Today, Volition announced their brand new game, Agents of Mayhem, which puts players in the shoes of three different heroes (of sorts), in an open world and gives them the tools and powers to make chaos. The Agents–Hollywood, Fortune, and Hardtack–aren’t exactly heroes in the traditional sense, much like the lovable but psychotic Saints, but they at least aren’t deploying killer robots from space like the forces of L.E.G.I.O.N.
A lot of people have noticed that Volition’s new title shares a few ties to Saints Row, their open world franchise that recently concluded in 2013 with the fourth game. IGN, having first look exclusives for the month, have even said that they’ll be talking with Volition to discuss the ties the two games have. And then there’s the logo, which looks a lot like a futuristic version of the Third Streets Saints’ brand. The long look at the logo wouldn’t be done for no reason, so let’s take a look at some totally realistic ways that these two could be tied together.
Is Agents of Mayhem in Another Universe?
Saints Row 4 ended with the Third Street Saints as the last humans in the galaxy, give or take a Jane Austen. The Earth is destroyed, but they’re effectively rulers of the Zin Empire, cementing themselves as basically the most powerful beings on the face of the galaxy. They’re the textbook definition of “Started from the bottom, now we’re here”.
Obviously, there’s no real way to continue the adventures of the Saints, now that they’ve got an entire galactic army behind them, unless Volition decided that they should try and fight cosmic entities. Their story has effectively been wrapped up, even taking into consideration the extra ending where they make plans to travel to other planets and take them over. A complete, wipe the slate clean reboot would just be unfair, so the next big thing could be an alternate universe.
Having Agents of Mayhem be an alternate version of the Saints would allow for Volition to continue the series in spirit without stepping on their own toes. There are still elements from the Saints series that carry over; the zippy dialogue, the comically evil supervillain, the banter between the three leads, and not to mention the return of the Ultor Corporation. The explanation that this is all basically the Earth-2 equivalent of the Saints’ origin story would explain why the Agents’ logo looks very much like the Saints’. Maybe it, like Ultor’s appearance here, is one of those eternal constants across the multiverse, much like Uncle Ben dying.
A Reboot?
The driving plot of Saints 4 was, besides killing Zinyak, trying to find a way to restore Earth from complete destruction. Keith David (as himself, natch) believed that by betraying the Saints, Zinyak would be able to bring the planet back as it was before the invasion, and at the end, it was revealed to be all a lie, and there’s no way to bring Earth back. The Saints are, essentially, the last humans in existence (that we know of).
That may sound bleak, but Saints Row is also a series known for pulling last minute swerves. They spent two years letting people think Johnny Gat had died in Saints 3, only to bring him back for the fourth game, so it stands to reason that they could come up with a way to bring back the Earth here and act like Saints Row 4 never happened. Going off of the famous people he’s kept in stasis, Zinyak had the ability to travel through time.
It wouldn’t be entirely impossible for the Saints to figure out how to work it and make it so that they save the world in time to beat the Zin (and also take Zinyak’s head), in the vein of X-Men: Days of Future Past. The President’s approval ratings were already down before the Zin invaded, so an alien invasion can’t have really made them all that better, even if the invasion was repelled. This could end up being a soft reboot, of sorts, for the series.
Something would have to happen at that point to where the Saints end up deciding to go into the private security, world saving business. No one else appears to be leading MAYHEM besides Brimstone, and it’s possible that she was able to either buy off the other Saints or just straight up kill them to take all the power for herself, explaining the similarities with the logo.
It’s Another Simulation
After you got kidnapped by the Zin, Saints Row 4 took place primarily in a simulation version of Steelport. Zinyak had the ability to change and warp the simulation to any way that he saw fit, but he mostly did this in small, subtle ways, like sending in powerful Wardens after you if you got too unruly or by just adding statues of himself and billboards telling you to obey his rules and accept your fate. Primarily, he found your simulation the most amusing one out of all the captives he had.
The simulation was a lot of fun, but Steelport can also understandably lose its luster. It could be somewhat possible that the President is just going through another simulation of their own design to stave off the boredom of traveling space. You can only have dance parties for so long, after all. This being another simulation would also be able to explain how the L.E.G.I.O.N. villain Dr. Babylon is able to call down monsters from space, which also happens to look suspiciously like the Wardens from Saints Row 4. This would also justify the red and black motif that L.E.G.I.O.N. seems to have (also borrowed from the Zin), along with the designs of the enemies seen in the trailer. Plus, there’s a bunch of technical hiccups in the video showing off the Agents that could hint at this being a game within a game as well.
Saints Row is Getting Crazy Meta
Saints Row 3 portrays the Saints in the opening moments of the game as a bunch of sellouts, more concerned with their own public image and their fans than doing anything related to gang work. They even tried to rob a bank and spent time signing autographs with their hostages. If you choose the ending of the game where you stop STAG, it ends with them becoming movie stars and beginning production for their own movie, titled Gangstas in Space.
There’s no way that Gangstas in Space is the last of their movie ventures. Why stick with movies when there’s TV ripe for the picking, where superheroes are the new hotness right now? The blend of secret agents and superheroics as viewed through the lenses of the Saints Row characters wouldn’t be entirely out of the realm of possibility for Agents of Mayhem. Considering that this entire series is just a wacky riff on GTA and crime dramas, why wouldn’t Volition get extra meta in their own series and riff on superheroes?
How do you think Agents of Mayhem is tied to the Saints Row universe? Let us know in the comments below.
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