Saints Row’s reboot trailer is currently in the midst of being ratio’d on YouTube. For those not up to speed on how kids these days talk when they’re not Tiking and Toking, it basically means the trailer has more people clicking thumbs down than thumbs up. At the time of writing, it’s at 11k up and 14k down, which is enough to see that the latter has a significant lead, but not so much that you might call it universal disapproval. Gamers don’t like games sometimes – that’s not a major surprise. What’s more surprising though is that the trailer is being called out for being woke, which, um… have you ever played Saints Row before?
Saints Row is an odd series. It started out as a riff on GTA, one that took itself a little less seriously but still remained fairly down to Earth. Saints Row 3 shifted the series towards a slightly sillier direction, before Saints Row made you the President, gave you superpowers, and charged you with stopping an alien invasion. In the eight years since Saints Row 4 released, GTA has moved to fill the vacuum of silliness itself, becoming a parody of what it once was thanks to GTA Online. That left Saints Row with a choice – stick or twist. Sticking would mean plowing ahead with the Zinyak adventures of Saints Row 4, exploring ideas like time travel and expeditions to Hell, while twisting would mean reverting back to the relative grit of Saints Row and Saints Row 2. It has decided to do neither, instead getting up and moving tables to play a different game entirely.
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I was hoping the game would stick, but I know I’m not in the majority there. However you feel doesn’t really matter, though. The Saints Row reboot feels like a cross between both premises. Pink neon gun to my head, I’d say it’s more Agents of Mayhem than anything we’ve seen in the core Saints games. As a huge Mayhem apologist, I’m thrilled to see Volition take some cues from it, but I could understand fans of both the original games and the more recent chaos-fests being disgruntled that they’re not getting their dream sequel. Me? I’m relatively gruntled. But to be annoyed that Saints Row is getting woke is to be annoyed about what Saints Row is.
The cast of every game in the series has been incredibly diverse, and while – like everything else in the game – romance isn’t taken particularly seriously, Saints Row 4 lets you hook up with everyone on the ship, be they male, female, or killer laser robot. Saints Row was also incredibly sex positive. Sure, it laughed at the big purple dildos and giggled when it took you into stripclubs or BDSM dungeons, but Saints Row believes that sex work is real work. The language was occasionally derogatory, but never deliberately offensive and it gave sex workers far more agency than GTA ever did. Kinzie Kensington, the game’s best character – this is not a debate – is incredibly sex positive without ever being objectified, mocked, or humilated by the game.
Kinzie is just one of the many, many strong female leads the series has. The Boss could be male or female – and as the series went on, could change gender at will – while Shaundi was a key member of the gang alongside Kinzie. It’s also worth noting that Kia, Laura, and Viola & Kiki DeWynter feature prominently in various Saints stories. As far as the men are concerned, before the games embraced the silliness of shark guns and death by dubstep, the series sought to critique toxic masculinity and male aggression.
I understand that Saints Row is not what people typically think of as woke, but that’s likely down to their negative preconceptions over what woke is. Woke people live to kill fun. Saints Row is fun. Ergo, Saints Row is not woke. But just like the idea of feminism has been somehow twisted into an image of one specific angry woman screaming, woke means more than your uncle on Facebook thinks it does. To be woke is simply to be aware of your position in society, of the issues that impact our society, and of the ways these issues impact you, the people around you, and your community. Saints Row leads with diversity, believes in sex positivity, showcases strong women, critiques toxic masculinity, and is all about remembering where you came from. Sounds pretty damn woke to me.
Yeah, there are explosions and naked people and guns that make your eyes bulge out of your head, but it doesn’t seem like the reboot is abandoning the carnage either, instead nestling between Saints Rows 2 and 3. Does this all just boil down to the fact The Boss is now a Black woman? Because Jesus fucking Christ, grow up. She’ll probably be the only Black woman leading a major video game in 2022 anyway, and you can still customise her – she’s just the default face, like Shepard in Mass Effect.
Miss me with “they don’t look like gangstas” too. One, why are you talking like that Steve, your favourite food is mayonnaise on chips, and two, does Shaundi? Pierce? Kinzie? Hell, I’m going to say it – does Gat? They’re great characters, but Gat just looks like some guy. They're all just people in purple. That these Saints you’ve barely even met yet have been written off because they don’t conform to GTA stereotypes just highlights the fact anyone complaining seems to have forgotten what Saints Row actually is.
I have seen people worried that the sequels to The Matrix, District 9, Captain America, and Aliens will be ‘woke’ in the past few months. I know that when it comes to the masses, there are lone, loud voices that miss the point so hard it circumnavigates the globe and hits them in the back of the head. But 14,000 of you? How can you care so much about Saints Row and not understand a single second of it? Saints Row is more than guns and explosions – it always has been.
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