Enter the World of Saint's Row
Volition has been hard at work creating the open world of Stilwater, a city overrun by violent gangs. Saint's Row, originally slated as an Xbox 360™ launch title, has morphed into a larger interactive experience thanks to the extra development time.
The fictional city of Stilwater looks and feels a lot like Chicago (that is, if Chicago was ruled by street gangs), which provides a variety of environments as a backdrop. There are slums, a business district, and residential areas. The city even has a fully functional railway system to help players get around. Every section of the city is populated with non-playable characters (NPCs).
"We are able to perform more computations
per second than we used to. This is reflected
in the sheer number of assets in the world."
It's this diverse city that serves as the playground for next-generation gameplay. Saint's Row provides nonlinear gameplay—you experience this city as you want to. Producer Jacques Hennequet says that there are there are several stories in this massive game—one for each gang, although they all culminate in a common ending.
Drive-bys? Just a normal day in the gang-run city of Stilwater.
"This game is about the Saints and their rise from being the weakest gang in Stilwater to taking over the city," says Hennequet. "Consequently, it is also the story of your ascension within the Saints."
The Third Street Saints are one of several gangs battling for territory on the streets of Stilwater. You interact within the bustling city not just with rival gang members, but with citizens and law enforcement as well.
Create Your Gang Member
"At the beginning of the game, you create your character from scratch," says Hennequet. "You can use one of the available presets if you are in a hurry to get going, but, if you want to, you have extensive control over your character's appearance."
Saint's Row has a robust creation tool with dozens of sliders controlling the shape of an in-game character's eyes, nose, mouth, hair, and more. Your imagination is the limit when it comes to personalizing your in-game thug.
Pimp your ride or, heck, steal a new one. It's your choice, gangsta.
After creating your character, there are many opportunities to continue a character's customization throughout the game. Players can buy new clothes and accessories and get tattoos in the game's shops. As you work your way up through the Saints, your clothes act as a respect multiplier, so that what you wear has an impact on how others in the game react to you.
"The fact that you create and play your own character makes a big difference, in my opinion," says Hennequet.
A Big City
Stilwater is a large place, but not as big as the city in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas™, says Hennequet. The game does offer an open world for gamers to explore, including the ability to seamlessly walk in and out of stores. And there's also that train for transportation.
"We have a lot of stores and interiors, in addition to the overall cityscape," says Hennequet. "We tried to create a city whose size would not force the player to spend most of their time just driving from point A to point B. But it is still a big world."
Everything in the city is up for grabs. Better start grabbing.
It's also a fully streaming world, which means once a player enters Stilwater, there are no load times to stop the gameplay.
"I think that Saint's Row tries to give the player even more choices in how they play the game, not necessarily in terms of how many mini-games there are, but in the fact that everything you do in the game actually counts towards earning respect and completing the game," says Hennequet.
Gangland
Next-generation technology has allowed Volition to create a living, breathing city populated by thousands of virtual residents.
"We are able to perform a lot more computations per second than we used to," says Hennequet. "We are also pushing an incredible amount of data. This is reflected in the visual quality of the Xbox 360 products, of course, but also in the sheer number of assets present in the world."
Just about anything you can do in Stilwater offline can be done via Xbox Live®. Hennequet says Xbox Live plays a big role in the game, as players can customize their characters online, download additional content, and explore the city.
Article by John Gaudiosi
