For Saints Row 2, developer Volition tried to fit as many crazy, ridiculous and offensive scenes and missions in as possible. Volition design director Scott Phillips explained at GDC:
[Our approach was:] let's put everything we can think of into the game.
This caused quite a problem for their third game as they wanted to improve upon the disjointed formula, but didn't exactly know what they wanted from Saints Row – something made worse by the fact only 20% of The Third team had worked on SR.
The tone was not very well-defined in Saints Row 2… inconsistencies were all over the place. We wanted to be consistent, while maintaining those crazy scenarios [that defines the series]
For The Third, Volition tried their hand at various different game types, including a choice-driven adventure game about an undercover agent. Ultimately, it still didn't feel like Saints Row, and was canceled.
People didn’t know what to do. They weren’t sure what they were making, they had a lack of confidence in the vision.
The studio then decided to come up with a tone video – something made out of movie clips and songs that they felt portrayed the kind of game they wanted. The end result was an amalgation of OTT action films and Kickstart My Heart by Motley Crue.
It helped greatly. I still get psyched watching it, and that’s what we wanted the game to feel like.
But what really shifted their developer's block was a 4-foot dildo.
Initially it was just one bullet-pointed weapon in one mission spec out of 30 mission specs. It wasn't a big part of the game. But the artists went crazy with it… and made something that was even crazier.
[I felt like I was] playing something unlike anything else — we [knew] what Saints Row [was] now.
And with that, they knew what to do and The Third was formed in all its veiny glory.
[Via]
