There is no denying the massive success and appeal of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Since its start, the game has become one of the most iconic franchises in video game history. On top of that, the gameplay style has been recreated by its developers and emulated by its competition time and again. However, one particular franchise used the GTA model as a springboard to something far more outrageous.
Years ago, Deep Silver Volition and THQ created the game Saints Row. On the surface, it acted as a toned-down version of Grand Theft Auto. It allowed players to relish in a life of crime as they try to get their gang, the Saints, the notoriety they feel they deserve. For two games, the franchise found success in doing everything that GTA set out to do but differently. However, the franchise had become something that offered much more than GTA could have possibly imagined by the third installment.
Saints Row the Third was the first game to break away from the GTA formula and become something on its own. While it had always offered features that GTA didn't, it made a point to aim even higher with the third game. This included taking the player's game to the corporate level and competing with rival street gangs and corporate mobsters to claim dominion over the city. The title had no shortage of laughs and massive cinematic moments that could make any player utterly surprised at the sheer strangeness of it all.
In the third game alone, the player could take on a horde of zombies, skydive from a cargo plane and battle powerful enemies similar to Batman's Bane. What made the game so entertaining was how each character was aware of how crazy things had gotten and was just as surprised as the players as the game's story got even more strange. It was almost always played for laughs and made the audience in on the joke.
At this time, Rockstar Games was still perfecting Grand Theft Auto V, which would revolutionize how connected open-world games would operate. However, THQ was already gearing up to release Saints Row IV. The new title offered more changes than anything that had come before and finally separated from the GTA mold. The game opened up on the player as president of the United States, fighting off an alien invasion. Things only serve to get crazier as the Saints are forced to escape to space and venture into a computer-generated version of the city where the player has superpowers.
The game ended up borrowing more from Mass Effect to a surprisingly successful effect. It would ultimately mark the end of any mainline sequels to the franchise, aside from some DLC content, and the world was left with Grand Theft Auto. At this point, GTA V had finally mastered how to handle its online component and has since become one of the best multiplayer games out, with players being able to orchestrate heists and various other hair-brained schemes.
Saints Row showed the limitless potential of games like Grand Theft Auto. Thanks to that, GTA has become an amazing community that took all of Saints Row's fun and brought it to the online version of GTA. While nowhere near as outlandish, it still offers up action movie-style fun that can't be compared. However, Saints Row will always be the game that lets the player go as far as they wanted by offering more than its competition ever could.
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