Saints Row 3 Developer Admits Rockstar Influence

Volition, the developer behind franchises like Red Faction or Saints Row, has admitted that it evaluated many other open world games, including Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption, while putting the finishing touches on the upcoming Saints Row 3.

The open world genre has been dominated by Rockstar creations, as series like Grand Theft Auto or recent titles like L.A. Noire or Red Dead Redemption gained critical acclaim.

Volition's Saints Row franchise started off as a GTA clone, but with the second game, managed to impress many players with its outlandish features, unique activities and tongue-in-cheek approach to story.

With the third game, Volition admits that the tongue-in-cheek nature is dialed up to 11, while in terms of gameplay, things have been upgraded after Volition took a look at other open world games, including ones from Rockstar.

"You have to look at every single open world game that's out there in terms of the way that they're building out their world, creating an experience and engaging people," said Saints Row 3 lead writer Drew Holmes to CVG. "So I think all those open world games that've been out; Red Dead Redemption, LA Noire... we're certainly looking at that and saying, 'what are those guys doing? What are the good and bad points?'"

Holmes emphasized that a lot of games are analyzed by the developers and have an impact not just on the upcoming Saints Row 3, but also on other projects that might appear from Volition.

"We evaluate every single game that's out there - I think there's something you can learn from the market in terms of what we can learn from them, for both Saints Row 3 and future projects."

Saints Row 3 is scheduled to appear on the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms on November 15.