It does need to be said that given SR:2022's reception and the subsequent abolishment of Volition as a dev house, there may not be any future SR games.
That said, if there are, I don't think future games need to bring back the characters from SR through SRIV/GooH. Honestly, regarding the cast of past SR games, I think that the previous generation of Saints Row handled all the main characters well enough, with plenty of backstory, lots of expository, and a very satisfying development. Gat was literally in every game, including all the expansions. So was Shaundi, Pierce, etc.
One thing Volition did very well with SR characters that I thought Rockstar handled very poorly with GTA characters, was that they really gave plenty of story and lore, weaving it through a lot of titles. Whereas, Rockstar thought it was cool and trendy to pretty mush jettison every main character once the game was finished, not to mention leaving way too many questions answered. Things like Donald Love, CJ, Claude Speed, Tommy V, and on and on. Volition didn't do this, and as a result, I was able to really invest myself into the SR stories a lot more, because whether Gat ended up dead or alive in SRIV, at least he had a lot of development through two full games and the beginning of a third. Volition really cared about that cast of characters, and didn't just treat them as disposable, unimportant, videogame cannon fodder the way Rockstar treated their GTA cast, and I have always admired Volition for this.
In my opinion, the problem with SR:2022 wasn't that they didn't bring back Gat, Shaundi, or Pierce, but that from everything I have seen about this title, the game was complete and utter crap. So it isn't even so much that people missed the classic SR crew, so much as everyone seems to be complaining that the new cast is just absolute garbage and unsympathetic, transparent, millennial-cliche-ridden tripe.
Say what you want about Volition, and I can say plenty after the SR:2022 debacle, but you can see that whatever one might think about the later games, particularly IV and GooH, they put a lot of love into all of their main characters. Even Kinzi, Oleg, Matt, and others.
That said, if there are, I don't think future games need to bring back the characters from SR through SRIV/GooH. Honestly, regarding the cast of past SR games, I think that the previous generation of Saints Row handled all the main characters well enough, with plenty of backstory, lots of expository, and a very satisfying development. Gat was literally in every game, including all the expansions. So was Shaundi, Pierce, etc.
One thing Volition did very well with SR characters that I thought Rockstar handled very poorly with GTA characters, was that they really gave plenty of story and lore, weaving it through a lot of titles. Whereas, Rockstar thought it was cool and trendy to pretty mush jettison every main character once the game was finished, not to mention leaving way too many questions answered. Things like Donald Love, CJ, Claude Speed, Tommy V, and on and on. Volition didn't do this, and as a result, I was able to really invest myself into the SR stories a lot more, because whether Gat ended up dead or alive in SRIV, at least he had a lot of development through two full games and the beginning of a third. Volition really cared about that cast of characters, and didn't just treat them as disposable, unimportant, videogame cannon fodder the way Rockstar treated their GTA cast, and I have always admired Volition for this.
In my opinion, the problem with SR:2022 wasn't that they didn't bring back Gat, Shaundi, or Pierce, but that from everything I have seen about this title, the game was complete and utter crap. So it isn't even so much that people missed the classic SR crew, so much as everyone seems to be complaining that the new cast is just absolute garbage and unsympathetic, transparent, millennial-cliche-ridden tripe.
Say what you want about Volition, and I can say plenty after the SR:2022 debacle, but you can see that whatever one might think about the later games, particularly IV and GooH, they put a lot of love into all of their main characters. Even Kinzi, Oleg, Matt, and others.
