Prerelease:Saints Row (2006)/Phase 6
This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Saints Row (2006).
Contents
2005
June
Post-E3
After the game was shown off at E3 2005, the team needed a more realistic approach to how the Xbox 360 was going to support the game after they had mixed results surrounding the expensive RAM usage and unstable framerate. The environment artists checked through every building in each districts they have completed thus far, which were of 400 blocks in three days. Their target towards completing the general basis of the city was January of 2006, but it was estimated to a rather lengthy completion date of January 2007.
As of a result, Stilwater had to be downgraded in terms of size and unique buildings, along with "flattening" some of the ramped hills that were once present. Much of the environmental work also had to be outsourced to Streamline Studios in terms of interiors, while the primary interior work was moved towards creating exterior ground creation. The team had also increased in size due to the immense scale of the project, eventually ramping up to over a hundred employees on the job compared to 30-40 at the beginning of development. Flyable aircraft apparently also had to be cut due to the memory size not being able to support it.[1]
Summer
Later Concept Art
In order to find a new gang color, they had to avoid using red, blue and yellow since they were taken so they chose purple because it represented royalty and wealth. This resulted in the Westside Rollerz going for a fully-blue hue as opposed to indigo in order to avoid confusion. Despite that, development still continued due to it having activities and mechanics that other open-world games didn't have.
Interiors
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| Concept art for the Lopez Mansion, where it looked different. | Concept art for Julius' office in the church | Concept art for Dex's office in the church. |
Characters
Johnny Gat
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| Preliminary Designs | Now with purple gang colors. |
Dex
Julius
Lin
Aisha
Judging from the purple color scheme, it appears that Aisha was created somewhat later in development.
July?
Punisher 2: Sandbox Punishment Vertical Slice
Volition had originally considered a sequel to The Punisher back in 2005, where they originally used a prototype build of Saints Row for the vertical slice trailer. This trailer seems to be dated from some time after the E3 build, and when Stilwater was going through several changes.
- There is now a railroad track present on the main road leading to Filmore. It seemed to always be present on the map radar in the E3 2005 build.
- Rebedaeux is now starting to look close to the final.
- The JSS Shipping Co brand can be seen from the Phase 5 build.
- The takedown animations that the player could do was likely scrapped, and partially reappeared in Saints Row 2.
- Many of the character models appear to be ported from The Punisher, which can be notably be told from the detail and lighting in comparison to the generic Saints Row pedestrian models.
- The Tombstone weapon now uses its final appearance.
August?
Behind The Scenes Map
What seems to be the earliest fuller view of the map, from the Behind The Scenes video found in the Demo Version. It appears to have been made from before the Gamer's Day build, due to the small amount of changes present;
| Behind The Scenes Video (Mockup) | Final |
|---|---|
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This map has seen some changes from the E3 2005 build;
- The row of houses, which would where the highway would be are now removed, likely to make way for it.
- The misaligned houses on the far western side of the map are no longer present.
- The buildings in the Chinatown District are now gone.
- There is now a river flowing under the bridge of where Wardill Airport originally was on the bottom-left corner.
- The highway leading to Pilsen from Saints Row appears to be missing on the map, likely as an error.
- There was a sort of neighborhood located in place of the Hapton Hotel and Lopez Mansion.
Though, there are still a lot of changes from the final version of the map, which were not revealed until now;
- The bottom-right part of Stilwater is completely different. There didn't seem to be a Barrio district present and Wardill Airport was a lot bigger with two runways and curved roads leading to it.
- There were no skyscrapers on the part of the highway leading to Filmore.
September
Gamer's Day Build
 | To do: *https://hexus.net/gaming/previews/xbox-360/1522-saints-row-xbox-360-hands-on/ |
Volition invited several gaming companies over to their offices to check out a special build of Saints Row "estimated to be about 50% complete" for preview purposes. Little-to-no information was released about the build, outside of a few sources of coverage.
Differences
- A brief excerpt of Stilwater at night is shown in this build, before moving to the same map that was previously used in Phase 5. Likely because Stilwater was still being drastically renovated.
- The game runs a lot smoother in comparison to earlier footage.
- The Compacta Black HUD font appears in this build for the first time.
- An article mentions that you can buy a car "an exact duplicate of the car at the car lot". This point towards a used car dealers being more prominent in the game, and Sports cars are uncommon in Saints Row.
- The Cast Members are announced at this point of development.
GamePro Map Differences
| Gamer's Day Build (GamePro Scan) | Final |
|---|---|
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A map shown off in GamePro Magazine #206, released in November 2005 has an earlier layout of Stilwater, even though later differences date this to the Gamer's Day build. Interestingly, the Westside Rollerz is marked as a Purple-colored Gang on the map, which is the only mention of it, whereas the Saints are still marked as green.
This map has seen some small changes;
- The racetrack near the Ultor Dome is now gone.
- The top-left area surrounding Price Mansion seemed to have uphill houses, whilst Price Mansion itself wasn't present at all. There also seemed to be a road leading out of it, likely as an underground sewage area of some sort.
- There was an extra road leading to the Stilwater Science Center, where a Foreign Power branch and the Mayor Hughes statue would be located.
- The planned Mall and Park districts from the Pre E3-2005 district mockup appears to have been gone.
Screenshots
Six new images were posted by IGN, which are from before the Gamer's Day build. They all date to September 7, 2005.
- This prerelease media shows the Third Street Saints' iconic purple gang color for the first time.
- The second screenshot shows the Lopez Seafood originally being called "United Seafood".
- Dex is shown for the first time.
Four additional images dating a day later would be sent to media sites for the then-forthcoming X05 event.
- An earlier mission marker at the Saints Row Church doors can be seen, which is a green orb rather than a purple marker.
Interview
October
X05 Event Build
| To do: there must be more videos of this build. |
| IGN Coverage | 4Players Coverage | 4Players Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| GameSpot Coverage | playerone.be Coverage | playerone.be Coverage |
The game was shown off again at the X05 event on October 2-4, featuring slightly later build. This would be the point where the game starts to overall resemble the final product. Though the IGN coverage was the only footage, five lost-to-time videos of the build were recovered from 4Players.de and sapo.pt.
- The skybox now matches that of the final, no longer using a placeholder overcast cloud graphic.
- The menu sounds were different, using a gun loading sound instead.
- Many of the textures appear to be incomplete and have less detail.
- The map in the menu was incomplete, and only showed the Saints Row district.
- The minimap near the police station appears to be paved over and doesn't match the road shown in the footage.
- There were a lot less streetlights.
- There was no smoke from the car's engine while it was still being damaged.
- The song used at the beginning of the first Playerone.be footage was R'Thentic by C-Rayz Waltz, which doesn't appear in the final. There's also an unidentifiable song that plays in the second Playerone.be footage.
- Vice King's Capshaw car originally had a black hood, which would be yellow in the final.
- An icon of a wooden crate can be seen in the map, where it may have been for Theft as an Activity it involves stealing a box from a safe, before it was downgraded to a Diversion. The unused Theft Activity model may have been related to this.
- The minimap and respect icons now use a gauge-like design, closely resembling the final.
- All The King's Men, the mission showcased in the demo has a few differences;
- Playa originally drove to the King Penthouse in a Zomkah compared to King's Mag in the final.
- The doors to the King Penthouse were also always open rather than having to be specifically activated via a marker.
- The King Penthouse lobby didn't have picture frames, nor fencing on the stairs leading to the second floor.
- The minimap looked very basic and lacked details such as hideaway points and outlines.
- There was a completely cut billboard depicting a cannabis leaf with the caption "Got Chronic?" and "1-800-Grow-Pot". The Ultor billboard would take its place in the final.
- The Vice Kings icon now uses their final design.
- The King Penthouse lobby originally had trees, which were removed in the final. The picture frames were also not present.
Building Concept Video
Judging from the following build showing off the retail, this video shows off renders of the buildings there.
Post-X05 Event Build
A build slightly later to the one shown was shown off in the first part of the Saints Row 10th Anniversary Stream, where the employees describe it as "Milestone 6 out of 9" of the game. It is later than the one shown at the X05 event due to the following differences;
Main Differences
- The player could originally be named. It was taken out due to it being hard to implement.
- Cutscenes are now implemented. They don't take place at a set time unlike cutscenes in the final. Many them cutscenes are completely unfinished, despite having the camera angles.
- Cameras for cars are closer than usual, similar to Saints Row 2.
- Much of Stilwater appears to be unfinished in some parts, most notably in Nob Hill and Misty Lane.
- This build now uses the final Europa Grotesk font instead of the lowercase Compacta Black.
- The hidden minimap matches that of the E3 2005 build, likely as a leftover as the layout is near-finalized. It also now uses a finalized satellite-view layout like in the final rather than an illustration.
- The Radio can briefly be seen, marked as "VK_PLAYLIST" before changing to off. It's unknown if this was the only Radio Station in this build, or it was placed between 108.0 WMD KBOOM FM or 89.9 Generation X.
Visual Differences
- The menu font used the gradient text, where Money was displayed with a green dollar ($) sign.
- Stilwater appears to be in a state of major renovations, causing some streaming and draw distance issues to become more apparent when visiting other locations.
- The Foreign Power building was unfinished, using placeholder graphics from another building.
- There appears to be alternative and unfinished streetlight models in the Nob Hill district, despite finalized ones appearing in the Rebedeaux and Saints Row district.
- There were no Mayor Hughes and Marshal Winslow posters on the walls bordering Nob Hill.
Gameplay Differences
- Though some of the missions are playable, many of them are incomplete.
- The Homies system seem to be still new at this in development;
- There were five unlockable Homies rather than six, apparently.
- Calling different Homies would always have the placeholder model of Lin, and the temporary mugshot of the Female Asian Saint.
- Some of the Homies were different
- Lin was originally intended to be a Homie, but was likely replaced with Zombie Lin
- Chicken Ned was originally called "Restaurant Mascot", obviously as a placeholder name.
- Marcel, likely the same character who appears in the "An Offer They Can't Refuse..." Hitman Activity cutscene was intended to be a Homie. This is proved further by unused voice clips in the files, and tying to the early Hitman Activity. This was likely scrapped due to Mr. Wong already taking the same role.
- Parker from Red Faction games was supposed to appear, likely as an easter egg.
- The Emergency 911 ambulance wasn't correctly implemented at this point, where a pedestrian of Lin would appear in place of a paramedic.
- Doors cannot be opened normally; they can only be kicked down. It was also mentioned in the stream that they cannot be opened from the other side.
- This build now uses the final generic menu font instead of the lowercase Compacta Black.
- When the player enters a car, the name of the car is shown in the generic text font instead of a graphical logo on the side.
- Much of the Districts don't have names, such as Misty Lane being named "Suburbs District" in this build.
- The Waypoint feature didn't have much use and just marked the location on the map with a green "X".
- Nob Hill was originally called "Lakeview".
- The contacts were completely different, showing contacts for Mr. Hooked, News 5, Pimpin' Jo, Phil's Rides, Smokin' Abe, TeleCare 911 and First 6.
- The RPG Launcher explosion for hitting ground and walls were smaller.
- Some of the cars had different names:
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
| Machete | Stiletto |
| Beefeater | Nordberg |
| Snidewider | Fer De Lance |
| Weevil | Voxel |
Visual Differences
- Stilwater appears to be in a state of major renovation, causing some streaming and draw distance issues to become more apparent when visiting other locations.
- The Foreign Power building was unfinished, using placeholder graphics from another building.
- There appears to be alternative and unfinished streetlight models in the Nob Hill district, despite finalized ones appearing in the Rebedeaux and Saints Row district.
- There were no Mayor Hughes and Marshal Winslow posters on the walls bordering Nob Hill.
Map Differences
| To do: Get a mockup of the map with the gang territories to make comparisons easier. |
| Post-X05 Event Build (Mockup) | Final |
|---|---|
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|
A major part of the map was briefly shown in the stream, which were pieced together from different parts of footage. There are more than a fair amount of differences present;
- There were no additional houses near the highway "bend" near Chinatown.
- Chinatown appears to be going through development, where the park looks "paved over".
- There are still additional houses near the Lopez Mansion.
- The road around Wardill Airport was different.
- The road around the Wardill Airport tower was on the other side.
- The warehouse near Wardill Airport (Which is where the Hijacking Activity takes place) was different.
Some icons are also different, too:
- There was a "King" icon located where the Price Mansion is supposed to be.
- There is no Crib icon for the Lopez Mansion.
- There was a hair stylist in place of the Rusty's Needle in Downtown.
- The Image As Designed icon in Nob Hill appears to be misplaced on the other side of the road.
- There's a "green car" icon which may have been intended for car dealers, or an early Hijacking icon.
Image
A prerelease image that apparently dates to around this build, according to the differences. It shows the "Aisha's Favor" mission being played.
- The minimap seems to have been fixed.
- The route that the person drives is different; they never go on the main road.
- The lights were on during the daytime.
Trailer
A trailer was released. It goes between too many builds in the video.
THQ Press Day Kit Images
Never-seen-before images dating to October 17 were internally released to media publishers.
- Lin is never seen wearing purple in the final.
November
Concept Art
Concept art for the Chinatown gate, dated November 21, 2005. This building does not appear in the final version of the game, but it would appear in Saints Row 2.
Logo Redesign Concepts
One of the designs was drawn on a pancake with a black marker in akin to drawing a tattoo. Though, the design was disliked by the boss because "it gave the wrong message to what Saints Row was about". It came up with the "tattoo motif", which would be the basis of the finalized logo.
Screenshot
A screenshot dating to November from the THQ Loaded '06 Press Kit.
December
Trailer
A new trailer was released, showing off more footage, except combined with footage from earlier builds and the CGI trailer.
