The Saints Row series has taken fans for a ride, starting off on Earth, and eventually going through space, simulations, and even hell. With a new announcement for Saints Row coming next year, fans are wondering where the game will go next. If Saints Row is good at anything, it's being unpredictable, so there's not an easy answer to that question.
For those that don't know, Saints Row is an outlandish action adventure series in which the player takes control of a member of the Third Street Saints, a gang. Or at least the series started that way; by Saints Row 4, the leader of The Saints is named the President of the United States. Saints Row 4 and Saints Row: Gat out of Hell really took the plot off the rails, as one game brings about the destruction of planet Earth and the other leaves the player with a history-altering choice.
In Saints Row 4, The Boss is elected President of the United States after climbing aboard a live nuclear missile and disarming it before it hits the White House. During the very beginning of his term, he is informed of a suspected alien invasion, but before he is able to react, the invasion begins. Zinyak, the alien leader, abducts all of the Saints and puts them in a simulation. Throughout the course of the game, the player discovers their world is now an alien simulation, breaks out, and hunts down Zinyak. The Boss ultimately kills him, but not before Zinyak is able to atomize the Earth, killing the entire human race except the Saints, who were onboard an alien space ship at the time.
Already this rules out a lot of possibilities for future installments, it's incredibly unlikely that the Saints Row series will ever return to being a Grand Theft Auto clone, given that both the characters and the players have gotten a taste of alien enemies and technology, super powers, and planetary destruction, but the series' next entry places the fate of the Saints on even less stable grounds. Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell follows the story of Johnny Gat after he is rescued from Zinyak's space ship by The Boss. Johnny Gat is a character who originally made his debut in the first Saints Row and was The Boss' right hand man. He was presumed dead in Saints Row: The Third, but it is later revealed that Zinyak prematurely abducted him because the alien believed that Gat could singlehandedly stop the invasion.
If that doesn't set a precedent for how Johnny Gat is perceived, his role in the next game should. Following the events of the fourth game, the Saints are unsure of what to do next, do they find a new planet? Do they continue to live on their own spaceship? There isn't much time for this question, however, as a portal opens up and sucks The Boss into hell, where Satan holds him hostage in hopes that he will marry the Devil's daughter. Johnny Gat enters Hell and is hellbent on helping out The Boss. By the end of the game, the player has defeated Satan, rescued The Boss, and is given a choice by none other than God himself. Which choice is canon may determine how the next installment will proceed.
Two of these choices likely mean the same thing Saints Row. In one instance, God grants Johnny entrance to heaven. Johnny knows he will never get another shot at getting into heaven given the kind of person he is, where he can reunite with his love interest Aisha, so this choice actually makes a ton of sense for Gat. Alternatively, Johnny can choose to become the new ruler of Hell. Both of these choices don't affect the living Saints in any way, and the next game would likely be about searching for a new home world for the human race.
The third choice Gat is given is to have God tell him the answers to all the questions in the universe. While the game plays this off as humorous, with Gat asking questions like "what is the secret to making a perfect lobster bisque," he does have some serious questions as well. Though it seems unlikely, Volition could include an omnipotent Johnny Gat in the next Saints Row game, who knows the answer to all questions including the location of new homeworlds or even if it's possible to bring back Earth.
Speaking of bringing back Earth, that happens to be an option Gat is given. God informs Johnny that in doing so, he would have to retcon the entirety of the Saints Row universe, meaning this could have completely unknown consequences. If the player picks this option, they are given a cutscene of the Saints as some sort of police force having just hunted down and captured the illusive Brimstone. This seems highly likely as the true ending, as it leads nicely into anything Volition could want to do with the next Saints Row. Having the Saints become law enforcement officers would be quite the interesting twist.
The final option is for God to provide the Saints with a new planet. Upon choosing this option, the player see Gat with the Saints aboard the spaceship having just found this new planet. The Saints note that it is perfect for humanity, except it is inhabited by a primitive warlike race. Gat thanks God, looking forward to forcefully taking it. This too seems like another viable, albeit more straightforward, ending, as it maintains the lore of Saints Row while still bringing the whole cast together on a new, outrageous adventure.
Of all these options, the last seems most likely. It would be strange for Volition to completely do away with everything it's built so far. Players might feel it is a cheap way out or like the events of Saints Row 4 and every installment before it have less gravity. On the other hand, of all the ending cutscenes, the one with Brimstone was by far the longest and most developed, so who can say? This is all just speculation at this point, so fans will have to wait until the Saints' Row announcement in 2020.
Saints Row's sequel will be announced in 2020