It’s a minor miracle Saints Row is back after a turbulent move to a new publisher, a nearly decade-long hiatus and a failed spinoff. It’s fitting then that the biggest easter egg of the latest entry celebrates a defunct video game franchise that hasn’t been so lucky.
New Saints Row The series resumes 15 years old, trading its coastal metropolis in the open world of the past for a sunbathered American Southwest, a fictional city heavily inspired by Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County. To add depth to the setting, the game’s writers and world makers dropped historical placards in various parks, monuments, and landmarks. The signs, when tapped, produce brief backstories about the region’s culture and politics through short speakers.
Image: Desire / Deep Silver via Polygon
My favorite historical destination is Red Faction Memorial Park. Located a short drive from the protagonist’s first safe home, the park is a very subtle celebration of the Red Faction series, also created by Saints Row developer Volition.
In sannyasins cry The story, Red Faction, is about a band of striking workers who, on May 22, 2001, called for an end to “inhuman working conditions and unethical human experiments.” The Altor Corporation crushes the rebellion, but the park – a brutal cement pond staged around a stone spire – honors their resistance. Along the park sits the Red Faction Brew Works brewery, its logo resembling the original Red Faction logo, with a fist surrounding a pint of beer rather than a pickaxe.
In real life, Red Faction was a sci-fi franchise that began on May 22, 2001 and ended in 2011. Red Faction: Armageddon, While its best entry, Red Faction: GuerrillasHaving recently received a remaster, the series has been otherwise neglected after THQ’s corporate robbing of its rights between companies.
Image: Desire / Deep Silver via Polygon
Saints Row games have blinked at the Red Faction in the past. saints row 2 To suggest that the two series take place in the same universe, with the malevolent Altor Corporation taking control. Red Faction Memorial Park’s imagery confirms that the reboot also fits into the shared universe, with Saints Row taking place decades before its sci-fi brother.
But what I find equally interesting as the in-fiction lore is the alternative reading of real-world subtext. References to workers being abused, intentionally or not, at Red Faction Memorial Park reflect the creation of modern video games.
The video game industry is notorious for unequal pay, periods of intense crisis, toxic office cultures, and rampant mismanagement. While specific complaints about Desire have not been reported during the development of the Red Faction and Saints Row series, Polygon reported in 2014 the missteps that led to the downfall of THQ and, with it, the canceled projects. And related layoffs increased.
Are we reading too much into Easter eggs? Perhaps. But consider how long it took game developers to build an entire virtual city block, complete with a custom memorial and brewery dedicated to their fall game series and the labor that went into it. Maybe it’s a cute little wink at a sibling franchise on ice. Or maybe it’s a nod to how hard it has become for workers to make a game, and how unbelievable any game makes it to the finish line.
If you want to see Red Faction Memorial Park for yourself, here’s the location on the map.
Image: Desire / Deep Silver via Polygon
