Original Saints Row Director Wants to Take the Series Back—Pitching a Gritty ’70s Prequel to Embracer

Chris Stockman, the original Saints Row director, is making a bid to revive the series, with a pitch requested by the IP’s owner, Embracer Group, that would strip away the reboot fluff and drag the game back to its street-level roots.

Stockman revealed on the Saints Row Reddit page that he’s actively preparing a new vision for the franchise. He told fans, “I’ve been asked to create a pitch for a Saints Row reboot. I can’t say anything more than that but my dreams for this game just became a little more than just dreams.”

Players immediately assumed, given Stockman now heads VR studio Bit Planet Games, that a Saints Row VR game might be in the cards. He shut that down: “It won’t be a VR game. I’m really going back to my roots.”

Stockman Wants to Throw Out the Reboot, and the Comedy

Unlike the last rebooted Saints Row, which critics called “a buggy, dull mess” and which holds a 61-65 rating on Metacritic, Stockman is pushing for a vision that feels more like the original. The 2006 Xbox 360 exclusive established Saints Row as the bold, street-savvy foil to Grand Theft Auto, before later sequels leaned heavily into comedy and wild antics.

When PCGamesN followed up, Stockman made his case clear. “I want to bring the Saints Row franchise back to its roots. As you know I directed Saints Row 1 and I feel the series has strayed way too far away from that. I completely understand why they went that way but in the end they kind of painted themselves into a corner they couldn’t get out of.”

He’s not speaking out of turn, Stockman started pushing for a new direction last month. In an interview with eSports Insider, he lampooned the 2022 reboot, calling it “a terrible idea” and questioning, “What is it trying to be?… There’s a level of expectations for a Saints Row game, and they missed the mark on all of them.”

A Saints Row ’70s Prequel: Gangs, Bell-Bottoms, and a New Direction

Stockman is advocating for a Saints Row prequel set in the 1970s, long before the modern-day mayhem. His pitch: take the focus off over-the-top chaos and instead dive into the origin stories of Saints Row’s iconic gangs. “What I would have done was to take the franchise back to the ’70s and do a period piece, a prequel of how the gangs from the first one started. You’re running around with a crew of teens that ended up as the main characters for the first game. You could really go all in on the ’70s theme with big Afros, bell-bottoms, and the music of that whole period.”

He wants to carve Saints Row a new path. “You’re not competing with the modern-day GTA games. You’re zagging when everyone else is zigging, so to speak.” Instead of trying to out-GTA Rockstar’s juggernaut, Stockman wants Saints Row to strike out with fresh flavor, leaning into period style and deep-cut atmosphere.

Right now, nothing is signed. Stockman stressed, “There is interest” and “a pitch has been requested”, but this is still early days. He’s even trying to “get the band back together”, hoping to reunite the team who built the original Saints Row, if Embracer gives the green light.

Embracer Group seem open, at least, to hearing Stockman’s ideas. The group’s founder, Lars Wingefors, openly admitted to being disappointed in the 2022 reboot’s reception, and shut down developer Volition not long after. The appetite for a major course correction is there.

While Stockman floated the idea of Saints Row VR in past interviews, as well as securing outside funding for revitalizing the series, he’s doubled down on his classic prequel pitch in the forums and to press, making it clear: If Saints Row returns under his watch, don’t expect fluff or forced innovation. Expect a cold open in 1970s city streets, teen gangs assembling, and that old-school Saints Row swagger, reimagined, but never rebooted, for a new era.