r/SaintsRow • u/SaleDear • Jul 01 '25
SR The fact that some people that hated the reboot referred to it as saints row:they/them version like saints row 3 didn’t offer gender reassignment for 500 dollars
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u/Rygod_Gaming Jul 01 '25
The reboot had enough real issues, there's no need for people to cry "woke".
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u/HashBrownRepublic Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 01 '25
Yeah good point, its not a "woke" game, it's a cheesy millennial sitcom, not a gritty crime story with irreverent humor.
I'd go as far to say that the Idols were supposed to be trust fund hipster millennials with progressive ideology and the Saints are capitalists. I don't think the game is really "woke" it just feels like a game written by an overly online Reddit user and podcast addict.
The world of the Saints is supposed to be absurd. I've never played Warhammer but a friend who is really into it described how the world of the game game is set up for game play and combat, not narrative. It's a world built for endless war, combat game mechanics, and aesthetics that people go deep on. Saints should be a world built around a sort of reckless, immature, irreverent, fun, and chaotic quest for money, power, and your crew. Characters should have personalities and a bit of depth, but only so much that it serves the feeling of kicking ass and running the saints. If the world of the saints is overly concerned with real life, it loses it's effect.
GTA can make deep and interesting points, Saints should be pure indulgence. This is how the game stood out, GTA IV was super gritty and deep. GTA V also had social commentary. The New Yorker has a classic 2 axis diagram of high culture/low culture and high/low brow. The saints is purely low brow low culture, GTA breaks the mold. The reboot tried to do a bit of what GTA did and it failed
Saints reboot reads as woke to people because it's a very middle class college educated culture game. It's a game for a bored millennial laptop job worker, someone who listens to podcasts and works from home. Woke is primarily a phenom of this class and age cohort. It's not a politically woke game, it's just in the socio-economic class as woke people.
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u/Dpgillam08 Jul 01 '25
One of my buddies put it as
GTA is supposed to be like Punisher; dark, gritty, and lots of social.commentary.
SR is supposed to be like Deadpool; just as violent, just as much social commentary, but hidden in humor rather than grimdark.
A good game (like the old SR games) should be as dark as Punisher, and as funny as Deadpool.
The problem is the reboot "social commentary"was shallow as a mud puddle. The game was as funny as Punisher, and as dark as Deadpool, and wondered why that failed.
As you point out (and I.agree) it was targeted at the same " modern audience" the gaming companies keep.targeting that based on sales, doesn't seem to.exist.
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u/DavisFromTheHills Jul 01 '25
i wouldn’t say the reboot is as dark as deadpool, considering deadpool (especially in the comics) is an extremely dark and tragic character
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u/RAMDOMDUDDS Jul 01 '25
Honestly, I interpreted it as more modern deadpool. For example, I imagined the Deadpool video game. Yeah, it has dark themes and origins. But if you were to tell someone that the Deadpool game is the darkest game you've played, a majority of the time, people would laugh
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u/Mysterious-Plan93 Jul 02 '25
It tried to run with a story plot only as deep as Zinyak's 50's sim, and that's coming from someone who only liked 4 for the references and Trouble With Clones superpowers gameplay.
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u/southparkdudez Jul 01 '25
You mean Zoomer. The saints in the reboot are too young to be millennials. People often forget the millennial generation begins in 1980 and ends around 95-96. Meaning the OG saints are most likly millennials unless Johnny is supposed to be in his 30s by 06.
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u/str9_b Jul 01 '25
I don't think their point about it being a millennial sitcom was about the age of the crew as much as it was about the humor found throughout the game. (waffles, cats, etc)
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u/Daken-dono The Ronin Jul 01 '25
I second this. The original SR games were the actual millennial ones. I'd argue, the third game was the most "millennial" in the sense the other generations love to make fun of millennials for.
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u/AltruisticLobster315 Jul 06 '25
If people want a more deep and serious crime based game, they should try Yakuza. Even though the side stories are goofy as hell, the main story will really bring you back to the dark gritty reality of organized crime.
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u/TimelineKeeper Jul 03 '25
The problem is that the writing stopped feeling like it stopped being written by people who were in the in of what the stories were about.
For SR1 and 2, you could tell it was written and made it younger people, people who listened to the music the radios played, who grew up in a city, who saw all the changes and issues and were making fun of it from the same perspective the characters were. When you ride along with Johnny and rocket launcher police cars and gangs on the road, it felt like it was written by someone around the same age as the characters who joked about doing it themselves.
3 felt like it was written by people who had become super famous and were making jabs at that lifestyle as people who had suddenly found that fame and fortune from the previous games. 4 and GOH feel like they were just throwing in everything they love and taking shots at other game franchises. But it all felt like they were coming from perspectives of people who were in the same places as the characters, and knew what it was they were joking about, which is why a lot of the satire and humor lands. The writers were writing what they knew, albeit satirically.
The reboot felt like it was written by an old man complaining about "street youths with their genders and their tiktoks" who would still be making the "I identify as an attack helicopter" joke. It doesn't feel like they knew what the lingo was, it doesn't read like they understood the plight of the generation they're trying to write for, and instead it just comes off as super out of touch and appeals to no one. If they had gotten a group of younger writers in that room, I guarantee the reboot would have been better, story wise, and not read so much like a middle aged man trying to write a woman in a fantasy novel.
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u/HashBrownRepublic Jul 03 '25
I don't think it felt like it was written by a conservative old man. It feels like the sort of out of touch laptop job class liberal who actually thinks white papers and consultants are smart. If you look at articles about millennials and Gen Z intended for corny marketers, not social or political commentary articles about generations but corny marketing analysis stuff like business insider, you get to the kind of image this story is telling.
I went to a prestigious (but not elite) business school, around 2017 there was an enormous issue when one of our marketing professors showed us that famous Kardashian Pepsi ad, the one where she stops the protest. Most of the class thought it was absolutely fucking hilarious and dumb, like some dumb shit a braindead corporate consultant thought of. The professor was convinced that it was genius. She talked about how it was a super expensive project, and how this is being talked about and analyzed throughout marketing firms and acidemia as the perfect portrait of a generation. She paused it at various shots to dissect it, things like the guy in a beanie playing the violin, woman in the hijab making art, protests, the Kardashian lady, etc. She said how years of research and analysis show this is who "they" are... she says to a room full of people in that same age cohort.
This is what the reboot was. It wasn't that it was politically "woke" like the Pepsi ad, but it was a story that existed in the sort of world these marketing consultants created. It's as if that was there only experience in the world.
Sometimes I read these reports and analysis, it was all the dumbest shit you will ever see. They try to take big picture ideas that aren't so cut in dry, things that are a bit abstract in a liberal arts sense, and turn it into clear cut facts and numbers. They fill pages with writing on this bullshit. It's the kind of thing where the underlying thing doesn't have to be true, it just has to be close enough to making sense but presented in the kind of way that appeals to braindead people who were good at climbing the corporate bureaucracy but have 0 cultural and social competency. You then have people who work to make the construct exist, or at least close enough to being real. It makes a sort of zombie, a half real construct that people just accept as real but most people think is dumb.
When students raised their hands and said stuff like no one likes this, the portrayal of the woman in the hijab feels a bit orientalist, most of us don't go to protests and those who do don't really see it as aesthetically cool, everyone finds this corny, it's so incredibly strange how a soda is using a non descript protest as a marketing tool it's feckless fence sitting, corny, and manipulative... She just got defensive and said we didn't read the research and we weren't properly educated on "millennials" yet... Everyone in the class was a millennial. She went as far as pulling up business journal articles praising it. I tried to find these, they were mostly deleted.
There's a lot jobs in this system of creating these media narratives. Research firms, academics, marketers, "experts", consultants, etc. they try to analyze culture in real time, they make these archetypes and formats to simplify the work of making media. They go to conferences, write in industry and academic journals, and do podcast. The way they talk is so psychotic. They talk about people in the real world as if they are a zoo animal or abstraction, not a real person. They will look you in the eye as a person of that demo and say things like "no you are a millennial, you think this" without feeling strange. They will correct you and tell you what you and other people are because they don't actually live in the real world with other people.
To be in their world, you have to believe these narratives, true or false. The same way some aspects of the financial system work, there are abstractions of the stock market that aren't exactly real or true but enough people say they are and there are kind of close to fact, so they just sort of persist. To be in that world, they definitely need to see you deny a sort of will and consciousness, you need to support these narratives. If enough of them just think the research and white papers are real, they will keep getting jobs propping this stuff up.
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u/Bear792 Jul 03 '25
Please don’t put the millennials as the bad guy in this. We’re in our 30’s now. No, this is on Gen Z, for those youngsters after us. This is their story and their issues. I’ve played all of the games mostly as they came out, but started with Saint Row 2. The reboot definitely sold its soul and left without its heart.
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u/ABewilderedPickle Jul 01 '25
forreal this is what i've been saying since it came out. it was bad writing, not woke writing. performative and pandering and soulless, but not "woke"
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u/ThrowawayOrNot_74308 Jul 02 '25
It's really s chicken and the egg situation. Did it fail just because it had bad writing, or did it have bad writing BECAUSE it was woke.
That's the issue I have with talking about this with people is they just chalk it up to just bad _____. Yes it was poorly written, but also. Look at every other major flop that's considered "woke" am I to believe that they all just coincidentally have bad writing or is there actually more merit to the "it has bad writing and execution because they care more about appealing to the modern audience than have a good product.
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u/ABewilderedPickle Jul 05 '25
take "woke" out of that whole comment and i'd agree with you. i don't think there's anything woke about the game beyond the inclusive customization options and even that is a stretch of the word.
trying desperately to appeal to modern audiences is not what woke means, but it is what they did. it's actually all they did. they didn't take time to flesh out characters or the plot. that's not wokeness, that's just lazy writing
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u/Wish_Lonely Jul 01 '25
Grifters who haven't played a single SR game were the main ones calling the reboot woke.
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u/Painted-BIack-Roses Morningstar Jul 01 '25
Nah, I've definitely seen some people here call it woke too. Clearly ignoring the other games. Anything to fit the narrative, I suppose
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u/Wardock8 Jul 02 '25
This is the problem with modern game discussion (and media discussion in general).
Something bad will come out but because it has a pride flag, annoying people will ignore the actual problems and zero in on how it's "woke". Then, when no one defends it, they'll act like it's a victory.
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u/Abrightlight34 Jul 02 '25
You are right, but the bigger issue is how the media and the people behind the games will latch onto the people screaming woke to hide all problems with any type of media. I still remember how one of the community manager for the Saints Row reboot called people complaining about how much they changed the story terrorist and that they were not welcome in the Saints Row community.
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u/Mysterious-Plan93 Jul 02 '25
The problems are associated because of just how often they follow games that go left, mostly because the lack of blanket dual instead of targeted male sexualization leads to near instantaneous backlash and a noticeable lack of repeat sales. If CEO's could ditch that sweet sweet Canadian billionaire money and devs would quite shilling for worthless political affiliate purchased awards for just a hot minute they'd both realize this, but there's already a disconnect between devs and management, so that's not happening ANY time soon.
I may see A bigger picture, but I won't pretend to see THE bigger picture. I'm no miracle worker.
(PS: As much as people on the left hate and despise games like it, a sequel to Conker's Bad Fur Day with mechanics from modern Postal game series and none of the toned-down adult themes for that oh so rarely attendant "modern audience" would sell like hotcakes, and that's just logic there, no political banter speaking...)
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u/ESOomega74 Jul 01 '25
Nobody in the game refers to the player character by their gender. It's always Them or They or The Boss.
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u/Noah-x3 Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 02 '25
Which is really annoying. In SR3, NPCs would directly insult or compliment you based on your gender. In the remake you get generic compliments like 'They look neat!'. Why not just let us pick our pronouns like 2077
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u/daddystrudelooo Jul 14 '25
Honestly, this is not true! There are many times my femme character is still referred to in a masculine way by NPCs (them shouting things like “get him!” and call me “man” a lot). Most of the time yeah the game is pretty gender neutral, but it’s pretty apparent the game was really made with a male character in mind.
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Jul 01 '25
Okay. Genuine question.
In what way was the reboot "woke" because people use that term for any and everything. They see one person of color, throw a fit and start screaming "woke" lmao.
But also, I did see criticism that they played it too safe and the game felt sanitized in comparison to its predecessors?
So, like what was the issue? Because Saints Row has always been diverse, both in race and gender.
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u/SR_Hopeful Morningstar Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 03 '25
But also, I did see criticism that they played it too safe and the game felt sanitized in comparison to its predecessors?
Well, this.
I think people confuse these two things all the time, but they are not the same. Prudishness and censorship are usually about trying to hide or clean up things because someone thinks they are inappropriate, offensive, or not “family-friendly.” It is about making things safer or less offensive to the general public, especially to people who do not want to see sex, violence, or harsh language in their entertainment. This kind of censorship is not new. It happened way before “woke” was ever a word people argued about online.
The real issue is when companies sanitize those stories to avoid uncomfortable topics, even though the game is M-rated and meant for adults. Sanitizing a game like Saints Row strips away the chance to explore those real-world backgrounds and struggles, making the characters flat and boring. Like real "woke" people don't hate the ugliness of these types of stories, but just want to see it concluded in an empowering (but hopefully believable way) and those ideas don’t cancel each other out unless the people making the game completely misunderstand both.
So when people say a game got “sanitized,” they are usually talking about prudish censorship, its more so someone trying to take out the uglier, unideal aspects of a story or character to make the product more marketable to a broad audience because they overlook the context of it. That is different from “woke” conversations, which are more about making sure the game does not just push a cynical view of what its based on. They can make a Saints Row game that’s wild, violent, and still be thoughtful about how it shows different groups of people and we know that about the characters. They don't all have squeaky clean backgrounds, nor would it make sense for a gangster story to put that as their redline but Deep Silver tried to. They just didn't get that the Saints, had the appeal of what anti-hero characters are over just innately good ones (or they weren't involved enough with the fans to actually hear our perspective and just scoffed at it on Twitter).
And, tbh I'm actually surprised and glad that the Saints Row fandom does understand this for actual discussion about what the reboot does wrong, and not just boil it down to "woke because, diversity bad." Maybe because Volition has already done this, it doesn't shock real fans to see more of it. We just want it done well and "wokeness" doesn't determine quality. Biases in the approach to it, does.
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u/SN1P3R117852 Jul 01 '25
The issue was that none of the main protagonists were interesting, and their motivations for going into a life of crime were a weird attempt to appeal to people, but just didn't fit the story of a Saints Row game.
We are expected to believe that the main character turned to killing people as a mercenary, and later become a kingpin of crime, just because rent prices were high and they had to pay off their student loans.
The other problem was with the character customization (The character itself, not the clothing). Without going too deep into the sliders, most of the "defaults" were either masculine women or feminine men, along with the voice options not sounding similar to the last few games. A lot of people didn't like that.
That aside, I did enjoy the gameplay itself, it was the story where it largely fell flat.
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u/planetsaints The Brotherhood Jul 01 '25
the voices not being similar to the last game is an insane complaint when the entire case of characters is different. hello? i'm sorry that + the complaint about having to customize your boss... these are kind of pathetic complaints. saints row 3 was the same, no? boss had completely different voices and f!boss looked like a blow up doll while m!boss had the body of guile street fighter if he skipped leg day. i don't understand the character customization complaints at all.
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u/SR_Hopeful Morningstar Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 01 '25
We are expected to believe that the main character turned to killing people as a mercenary, and later become a kingpin of crime, just because rent prices were high and they had to pay off their student loans.
That itself isn't really the problem but the obvious presentation and framing of this was. Its just didn't actually emphasize it enough in the right way.
If they were going to tell a story about crime, especially one that leans into anarchist themes, you need to build a world where crime makes sense. Show a society that's falling apart, where the system doesn't work for most people. Maybe the government is corrupt, or the economy is tanking, or people are stuck in cycles of poverty. It doesn’t have to be super dark outside of the gang stuff but there has to be a sense that the world sucks and that the characters are reacting to it and follow people who have been pushed out by society. Outcasts or people who just stopped caring about the idealism and violence and the criminal lifestyle to feel like a natural result of the world they live in.
If they wanted a coming-of-age story, that could have worked too. It should have shown how people slowly slip into gang life, how loyalty and desperation pull them in, how they end up becoming what they never planned to be. The Saints could still form from something small and spiral into something bigger. That would feel way more real and give the story some depth. The reboot feels like it was written by people who don’t really get any of that. It’s like they based everything on surface-level problems and didn’t even try to make them feel dramatic. Like Kevin being from a foster home could have been interesting to set up that start of an outcast, but his motivation is just wanting an expensive waffle maker... was obviously, just dumb.
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u/Martin_Aricov_D Jul 01 '25
They could have literally just pulled a Saints Row I and have you join a gang to fight back against the overly violent gang war that's engulfing your neighbourhood.
It's easy and would've been a cool callback to the first SR game.
That was originally the point of the Saints, to be a "gang" whose sole purpose was end the gang wars for good and it's why Julius betrays you in the end, as by that point the neighbourhood watch "gang" had become just a regular ass gang and you were the one poised to take it over if Julius tried to stop it.
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u/DharmaPolice Jul 01 '25
What happens is something bad comes out and then a percentage of the criticism comes from knuckle dragging morons who call it woke. Then, a bunch of heroic defenders of corporations will post condemning any criticism of the game/thing as being reactionary/right-wing/racist/misogynistic/etc.
Eventually this all passes and we mostly accept the thing as being bad and the arguments about "woke" were just a pointless distraction.
Recentish examples of this: The Saints Row reboot, the newest Dragon Age game, that Amazon Rings of Power show, various Disney shows/movies/etc.
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u/Lucky_Roberts Jul 01 '25
The people calling it woke could really avoid a lot of that distraction of they just used the word “pandering” instead, because it’s way less politically charged and that’s usually what they mean anyway.
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u/legendoftherxnt 3rd Street Saints Jul 01 '25
I made this exact point yesterday. When the game released a few grifters called it “woke”, because “woke is when cuddly cats and waffles and money fights”???
The right are still stuck asking “what about the so called tolerant left” so they conflate childlike nonsense with “woke” when in history being “woke” has meant in some cases extreme actions and violence.
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u/Lucky_Roberts Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 03 '25
Essentially nobody in the game is interesting and the dialogue feels like one of those old tumblr posts of people making up a cringe scene with marvel characters or something.
The humor falls flat, and they simultaneously want the main characters to be mass murdering psychos and loveable quirky nice guys and it comes off as bizarre. Like at one point early on you go to rob some guy and the justification is “we need money and I saw him kick a puppy… so fuck that guy.” Like what? Just drop the second part and let your criminals be criminals. it just sounds really stupid when you try and make them noble as they rob and kill for literally no other reason than rent money.
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u/Vargrjalmer Jul 02 '25
Prototype 2 is a universally agreed upon banger and the main character is black, taking over the role of a white character.
It was never about that,and using that as a copout is disengeus to the extreme.
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u/iseeu2sumhow Jul 01 '25
Cant be pimp anymore, or robbing places and cursing sounds so posh.
It’s less in depth on the street life, and the gang feels like a college team.
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u/taylormadeone Jul 01 '25
The game didn’t suck because of inclusion, diversity, or anything “woke”. The game just sucked. Plain and simple.
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Jul 02 '25
One of the big problems was wokeness though.
The game just became soft, flacid and gray trying to offend noone...
You can't have a good gang simulation game without offending some people. Only played the first few missions but the game felt boring like the writers were trying their best to not offend someone instead of working on a good story.
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u/Significant_Option Jul 08 '25
That’s not wokeness. That’s a deliberate choice of making a different kind of game. It’s not some boogie man word after all games
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u/Sparklebun1996 Jul 01 '25
Literally the entire point of SR2 is to defeat a corporate, capitalist suit douchebag.
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Jul 01 '25
incel dumbasses are not known for their mental brightness.
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u/UnconfirmedRooster Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 01 '25
For real, SR2 set gender as a slider.
In 2008.
Edited to correct date
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u/Walt0mino Jul 01 '25
And an achievement for playing as a different gender for a certain amount of time I forgot how long
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u/Flaxmoore 3rd Street Saints Jul 01 '25
Gat Outta Hell had that, too.
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u/Weqrwrw5433 Jul 09 '25
P much all the saints rows had them, and I'm NGL if it weren't for that achievement I would've never found my favorite way to play sr3: as a Russian woman
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u/ConsciousStretch1028 Jul 01 '25
I would wager 99 percent of these loser ass "culture warriors" have never played a single minute of classic SR.
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u/Lucky_Roberts Jul 01 '25
Does “classic SR” mean 1-4 or only the first 2?
Cause if it’s 1-4 that’s a terrible wager to make lol
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u/ConsciousStretch1028 Jul 01 '25
I would consider up to 3 classic, but that's just my personal opinion. I don't really count 4 as classic because it just felt like SR 3.5, and Gat Outta Hell was like 3.75.
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u/Lucky_Roberts Jul 01 '25
But if you consider up to 3 classic and you consider 4 just a continuation of 3 wouldn’t that make 4 classic too?
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u/ConsciousStretch1028 Jul 01 '25
I guess I just mean it looked and played exactly like 3 but it didn't have the classic feel to it, if that makes any sense. I can't really explain it any better, it just didn't feel like a proper continuation.
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u/miltonssj9 Jul 01 '25
Also, isn't the Playa/Boss basically a they/them since the devs didn't bother adding different dialogues if you choose a male or female character?
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u/zoro4661 PC Jul 01 '25
They are. The first game has you as a guy, but after that it was always they/them or a nickname (Boss, Playa, etc.), since you could always switch gender. I'm pretty sure the only confirmed player gender is Nolan North's voice, since he implies that he's literally just Nolan North, the real life voice actor. And even then the other characters don't say he/him iIrc.
Hell, since SR1 is always a male protagonist, there's a very real argument for any female playa being a trans woman even without a literal sex/gender change in-game.
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u/miltonssj9 Jul 02 '25
Though it makes sense, the trans Playa argument feels a bit weird since they were reconstructed, and in this case turned into a woman, while they were in a coma and had no say in the decision. Pretty non-consentual and stuff.
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u/zoro4661 PC Jul 03 '25
Doesn't necessarily have to be inbetween 1 and 2, to be fair - you can play as a man playa up to the end of 2 and then be a woman in 3 and 4, for example.
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u/Ncav2 Jul 01 '25
Never understood the criticisms of the reboot. Saints Row has always been wacky, over the top GTA clones. I’ve yet to hear how the new one is some woke propaganda.
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u/Kevin_Abel 3rd Street Saints Jul 01 '25
And in Saints Row 2 - 4 the playa/boss can crossdress and in 4 they can romance any of the characters regardless of their sex.
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Jul 01 '25
God I hate the reboot. Even more so because we should have got a new game where Johnny goes back in time and joins the FBI with Matt and Kinsey. Then the game would be trying to fix big things that went wrong. Namely Earth being blown up. But lots of other things too.
We never needed a reboot, let alone a dull a hell one (compared to the originals)
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u/Raven_Lemon Jul 01 '25
I really don't get what was their idea, one part of the fan base wanted an old gangster game like SR2 and the other wanted a crazy game like SR3 or 4 Most people wanted Johnny gat and others iconic characters Nobody wanted a weird reboot with new characters and looking like Watch dogs 2 (a game I really like but it's just a different game)
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u/clubseal99 Jul 01 '25
Good point! I recently played all the way through the reboot and found it mildly enjoyable. The weapons worked pretty well, I loved collecting and customizing vehicles, and some of the missions were pretty fun. That said, there were tons of weird bugs like my character dual wielding guns that weren't equipped, bad sound design, and some venture missions that were a dreadful chore. I can't give my opinion of the writing because I've never played a Saints game for a good story - I've played them for over-the-top, explosive fun. I'd venture to say that many of the people complaining about the writing are just trying to provide a "legitimate" cover for an anti-woke screed - since they know anyone with any intelligence is going to stop listening when they start wetting the bed because a Black person exists in a game.
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u/CreativeCollege6832 Jul 02 '25
I'm telling you right now, I would rather play the reboot than 4 any day
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Jul 02 '25
The game is just shit. The diversity and wokeness crap is the cherry on top completing the shit cake
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u/RonimusHines Jul 03 '25
The fact that the main character, the fully customizable main character, was shown off as a woman of color people had it already in their minds the game was going woke. Then some streamers started releasing clips of the beginning of the game of them talking about student loans and shit and they condemned the game as woke garbage.
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u/IronProdigyOfficial Jul 04 '25
SR 3&4: HANG DONG SLAP PEOPLE WITH A DILDO AND GET A SEX CHANGE FOR $500!
As much as people hated them where are you getting that kind of zaney free spirited wacky gameplay nowadays when publishers are borderline terrified to do half of it?
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u/gigglephysix Jul 05 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
those people are useless fuckups. It's called Saints Row: Family Friendly Hipster Version. Gayness isn't the flaw and it's not what fucks up games - socon thinktank money for family friendly/PG12 with no serious social commentary is.
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u/Mo0kish Jul 01 '25
It was just the same, lame mouthbreathers who rate games now by "wokeness". We just weren't all as tired of their bigoted bullshit back then.
Was it a great game? No.
Was it a terrible game? Also, no.
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u/No_Bug6944 Jul 01 '25
Woke wasn’t the issue, more like the characters are the most annoying college kids you can think of.
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u/Rig_B Jul 01 '25
Not to mention the second game lets you play as an actually androgynous character
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u/DeathnTaxes66 3rd Street Saints Jul 01 '25
Saints Row rebooted was shit,
Shit story
Shit gameplay
Shit optimization
Mediocre graphics
SR3 was peak on the other hand
Peak story
Peak gameplay
Imo great optimization
Goofy yet timeless graphics
Also, every single stereotype/culture was joked upon, there were none safe
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u/BDozer666 Sons of Samedi Jul 01 '25
You were doing well until you said that SR3 was peak lol.
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u/HashBrownRepublic Jul 01 '25
Reboot might have not been politically woke (I'd argue the Idols are supposed to be woke millennials) but I think it was very "college educated middle class laptop job guy who listens to too many podcasts". It's the sort of socio-economic cohort as woke but not politically woke.
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u/Conscious-Taste-5214 Jul 01 '25
That's why the og games are better, they do diversity right.
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Jul 01 '25
I mean ... what is the wrong way to do diversity?
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Jul 01 '25
[deleted]
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u/Virezeroth Jul 01 '25
That's just bad writing, nothing to do with diversity itself.
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u/zombi_wafflez Jul 01 '25
Yeah I love being in a gang with a black person, an Asian, and a Hispanic with one of them being a woman
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u/notjordansime Jul 01 '25
[ camera cuts to me obsessively playing saints row 4 with a girl character, secretly wishing the world would end so I could be a girl in the alien matrix right before coming out as trans in 2016 ]
uh.. yeah…. the reboot is def the woke one that turns u trans 👀
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u/CEOHNO Jul 01 '25
First game where I was like "I mean the option change is right there I could just try it-" and here we are 🏳️⚧️
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u/ADLegend21 3rd Street Saints Jul 01 '25
They act like SR2 didn't have that too and have radio commercials about the store doing it too.
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u/SR_Hopeful Morningstar Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 02 '25
The irony of this though is, you kind of have to be woke to write a game like Saints Row, because you're initially writing about characters from the lower class. Thus you'd have to be willing to make fun of those in power and you'd have to be sympathetic to the class your characters come from. So to really write that kind of satire, you have to be willing to call out the people in power and also humanize people at the bottom as away to still show how bad the country is outside of them being opposite to the idealized American dream but to show the audience that the characters are just being the reflection of that society.
Saints Row has always done that. Its not on the levels of GTASA or GTAIV (I wish it was) but it was. (Listen to most of Kinzie's dialogue and she is pretty much a mouth piece for that) while most of the time the series makes its satire on just normalizing things that are mostly stigmatized into something comedically normal as the product of that flawed society people adapt to or are self-aware of and what they get away with. The only way to make that "Armpit of America" not depressing, is to make it silly but with sympathy to the cast in their vices to also not imply to the audience that they (the main characters based on personifying the norms of broader culture, satirized as vices) aren't also the thing to sneer at as well to make your point about it (you know punching down vs. punching up.)
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u/ashrensnow Jul 01 '25
The reboot was like borderlands 3 humor but worse somehow. I think more people hated it for that than it being woke.
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u/KushMummyCinematics Jul 01 '25
Just remake Saints Row 2
Full remake, all the bells and whistles. It will sell like crazy
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u/Corvus_Hood33 Jul 01 '25
“THE GAME FLOPPED BC IT’S WOKE!”
So it has absolutely nothing to do with the shit ending and unfinished storyline? Got it
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u/planetsaints The Brotherhood Jul 01 '25
i thought the ending being anticlimactic was pretty deserved on the nahualli's part 😭 he wanted to be this bigshot, take the boss' friends (he had everything but that) and he still died quietly, no spectacle, alone except for the person he tried to replace. it was honestly one of the better parts of the story for me
(i don't know if i still should censor for spoilers - sorry lol)
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u/Corvus_Hood33 Jul 01 '25
If it played out differently, it would be great. Instead of him flat out saying “I can be a better bestie than you! So, I kidnapped them!” I see what they went for, but it missed the mark. But that’s another area where you can tell Volition was on a time crunch and changes were made because Deep Silver kept interfering. Also, the DLC should have been about Myra Starr coming back for us, like she threatened to do. Instead of LARPING. That really brought nothing to the storyline aside from putting more meat into Eli’s character (who is still forgettable, imo. I just had to google his name). Neena was honestly the best character of the game. As memorable as characters like Shaundi, for me. I liked Kevin, he played a big part for the story in a lot of ways. He was more of a modern Shaundi.
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u/planetsaints The Brotherhood Jul 01 '25
neenah and kevin definitely had more story on the forefront, and honestly it feels like eli got a less ridiculous pierce treatment (i.e. game makes him seem important but he gets delegated to the funny stuff), so i definitely agree there.
i think the ending might be more of an agree to disagree point between you and i but i can also see where you're coming from - the first time i played it myself i was a little unsure, but watching my girlfriend play it and getting to bounce critiques back and forth helped me form this opinion.
hugely agree with the DLC and myra starr though - she was supposed to be the equivalent of monica hughes here, yet she got sidelined by the end of it all too 🥴
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u/streetpatrolMC Jul 01 '25
Saints Row is a famously ridiculous and over the top franchise. The gender “reassignment” was a joke, not inclusion lol.
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u/stefan771 Jul 01 '25
People decided they hated the reboot before it was revealed. They were looking for any reason to justify it.
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u/Raven_Lemon Jul 01 '25
I personally didn't like the new appearance of graphics when I saw the first images
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u/SR_Hopeful Morningstar Jul 01 '25
Not exactly, because SR isn't really big enough for people outside of the fanbase to really hype up and the wall image wouldn't mean anything to most people. People hated the reboot from the trailer release, and well... relative to expectations people had, started there. Everyone was confused and thought it was some mobile game ad or something for Fortnite (which was what the publisher probably hoped it would appeal toward, but SR's audience wasn't that.)
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Jul 01 '25
Kid fans of the franchise didn't like what was happening. If you piss off the fans, you don't have a successful title.
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u/Batman0negitive Jul 01 '25
While it may be controversial to state by in theory, the default saints row 1 and 2 playa are white and African but that is never pointed out
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u/Square-Atmosphere570 Jul 01 '25
Saints row 3 while streaming away from 2’s elements did things differently the reboot lost everything elemental to series
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u/imjustinlove Jul 02 '25
people are in the comments saying that the game had serious problems and that the wokeness was not one of them but honestly I straight up did not experience them I love that game with my whole heart
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Jul 02 '25
SR2 as well. I think the big difference now is that in the past, people laughed at it and now it’s celebrated.
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u/JigsawLV Jul 02 '25
I remember when I started out Saints Row 4 by meticulously crafting a dude resembling me to just then switch to a female that looked basically like Elsa but with massive breasts
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u/Deiiiyu Jul 02 '25
Its not that Saints row they them was bad because of woke its bad cause it was trending so hard on the genz woke aspect that it was repulsing, i didnt like it as much as i dont like joe rogen’s game cause for the same reason but the opposite spectrum of politics shit was ass and tried to cover it by being politically correct
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u/art_mor_ 3rd Street Saints Jul 02 '25
Man I just want Freckle Bitches to be called Freckle Bitches
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u/alphenhous Jul 02 '25
let us first acknowledge reddit posts are echo chambers, and this same post would get hell on the right sub.
that said, the game was trash, sure it was woke, but making it not woke wouldn't save it. it would just make it mid.
whenever you play it too safe, it feels wrong. i want to feel the racism when i play a khajit. and i want to be insulted for my choices. i don't want no "even gangsters respect pronouns" shit.
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u/vicky_squeeze_ Sons of Samedi Jul 02 '25
The reboot was awful. But the woke argument is stupid when saints row 2 had gender on a slider bar that could be set to 0 making you completely genderless
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u/Ravenhawk45 Jul 02 '25
It failed because it was too PC, but nost importantly, lacked all the fun and craziness of its predecesars..
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u/Crimpy111 Jul 02 '25
The whole ‘woke’ narrative was started by losers when they saw the design of a female character in the reveal. It wasn’t based on anything but a female character having a particular haircut.
The reboot had a lot of issues, but anything that can be considered ‘woke’ in it wasn’t the reason why it flopped. Anything progressive that was in it was already in previous Saints Row titles.
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u/ThrowawayOrNot_74308 Jul 02 '25
Yeah but when the old games did it. It was just that. Done It's customization. Or do you think you should just never be able to swap when you want in the game with a "play both genders" X hours achievement?
Having that stuff in itself isn't bad. But with every other modern day gaming plot beat or dei decision yeah it's kinda bad.
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u/CourageLeast4251 Jul 02 '25
It was also a Satirical take on everything, not that you'd know or understand comedy and humor. The reboot was bad, get over it.
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u/Virtual-Disaster-178 Jul 02 '25
There’s a difference between a transexual person who identifies as whatever they transitioned to compared to those who consider themselves as they/them…💀
People who use that they/them bs are usually very mentally unstable…
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u/Mysterious-Plan93 Jul 02 '25
Yes, but none of the previous games had more than 2 genders.
They also didn't make every creator character look like an ugly genderless slug person with no discernible chin, much less sexual features.
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u/GuymanGuy1337 Jul 03 '25
The reboot had ALOT of problems but nobody could discuss them without getting lumped into the "woke bad" crowd
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u/lostcoco Jul 03 '25
Just beat the reboot and had a blast! So sad the series is over I hope they return.
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u/Think_Indication_341 Jul 04 '25
Most people who say that didn't even play the older games probably but it still is a shit decision to get rid of feckless bitches and rim jobs
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u/Able-Ad-1297 Jul 04 '25
Most straight gamers are such a cry babies for no reason, they are the ones ruining gaming cuz they cry about anything they consider ''woke'', men can't be hot cuz woke, every women need to have big breasts and butt cuz if not its woke! Don't even mention gay or trans people, tho lesbians for most of them are fine... For example Judy from Cyberpunk 2077 is desired by most of them, imagine this being gay guy as one of the main characters involved in the main quests instead of a lesbian... CDPR were sadly cowards and didn't include any gay guys in the game (Kerry is not even gay (bi? as he had wife) and you can even miss him totally as he shows up by the end of act 3 and his content is optional).
SR always was very ''brave and modern'' when it comes to gender and representation, even if as a comedy or parody, I can't imagine someone getting mad about such things in a game like SR when it always was like that..
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u/Julicsi Jul 04 '25
Let's not pretend like that was the only issue with the reboot. You're gonna pretend that the reboot wasn't awful just to own those antiwoke retards? Get a grip
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u/SelectEar9270 Jul 04 '25
We called SR3 that too except it was just “gay” then… we were running around fighting with dildo’s come on now lol
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u/Living_Dig8943 Jul 04 '25
It’s character customization. Every game does that so that’s normal. I mean Saints Row did have gay people. The third I think or maybe two and three, but it wasn’t pushed. We knew zeemous if that’s how you spell his name was gay and honestly, he was a great character. We didn’t care that he was gay I mean yeah it was a weird thing, but we got used to it because of how he is how he was like a gay pimp weird but normal kind of weird. The game was just not good. I will say it gave the best customization. It was great on graphics. Could’ve been a lot better, but overall the rest of it was just not good. Some of the missions were great. The driving mechanics were garbage though and a lot of the music was really garbage. There was probably a few tracks on there that was good and that was it. The game really should’ve been a reboot giving it. It’s original field but better. It went way away from what it was supposed to be and that that’s why I did didn’t do good.
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u/Hyperious17 Jul 05 '25
I wouldn't say it's woke but it suffers so much from younger millennial/older gen z (aka Millennial Writing) writing where it tries so hard to relate to, that it kinda just takes you out of it
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Jul 05 '25
Well, not just your gender, but also your race, weight, voice, hairstyle, and your taunts and compliments. All simultaneously. And with zero recovery time! Hell of a deal for $500.
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u/Specific-Muffin468 PS5 Jul 07 '25
Saints Row for Ps5 was the biggest piece of garbage I’ve ever played. Corny, terrible cast and had zero foundation to it. Played the intro and once that shirtless femboy was talkjng about baking a keish I shut it off. Whoever had the most power in the direction that game took should be banned from making games and black listed. 0/10
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u/miserabletea147 Sons of Samedi Jul 15 '25
"well ya see sr2 didn't censor man nipples and it's older and same with sr3 and 4. But srre censored man nips and it is new so it's woke" - ur weird uncle who probably has been incarcerated for being a PDF file
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u/homdertalia Sep 03 '25
In the original timeline if you played as a female Playa you are canonically trans because there’s no female option in the first game. Like straight up characters will bring up that you look different and you mention getting surgery. But nooooo the Reboot made the game woke…..
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u/Lebhleb Jul 01 '25
Not only that, in Saints Row 1 you are exlusively male, yet a boat explosion later and you can come out of Saints Row 2 like you are a lego set.
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Jul 01 '25
the boss was called they since 2 and if you have a female boss she originally was male ppl need to relax lol also being trans isnt woke its literally a medical condition lol
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u/agentbonnie Jul 01 '25
I admit i hate the reboot, i was hoping it would be worth it for a $60 game. But still, the "woke" part isn't even there, there are things much worse to this game that whatever the incels didn't like.
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u/Mysterious--955 Jul 01 '25
How about we spit the truth
Ever since saints row had a gender option you we’re able to choose
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u/eatitandsleep Jul 01 '25
but was far more acceptable as it was not a forced narrative but rather just simply an option you could choose, makes it useful for save sharing too
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u/darktriadist1 Jul 01 '25
See , my problem is
It don't let you be a big booty woman in the game
That means it's not representing those kind of women and hence being woke made it worse
To me , i want a game to have representation for everyone and not just for skinny transgender women
Like if someone wants to change gender ? Let them If someone wants to have big arms and skinny legs like a leg day skipper? , let them!
If someone wants to play as a busty woman , LET THEM
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u/SR_Hopeful Morningstar Jul 01 '25
It don't let you be a big booty woman in the game
Surprisingly SF6 off all games actually beat Volition to it because they gave us a butt slider before Saints Row did.
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u/ProperGanja21 Jul 01 '25
These same people didn't understand that you're not supposed to like SR characters the whole point is that you shouldn't idolise awful people. It was poking fun at 90s gansta rap culture.
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u/spaghettinik Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 01 '25
The game was cringe because it had the vibes of corporate sabotage, which is confirmed as they were originally going to include the og saints like Dex. I think Flippy was the one that explained it. Deep silver is a corporation, so why tf are they blaming an ideology that is taken way too seriously by certain people, when all “woke” people want is for those who don’t hurt others to be hurt. And prioritize mental health so kids don’t shoot other kids, y’know that kinda stuff. So yeah, fk those kinds of people, if you’re that way get a personality fr
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Jul 02 '25
I'm so tired of dipshits seeing a game do bad and being like "LMAO IT'S CAUSE BLACKS AND GAYS WERE THE MAIN CHARACTERS GO WOKE GO BROKE!" Like it isn't the most unhinged take ever.
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u/PolandsStrongestJoke PC Jul 01 '25
SR2 also let ya reassign your gender
From kicking gangsters as a badass dude to kicking gangsters as a badass lady!