Saints Row 4 (PC/PS3/360) | Re-Elected (NSW) - March 27, 2020

**6souls** · 2013-02-06 23:11

Kundratitz says that he has "no doubt" that Metro: Last Light and the next Saints Row game will both launch this year, just as THQ had planned. More to the point, he sees Koch as an ideal fit for both IPs: it has great strength in Europe, where Metro is likely to find its biggest audience, and its independence will give Saints Row the sort of creative freedom that it might not have received under the more homogenised console development culture of a publisher like EA. The way the company built the success of Dead Island is proof, Kundratitz says, that it is more than ready to handle a property the size of Saints Row.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...e-the-next-thq

Full article;

Spoiler: show

CEO Klemens Kundratitz on THQ's collapse, the acquisition of Saints Row, and the problem with half-naked statuettes

We tend to talk about the companies that comprise the industry's publishing arm in terms of tiers. The platform holders, the Activisions and the EAs are at the very top, looking down as the likes of Ubisoft, Take-Two and Square Enix try to climb the ladder. During the latter years of its existence, THQ was just below that level, and this relatively broad middle-tier is the part of the industry that suffered most from the huge changes wrought by the rise of more egalitarian digital platforms.

As Rob Fahey pointed out in a recent editorial, THQ was the victim of a rapidly shifting marketplace that defeated the company's mostly smart attempts to regain its balance. When the time came to carve up the company's assets for the highest bidder, it was hard not to feel discouraged by the quality of its constituent parts: very talented studios and very promising games that, given more time, may well have been the shot in the arm THQ required. Business is like that, and generally speaking a loss for one turns into a win for others.

Koch Media might well count itself among those winners. The German media group has been a relatively mysterious presence in the games industry since it launched its publishing division, Deep Silver, in 2002. It has been consistently active, particularly in Europe, but it lacked the sort of breakout hit that brings truly widespread recognition. Techland's Dead Island went some way towards achieving that, but the acquisition of Volition Inc. and Metro: Last Light could be the catalyst for its ascent to AAA development. It will be a stiff challenge, but CEO Klemens Kundratitz believes that Koch has the experience and the infrastructure to avoid the problems evident in THQ's demise.

"Many people didn't really see us as a player in the industry. They didn't really understand what we're doing," he says. "I appreciate that we now get more of the spotlight with these new IPs, but, having said that, we are not ambitious to be the next THQ.

"We have always tried to find our own way, and do business in a way that we believe is right for us. We don't want to copy other people's success stories. We are passionate about Deep Silver, and we are obviously investing significantly now, but at the same time we have a strong, value-added distribution business in Europe, which will continue to be a tent-pole in the future. And the third element is our film business, which we are also growing here in Europe, where we acquire film rights and we exploit them in the movies, in home entertainment and on TV.

"Those three elements of the business are all in a growth phase. Standing on three legs rather than one is still quite a good idea as far as we're concerned."

Kundratitiz believes that the spread of Koch's business will offer security when navigating the pitfalls of AAA console development. Given the industry-wide transition from physical to digital, the company's European distribution services have proved particularly attractive, yielding strong relationships with companies like Capcom, Square Enix and NCsoft. According to Kundratitz, Koch is actually seeing the benefits of the ongoing consolidation of the retail market.

Nevertheless, the company will be "built around" Deep Silver, particularly now that it has added Saints Row and Metro to its IP stable. Indeed, the desire for those particular assets was enough to prompt Koch to enter the bidding high, ultimately paying a total of $28.1 million. "We started with quite substantial bid amounts," says Kundratitz. "It wasn't about a free ride. It was a real desire to get those two assets. Were there other things of interest? Yes, but in the end we got exactly what we wanted."

"It's important that you understand who you are and what you're capable of doing. Other publishers are very ambitious, but they aspire to grow their businesses in ways that aren't healthy. That's a problem of publicly listed companies, which go from quarter to quarter and are pushed into this ambitious way of running their businesses. Unfortunately, that doesn't always pay off.

"In THQ's situation there were a combination of factors that contributed to that. One is that they were missing the AAA success which, for other companies, covers up the things that aren't going so well. Secondly, they were somewhat exposed by the quick turn of the market: the influence of Apple, and the crystallisation of the core business as the only full-price business around. It's hard to turn a tanker in a short period of time."

Kundratitz says that he has "no doubt" that Metro: Last Light and the next Saints Row game will both launch this year, just as THQ had planned. More to the point, he sees Koch as an ideal fit for both IPs: it has great strength in Europe, where Metro is likely to find its biggest audience, and its independence will give Saints Row the sort of creative freedom that it might not have received under the more homogenised console development culture of a publisher like EA. The way the company built the success of Dead Island is proof, Kundratitz says, that it is more than ready to handle a property the size of Saints Row.

"I think it would have been daunting two years ago, but we have really come a long way since we started publishing. Admittedly, we started small and focused on Europe, but we went step-by-step, making bigger bets and making bigger products. Not all of them have been successful, as with any publisher, but it's been organic growth.

"With Dead Island, for the first time we had a global success. One thing leads to the next, and after Dead Island to go a bigger step further, it's not something we don't know enough about. We have grown and matured as an organisation in a way that enables us to take on a project of that size."

Ah yes, Dead Island. The franchise that arguably put Koch in a position to take advantage of THQ's assets has become a dubious example of surprise success. When every other week seems to bring the news of another developer making redundancies or closing altogether, unconventional hits like Dead Island should be a thing to savour. But the combination of misleading (albeit entirely successful) marketing and an improbable snafu involving the discovery of a sexist line of code made that somewhat difficult.

Indeed, the recent announcement of a Collector's Edition for the forthcoming sequel, Riptide, which is packaged with a statue of a mangled, pneumatic female torso, has led to accusations that Koch is deliberately using sensationalist tactics to promote the games. After all, with so much discussion around gender politics in both the industry and its products in recent months, a decapitated, scarred swimsuit model is a fairly effective way of starting a conversation. However, Kundratitz firmly denies any conscious attempt to fan the flames, and he believes the Dead Island IP will not be dragged down by the media scrutiny.

"Well, you can't get every bet right. Sometimes you just have to admit to yourself and your community that it wasn't appropriate," he says. "Overall, Riptide has a very strong tailwind going into the launch, and I think the Collectors Edition will probably be soon forgotten. It's something that the media has reported with a lot of interest, but I think that in the grand scheme of things it's not so important.

"And, y'know, we'll probably make mistakes in the future as well. It's not something we're immune to. Looking at what we've seen in response on the forums and around the internet, many people also see it in a more balanced way, and recommend that if some people don't want to buy something they just shouldn't buy it.

"I can tell you one thing: it was not manufactured. We aren't looking for that type of publicity."

**TacoTaru** · 2013-02-07 14:17

Best news I've heard for games this year. Saints Row 2 and 3 both were dynamite. Really hope Saints Row 4 keeps the fantastic coop 2 and 3 had.

**vrumpt** · 2013-03-15 09:21

August 20 and 23

Loved Saints Row 3, can't wait for this

**Appie** · 2013-03-15 09:34

Woohooo only 5 months to go! Saints Row games are so much fun.

**Priran** · 2013-03-15 09:52

meh. 2 was amazing, basically filling the gap left by GTA4 taking itself too seriously and subsequently being boring and awful. 2 had somewhere between Vice City and San Andreas levels of silliness but 3 felt like it was designed by the penguin of doom and was really disappointing for me

the announcement trailer looks like they're going to try even harder to be silly and random so I probably won't even bother renting this time

**Karbuncle** · 2013-03-15 10:11

I Remember reading a "Super Powers!" DLC was planned for Saints Row 3, but was scrapped and instead decided to make that Saints Row 4. Looks like this holds true, clearly see use of Super Powers in SR4. Got a real strong "Crackdown" Vibe watching it... pretty sure i even recognized some of the animations... But, yah, IDK, Saints Row 2 lasted me a good while, always had fun with it, even if it was just for the odd stuff...

All and all, Saints Row 3 was fun for me, I enjoyed it.. Just didn't feel as fun as Saints Row 2 did.. maybe it was the lack of Easter Eggs around the city (Saints Row 2 had dozens... Volition Island.. the giant rabbit thing, The Cemetary sex caverns, so on, so forth... you know, reasons to explore the city), or maybe it was something else, just didnt have the same charm.

I mean, Saints Row 2, I liked the characters, even the enemy gangs. they felt threatening, they felt... more defined, real.. like for instance.

Spoiler: show

depressing revelations aside, I'll probably still play the game because i enjoy sandboxes... But i've given up on ever taking the story seriously since Saints Row 3. Which to me is a real shame. Saints Row 1 and 2, while having that 'not taking itself to seriously' feel... had a compelling story to tell.

**Qalbert** · 2013-03-15 10:32

holy shit it comes out on my birthday

**Denmork** · 2013-03-15 13:04

While I did think the more serious tone of SR2 was a bit better than the wacky SR3 the third game was still amazing. This series is one of if not the best co-op experiences I've ever had and i'm super stoked for the 4th game.

**Lucavi** · 2013-03-15 16:20

Can't wait to pick this up. I'd love to support a company that does a quality job each and every time.

**6souls** · 2013-03-15 22:19

Spoiler: show

Today Deep Silver announced that Saints Row IV, the ball-busting next chapter in the Saints Row franchise, is starting a party in your pants this Fall.

In the next open-world installment of Saints Row, Deep Silver Volition continues the story of the Third Street Saints by elevating their status to the highest level – the leaders of the free world. In Saints Row IV, the head honcho of the Saints has been elected to the Presidency of the United States. But the Saints are just getting started. Now the larger-than-life insanity of the Saints series gets a new twist with a catastrophic alien invasion, and the aliens have transported the Saints to a bizarro-Steelport simulation. Wield gargantuan superpowers and fight to free humanity from alien granddaddy Zinyak's mental grasp. Escape the simulation that's trapped the Saints crew, or die trying.

Saints Row IV lets players delve into an arsenal of alien weaponry and technology that will turn each Saint into an ultimate entity of destruction. Utilize out-of-this-world superpowers to fight all the way to the top. With intensified action and enhanced customization, players can use their newfound superpowers and leap over buildings, outrun the fastest sports cars, or send enemies flying with telekinesis in the greatest, most insane installment of Saints Row yet.

Save the world, Saints Style.

Developed by Volition, Saints Row IV will launch on current-gen consoles and PC on August 20, 2013, in North America and August 23, 2013, in the rest of the world.

**avelle** · 2013-03-16 01:25

Yep, day one purchase for me. I loved SR3 and definitely looking forward to a new one.

**notorious bum** · 2013-03-16 06:43

SR3 was my first in the series, honestly didn't care for what I saw with the first 2. SR3 was a welcome break from GTA srs bizzness games.

Thanks to ESPN, I've been impatiently waiting to see if they'd make a sequel. Looks fuckin jacked-up; my body is ready.

**Qalbert** · 2013-03-16 07:46

I do hope that the missions are more fleshed out though, half the ones in SR3 were "do this activity, call it a mission"

**Lucavi** · 2013-03-16 09:12

Want to derail Kenzie, so seeing her confirmed for in-game triples the day-one-ness of this.

**Qalbert** · 2013-03-20 09:34

http://kwiksurveys.com/app/rendersur...081&refer=t.co

Welcome, Saints! Choose wisely...

We want to make a Collector's Edition for Saints Row IV. One that is, you know, worth buying as a collector's item.

Now, we have been toying with a lot of ideas, but we want you, the Saints Row community, to vote on what YOU want in a Collector's Edition. So here's your chance to let us know!
1
Gimme some of this stuff below.

Rank each item from 1 (HELL NO!) to 5 (AWWWW YEAH!).
1. HELL NO! 2. Do not really want 3. Meh 4. This could be cool 5. AWWWW YEAH!

Saints Row T-shirt - "Department of Homeland Saintcurity"
Saints2013 Presidential campaign gear (Pins, hats, Saint Car Flags)
Voice augmentation device / auto-tune device
Pierce, Shaundi, or other Saint Figurine
Presidential Briefcase with kinky handcuff and key
Dubstep Doomsday Button
Functional (not deadly!) in-game weapon replica
Johnny Gat Memorial Statue
Saint's Bazooka themed Poster Tube
"Eagle Jet" RC Helicopter
Tie and Tie Bar, Money Clip
Sealed Classified Book with Artwork (Concept Artbook)
Steelbook
Whitehouse "Security" download card
President Seal and/or Coin
Cloth World Map
Saint Belt Buckle
Wood Cigar box
Ridiculously amazing glass display case with lights?

**Qalbert** · 2013-03-22 11:08

http://kotaku.com/5991889/you-can-li...-saints-row-iv

What does six minutes' worth of a hands-off PAX East demo of the new Saints Row get you? Not much, but it's worth sharing simply because of the expected, and utterly ridiculous weapons that were shown. Though, if you have a quick eye for details, you'll likely have noticed most of this in the first trailer released for Saints Row IV (above).

Let's break down what I saw, and what you may have seen a small fragment of in the trailer:
Super-Powers

Speed-running: you can demolish and burst through cars and people as you run long distances at high speeds.
High jumps: the Volition dev on the controller ended his long run with a high jump to land on top of a tall skyscraper. He then soared through the air, invoking memories of Infamous, to switch from building landing to building landing.
Freeze Blast: basically how it sounds. You can freeze people and punch them into bits. Or even freeze vehicles.
Telekinesis: telepathically pick something up and throw it at someone to hurt them. Well, likely kill them. They showed off combinations of super-powers, like freeze-blasting a car and using telekinesis to throw it at an alien.

Ridiculous Guns and a Mech Suit

Inflato Ray: you saw this one in the trailer, too, but it'll basically swell a dude's head until his eyeballs pop out and burst.
Dubstep gun: no one can help themselves. It's like the attack of The Mask and his samba dancing, except it actually pixelates and kills people. Even cars malfunction if you use the deadly power of dubstep on them.
Mech Suit: once you unlock it, you can trample around the open-world as you please. It looks like it shoots two weapons, a primary machine gun of sorts and a secondary rocket launcher from what my eyes tell me. It also flies. You also saw a bit of this in the trailer.

Ridiculous Gun Skins

Sure, your RPG/rocket launcher/whatever is pretty cool, but what if you dressed it up in the El Fugitivo skin? Then you're walking around carrying an RPG that looks like a worn-down guitar case.

Boss Battles

I saw a total of one (1) boss for a total of maybe 30 seconds. He growled and charged the super-powered player and then BAM a flash to a white screen. What a bunch of teasers. Although, I can tell you that he was a "warden" of the alien invasion, and he looked kind of like Bane from Batman: Arkham Asylum in that hulky yet small-headed way, but with lava embedded into his skin.

Saints Row has always been about ridiculous, over-the-top shenanigans and decorative wear. The very, very few details this six-minute demo showed me feel like Volition will hold to that dedication. And why shouldn't they? It's what makes the series great.

**BadKarma** · 2013-03-22 14:47

http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/22/sain...tial-campaign/

I wasn’t ready for Saint’s Row 4.

Last week I woke up really early, boiled a coffee and got dressed, just like any other day. I dragged myself to the train station, bought myself more coffee and hopped the first carriage to London. I had to wait ages for a strong enough phone signal to check my work emails. It was annoying.

I knew I was going there to see Saint’s Row 4 for the first time, and I had all these images of dildo swords, jet bikes and furries punching the elderly in my mind. “Yeah”, I thought, “I know roughly what to expect here”. I bought another coffee.

It was meant to be a day like any other. Then Volition Inc. blew my tits off.

In Saint’s Row 4 you – the leader of the Saints gang – are now president of America. An invading alien force called the Zin has kidnapped you, and has plugged your brain into an indoctrinating virtual world called The Dominatrix.

Oh, you also have super-powers by the way. Why ride in a car when you can run through traffic using super-speed? Why walk around a skyscraper when you can jump over it in one leap? Why fight with your bare hands when you can use telekinesis to throw them into orbit? Why indeed.

You also have a Dubstep Gun that fires Skrillex riffs at people. It makes them dance like morons, just in real life. Any cars caught in the blast suddenly sprout hydraulics and start bouncing around to the beat. You can pilot a mech. When walking past civilians you can DDT them just for shits and giggles.

Seriously, read all of those features back and try telling me it doesn’t sound like a riot. Then compare them to my boring, everyday story at the start. Which would you rather be doing?

Clearly you’d rather be freezing people with your mind and shattering them with one punch than be a Scottish bloke with bad hair and even worse cholesterol. This is why the Saint’s Row series is so appealing. It’s a mass power trip that exists purely in the name of fun, letting you do the impossible.

Volition’s insane concept of a virtual Steelport teeming with aliens has been in the works for sometime. In fact, it first started life as a story expansion for Saint’s Row: The Third called ‘Enter the Dominatrix’. Former THQ head Jason Rubin suggested the studio take the concept and flesh it out into a full game, so that’s what it did.

I asked Jim Boon, senior Producer of Saint’s Row 4 how it planned on topping purple dildo swords in its madcap follow-up, “Usually we’ll pick a topic like ‘Let’s talk about weapons’, and then we’d start throwing out ideas. They come from all over the team because everyone at Volition gets what Saint’s Row 4 is all about.

“For example, the Dubstep Gun was literally on this email chain going around the office asking for weapon ideas. Someone had just written ‘Dubstep Gun’. We didn’t even know what the hell it was, but it sounded amazing. We knew there was something there so we just came up for more ideas around it.

“But sometimes ideas just don’t work out quite right, so off they go. As silly and as over the top as we are a lot of the time, ultimately our goal is for people to have fun. So there are times we come up with crazy things that aren’t fun, so we cut them.”

‘Fun’ really is the best and only word to describe Saint’s Row 4. When you see it running you’ll want to crack a big smile, especially when you realise the sheer scope of what’s possible. Boon showed me a ‘Flashpoint’ scenario where the president is fighting Zin grunts on an rooftop.

He started by pulling out a pistol and shooting a few of them from on top of the adjacent building. He then performed a super leap over the gap and rained down with a brutal ground pound, sending the little buggers flying. He then froze the pack and started hurling them around with telekinesis.

Within seconds they were reduced to icy shards. I laughed. Try to picture the scene, and then imagine it with a second person in co-op. The ability to combine superpowers, insane weapons, and vehicles that pack serious firepower is a recipe for madness. I’m sure fans wouldn’t have it any other way.

Boon continued, “One of the reasons we added superpowers is, in all of the Saint’s Row games – the two core mechanics were combat and driving. Superpowers are a great way for us to change how they feel. So if I want to drive, I still can. You can grab cars, customise and upgrade them, all of that.

“But if you want a change of a pace, and you just want to super sprint down the street, then go for it. The same with combat, because I can still take a gun and shoot people. It’s no problem. But if I want to use my ice blast instead, then I can.”

Saint’s Row 4 is out in August, and while we’ve just seen the reveal of PS4, Boon confirmed that the the game is releasing on current-gen consoles only. I have to point out that it looks absolutely superb running on PC though, and it doesn’t look like the shallow DLC release some gamers are calling it.

I asked Boon if Volition would consider a next-gen port, “It’s something I wish we could do, because obviously with next-gen consoles, the things they can do are amazing. But unfortunately with the timing we had it wouldn’t have worked out.

“In the past when we did Summoner for PS2, we did that as a launch title. It was one of the most brutally difficult projects we’ve ever done, The problem was that the game wasn’t nearly as good as it should have been, because we rushed so hard to get it out in time.

“That’s why when there’s a new console cycle coming in, we tend to back away from it in terms of taking our time, rather than trying to rush something out on it. It means we can do it, and support the format in the right way.”

This makes sense, because nobody wants to play a rushed hatchet-job of a game. Plus, Volition is still easing into its new life under publisher Deep Silver. I asked Boon how the team felt when THQ was collapsing around them.

“It was a tough time because we had a lot of friends at THQ who didn’t work on projects that got purchased. It was pretty sad from that standpoint. The thing we felt good about internally at least, was that we knew Saint’s Row 4 was so far in development and was showing so well.

“We knew that THQ investor Clearlake – who was also our one – wanted to buy us no doubt about it. So we thought, ‘No matter what we’ve got a job’, because either they’d buy us or someone else would.

“Having said that there was the question of who was going to buy us, and what that would mean. In other words, was it someone who would come in and change our culture? The good news for us with Deep Silver is they’re fully supportive of what we do, of our culture, our internal processes and most importantly our game.”

It’s lucky that Saint’s Row 4 survived, as it’s the antithesis of the po-faced, gritty gaming experience. Its tongue is almost bursting through its cheek. When you consider that the game brings back all of the features from the third game, then adds a whole new suite of toys raise hell with, you might find it hard to comprehend.

Essentially, think of something truly bat-shit crazy and Volition probably has you covered. I can’t wait to see what else it has up its purple sleeves as we roll on to August. We’ll have more further down the line.

Disclosure: To write this piece Dave attended a Deep Silver showcase day In London. All travel was paid for by VG247. While catering was offered at the event, all food and drink was bought by Dave. No other merchandise or advertising was offered or accepted. He now can’t get Skrillex out of his head and would like it very much to stop

LOL

**6souls** · 2013-03-23 18:44

**6souls** · 2013-04-23 02:16

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/...70-sr4-cic.jpg

All hail Potus as Deep Silver announces today that the Commander in Chief Edition for the upcoming Saints Row IV is available as a free upgrade to pre-orders at major freedom-retailers across North America. In this ball-busting, open-world and-other-PR-words installment in the Saints Row franchise, developer Volition continues the story of the Third Street Saints by elevating their status to the highest level – the leaders of the free world.

But the leaders of the free world are under attack from an alien invasion in the land of the free, and it’s up to you and your gang to save the world, Saints-style. To help you combat the alien terrorists you will encounter, the Commander in Chief Edition is a free upgrade for all pre-orders at participating retailers and comes fully loaded with a Screaming Eagle that fires rockets out of its talons and can invoke the “Sonic Scream” attack, leaving your enemies dazed, confused and likely scarred for life.

Additionally, if you’re going to save the world you should look good while doing it, which is why the Commander in Chief gives you a limited-edition Uncle Sam uniform, made in the US of good ‘ol A. And since you need the best [read: most ridiculously overpowered weapons ever conceived] fighting tools available, Volition and Deep Silver are giving you a stimulus package, “'Merica”, full of incredibly astonishing firepower: flamethrowers, ultra-powered dub step guns and rocket launchers are yours for the taking. Crown thy good with brotherhood, indeed.

The Commander in Chief Edition is priced at $59.99 on console and $49.99 on PC. The Commander in Chief Edition will be available globally.

**notorious bum** · 2013-04-23 04:17

Merica weapon, a thing of beauty. Looks like it weighs as much as a smart car.

Thread: Saints Row 4 (PC/PS3/360) | Re-Elected (NSW) - March 27, 2020

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