We were able to play around in the wide-open environment of Santo Ileso when the upcoming Saints Row was featured on several website covers last year. We could roam about freely, participate in plot objectives, do side tasks, and even grow the Saints’ empire by completing the entertaining Criminal Ventures mission chains. The customization suite, which has been a big part of the Saints Row package since the beginning, was one area we didn’t know about. Last year, when people began asking about customization, developers gave tidbits of information, but developer Volition kept its cards close to its chest. That changed today when the studio staged a presentation highlighting the popular feature.
Many fans consider character customization to be the most important aspect of the feature for Saints Row, and Volition appears to be well aware of this. Your hair, figure, and face are all entirely changeable, as you might expect. You can customize your character’s hairstyles, including assigning multiple colors to the hair on his head (including rainbow hombre styles) and the skin on his face. Ears, skin tone, and teeth can also be used to make objects look as real or as fantastical as you want: All of the following are acceptable: pointy elf ears; fake skin colors, textures, glows, scars, and suntans; patterned eyes; and candy corn teeth. You can even change their musculature, including how vascular they are, make their face asymmetrical (for example, one eye is much larger than the other, or their ears are offset), and change their age. Yes, you can change the look of your genitals, even hiding them behind emojis. If you’re interested, the Volition presentation even includes a bespoke creation that looks like Shrek.
Volition gives eight distinct presets to pick from if all of this sounds daunting and you’d rather just hop into the game. Once you’ve chosen one of the pre-made characters in Saints Row, you can either begin playing with that character template or edit it to receive a faster version of the character customization suite.
You can customize your character’s wardrobe (including colors and materials), as well as accessories, underwear, and socks in the new Saints Row game. Cowboy clothes, golf clothing, and a firefighter’s suit are all available as complete outfits. You may also layer your clothes any way you want, which means you can choose which shirt goes under the hoodie you choose and then which jacket your character wears over it. If you want to make your own outfit presets later, you can do so at your headquarters. If your character’s attire, tattoos, prosthetics, and practically every other visual attribute aren’t enough, you can also use emotes and choose from eight distinct voices to give off the vibe you want.
Vehicle customization offers little to slow down the personalization process outside of your character. More than 80 vehicles are available to gather in Saints Row, including cars, SUVs, motorcycles, monster trucks, helicopters, boats, and more. When you add a vehicle to your garage, you can customize it with body modifications, neon underflow, rims, and spoilers, among other things. Each vehicle, like your character, has pre-set choices to enable you to get on the road as quickly as possible if you so desire. It’s all about crafting a “Boss-worthy masterpiece,” as Volition puts it in today’s video. Nitrous boosting, ejector seats, off-road kits, jump capability, and tow cables are available for those who want something more performance-oriented. You can use a hoverboard if everything else fails.
You can pull out your unique armaments once you arrive on the scene and it’s time to show them who’s boss. Individual parts can be changed in material or color, and decals can be added to personalize your weapon. You can also replace the complete body with anything else, such as a guitar case for your rocket launcher or an umbrella for your automatic weapon. These settings in Saints Row ensure that your opponents know who is shooting at them without a doubt.
We barely got a glimpse of how we could modify the Saints and their home base during our time with Saints Row. Those elements were exciting, but we weren’t able to experiment with the possibilities. Instead, we just got a taste of what would be included in the final game. As your gang increases in strength, you can alter the abandoned church where your squad is stationed in a variety of ways. In the film, we see one customized church that resembles a nightclub and another that resembles a futuristic garage with a bar. You can change out keepsakes from missions, replace statuary, and rearrange your decor as you see fit.