‘There’s more content in Saints Row IV than any Saints Row game that’s come out’
Yesterday we told you about how Saints Row IV will have a very robust downloadable content plan much like Saint Row: The Third’s. Many of you were understandably disappointed, but it’s not as bleak as you might assume. I spoke with creative director Steve Jaros and asked him about the amount of content on disc that players can expect in Saints Row IV compared to the last game.
“Size wise, the main story mission is about the same length,” Steve told me. “Open world content? Fuck ton more. Way more, it’s absurd. When you ask me what do you say to fans who are worried about there not being enough content on the disc, I say you’re not ready. You have no idea.
“The other day I was playing the build, I was supposed to be reviewing dialogue in different missions, right? I’m on this path, and I stop and go ‘oh there’s this open world thing I want to go and do!’ It’s four hours later, I’ve only played three missions in like four hours. It just pulls you in with all this open world content for you to explore and do, and there’s so much of it.”
An example Steve gave me about the increase in content was on the amount of collectables in the game, and it sounds like that alone will keep players busy for a long time.
One of the developers that Steve works with “brought up a picture of [Saint Row IV’s] map and said ‘listen, here’s all the collectables in the game.’ You couldn’t see the map! There’s so much for people to go explore, find, to do, to unlock, and to play. It’s so much more than anything that we’ve done in any Saints Row game. There’s more content in Saints Row IV than any Saints Row game that’s come out. I think that we’re well past anything that we’ve done, so I have no concerns whatsoever about amount of content on the disc ’cause there’s a ton of it.”
Personally I’m reassured since there was quite a lot of stuff to do in Saints Row: The Third as it was. As far as the DLC goes, I asked Steve to address fan concerns that a high amount of DLC could be perceived as hollowing out the core game.
“Personally, I don’t think it’s a hollowed experience ’cause Volition is doing as much as they can to put as much as they can into the game. I think what some people don’t realize is that a lot of our DLC that is created isn’t even created by Volition. There’s another company that often times are creating DLC. That stuff is being developed by a totally separate team while we are working on making the main game come out.”
Steve could only remember one of the companies they’re working with at the time of our interview, which is High Voltage Software, the makers of The Conduit series.
For more on Saints Row IV, go check out my first impressions. It has dubstep guns and giant mechs!
