Volition's over-the-top action-adventure series Saints Row has had a few entries over the years, with each successive title upping the ante when it comes to the bombastic nature of the games. Characteristically a parody of other titles in a similar genre, the Saints Row series started with the rise of the 3rd Street Saints gang as they built their reputation up in the fictional Stilwater, and progressed through to the protagonist becoming the President of the United States facing down an attacking alien empire. The next entry into the franchise is bringing things back to basics, abandoning the sci-fi silliness of the later installments, and focusing once again on building up a criminal empire.
The newest Saints Row is serving as a kind of reboot for the franchise, ditching the previous settings and familiar faces in favor of the fictional city of Santo Ileso and a new would-be criminal cohort. Players will be able to make the town their own as they take over each of the nine districts, customizing their HQ and criminal empire however they want. But it doesn't stop there, with the availability of the Boss Factory meaning that players can create their very own protagonist before the game's release in an impressively intricate system that improves immeasurably on previous entries' offerings.
Introducing The Boss Factory
Saints Row has always let players create some pretty distinct characters, but it appears like the new game is taking what was on offer in previous titles and elevating every single aspect to give players a truly magnificent character creator. The upcoming game boasts the best and deepest customization of the series so far, which covers characters, vehicles, and even weapons, but it's the Boss factory that really makes this feature shine.
There are plenty of weird and wonderful options when it comes to building a unique Boss character, including designing one side of a face separately from the other. Players can change the material of the skin of their characters, making them seem more like something out of Cyberpunk 2077 than Saints Row. Gamers can even add prosthetics to their protagonist for the first time ever, showing the depth of the diversity on offer. There are the usual aspects like body shape, makeup, hairstyle, tattoos, and clothing, but the new Saints Row is adding a dizzying array of details on top of those character creator basics to show how much it's improving this element from previous games.
How It Measures Up To Previous Offerings
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Character customization has been a feature in all mainline Saints Row entries, with various degrees of creativity available to players. The ability to create their protagonist has always been a popular feature with players, and really gives people a chance to push the creative boundaries when it comes to character design. The extent to which they're able to do this is largely dependent on the options and variations available in the character creator, and these definitely got better throughout the series. The latest Saints Row has an undeniably more diverse, intricate, and wacky character creator system, compared to the more standard options available in previous titles.
In the first Saints Row game, players weren't even initially able to change their hairstyles, but they could be changed at hair salons found throughout the game. Saints Row 2 brought players more options, including eight build presets that offered more diversity to the shape of their protagonist. Saints Row 3 had triangular sliders to adjust aspects like body type, and the character creator section also came pre-loaded with preset characters if players didn't want to spend time creating their own. Saints Row 4 didn't differ too much from the previous game, and had the usual options or hair and skin color, alongside body type adjustments. While players could get creative to some extent, Saints Row's Boss Factory is a huge leap forward for the series.
Saints Row is scheduled to release on August 23, 2022 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
