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Context of Quotes
🕑 Added 2021-08-28 03:00:52 +0000 UTC
There's an image I've seen a couple times on Twitter regarding the Saints Row Reboot, specifically, it's a collection a of quotes regarding the game's characters, and tone. All of them are quite… concerning. The first couple are so simplistic and tone deaf I started to believe this image was a fabrication.
How could one possibly characterize somebody as "listens to podcasts." That's millions of people doing exactly that as we speak. It's about as little characterization as "cooks food" or "is driving around her cars."
So, I started hunting.
It didn't take long to find the second paragraph, that Saints Row is going to now focus on "material concerns." How these characters are millennials turning to crime to pay off their student debts and put food on the table. It's quite bizarre to read because, while I'm hardly stickler for generations, the youngest Millennial these days is 24. Somebody who is probably in debt sure, but as certainly had enough life experiences to have more maturity than defining themselves by listening to podcasts.
The third paragraphs really just an extension of the first, and I found it. The fourth also came easily. Even the fifth and sixth. Yet…
I couldn't find the first.
It wasn't on Polygon, Eurogamer, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, etc. No, instead, it was on Twitch. Specifically during the Gamescom interview with two of the developers, where the UX designer was asked about Johnny Gat's return, and with the tone voice one has when there's a shotgun aiming at them, she talks about the other characters where those first quotes are finally sourced.
Seeing that, I don't really care about them. It's someone who obviously lacks media training and isn't used to publicly speaking on a stream airing to hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, very few people are trained for that. So I don't see the quotes as egregious, context is always important.
Even the fourth paragraph makes me question who this type of image is aimed at. Somebody who doesn't need sources and is likely to be upset at the idea of people concerning themselves with cultural appropriation, because that's somehow attached to the game's quality.
However, just because there's an outrage machine that's going to be milking the Saints Row Reboot for all its worth, that doesn't mean there's much so far to get excited about, nor is there no valid criticisms about the game's dated combat, driving, animations, or the confused tone, aiming for a grounded premise of young people committing crime to pay the bills where they fight laser beam corporations?
I can't say I'm at all intrigued by this game, but as a result, I'm just going to not pay it much attention, and maybe pick it up on sale if I hear it's decent.
Don't give in to the outrage machine, it only exists to exploit you for personal gain.
Comments
Patchhes
This takes a significant amount of wind out of my sails. I ran into something like this (to a lesser degree) with Watch_Dogs 2, where the cast was similarly quirky and Millenial in their ages, goals, and culture. The game puts way more emphasis on stealth than the first one, and heavily leans on the suggestion of nonlethal takedowns and stun guns. I, however, crave violence. So when I played the game, Marcus did too. [Spoilers below.] It made sense for some missions of the game, like attacking a gang that killed one of your friends. The game expects you to use violence there, so the tone matched my approach. However, there is a mission I completed not too much later that involved Marcus infiltrating Alcatraz prison to free someone being imprisoned there. I continued my aggressive, shoot-first playstyle and mopped up a few dozen PMCs in the firefight, rescued my man, and hightailed it. The post mission cutscene had Marcus flopping onto the couch, and remarking "Man, I'm never visiting Alcatraz again!" All it was missing was a laugh track. The other members of the band of misfits crowded around and asked him how it was like he went on a tour or something. It was so tonally opposite what happened that I shook my head, turned it off, and never played WD2 again. I feel like this is a bad direction to take a series that was all about criminal mischief mixed with near-psychopathy. Even though you created The Boss in 1-4, you weren't supposed to relate to them. You watched their antics from a distance, like you would a bomb range test. All we have is a few press comments, but if that's the direction the series goes it'll bring my hype levels down a notch. I'm not going to say the game will be shit, but it does worry me about tone.
