David Bridges
Saints Row’s reboot is trending online for reasons that are unjust and unfair to the 2022 title, pouring fuel on an already monumental fire.
Grand Theft Auto 6‘s massive leak has claimed another victim, as many online users make bad faith comparisons of the leaked gameplay to Saints Row‘s latest release. For the uninitiated, a hacker has seemingly gotten into Rockstar files and shared videos of early Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay. They also reportedly have access to the GTA 5 and GTA 6 source code, which is going to be devastating if it leaves the hacker’s hands.
If the source code for GTA Online is accessible by the wrong people, cheaters and hackers will overtake the online game. The leak alone is creating a huge PR fire for GTA 6 and Rockstar, and it’s not impossible the source code leaking online leads to some form of delays as Rockstar has to address its security. This is going to be something that takes some time to resolve, and its short-and-long-term effects could be catastrophic. Developments are ongoing, but Saints Row has been an unintended victim.
Saints Row has been trending on Twitter as many feel the need to argue that GTA 6‘s early leaked gameplay looks better than the new, officially released game. That’s simply not true. On the one hand, it’s not the oddest comparison given Saints Row was once seen as a major alternative to Grand Theft Auto 6, but on the other hand, these just come across as opportunistic, vitriolic comments on top of an already bad situation. Saints Row looks better, objectively, than the leaked gameplay. One is done, one is nowhere near.
Furthermore, this conversation is coming from another bad faith spot: many have unjustly criticized the leaked gameplay. By most reports, this comes from a 2019 build, and it’s incredibly early in the game’s development cycle. It’s an unfinished product by definition; it’s like looking at an unfinished car and judging it based on the final sale product. If anything, the Grand Theft Auto 6 leak shows how much work goes into refining a game and how many iterations of a build there are. All of these are bad faith arguments based on a bad faith action, complete with tons of fundamental misunderstandings.
While this is, in and of itself, unfair to the games being dragged in like GTA 6 and Saints Row, it’s worse for the devs. Rockstar employees who have worked on this game for years are being subjected to seeing their work heavily criticized and likely worrying about how this is going to impact their ongoing work. And now, Deep Silver Volition employees may see their work unfairly compared to that, just for the sake of argument. No one wins in this situation; fingers crossed that this fire dies down instead of continuing to spread.
Saints Row is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Sophie Langley
Clara Hastings
