, fighting aliens came out of that because we needed an enemy that properly fights you, and then being the President felt like the next logical step from being a celebrity. So it all sort of came together. We definitely have a mentality of like: 'Alright, we did that last time. We've got to that, plus one. We've got to do better than that this time.'"

In future, building on this level of silliness may prove too much even for Volition. While there's been no confirmation of any future games, Phillips claims that they would probably take a new approach - the team viewing IV as something of a natural conclusion. "We're definitely considering Saints Row IV sort of the end of that saga of this character and the Saints as they are," Phillips continued.

"So if there's any more future Saints Rows – which you know we always hope there will be, we hope there's fans for future games like that – they will probably continue in a different direction."

Thanks, VG247 .

Phil Savage
Editor-in-Chief

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.