Saints Row developer Volition is announcing Agents of Mayhem, a single player open world shooter where players can choose from a variety of characters.

Volition, past developers of FreeSpace, Summoner, and Red Faction, and more recently known as those crazy folks behind the Saints Row franchise, have something new to share. The studio is hard at work on its next game – a single-player shooter by the name of Agents of Mayhem. Agents of Mayhem will focus on a squad of characters each with different abilities. Expect the game to launch on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in 2017.

Of special note is that Volition wants fans to know that Agents of Mayhem, while not a direct Saints Row sequel, belongs in the Saints Row "universe." Details on what exactly that means are said to be coming down the pipeline. Some dejected Saints Row fans even believe that Volition is going to reveal Agents of Mayhem to be a main series Saints Row game at E3. For example, the one-eyed black Navy Commander named Ishmael Funderburke who shouts, "Ahoy, mother****ers," is himself a persuasive argument that Agents of Mayhem may be more Saints Row than, err, meets the eye.

An announcement trailer, exclusively released by IGN, heralded Agents of Mayhem's reveal. The trailer was met with some initial confusion, as it spends the bulk of its time introducing three members of the game's main protagonist squad. This led some to believe Agents of Mayhem might be another character-focused multiplayer game, like perhaps Battleborn or Overwatch. Early details for the game confirm that it is absolutely a single-player open world shooter like recent Saints Row titles, however.

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Agents of Mayhem is both the title of the game and its eponymous squad of heroes, who will face off against the villainous L.E.G.I.O.N. Just don't expect either side to care too much about collateral damage. While only three members of M.A.Y.H.E.M. were introduced in the announcement trailer, it's implied that there are more to be introduced down the line. That also goes for villains like Doctor Babylon, who is only the first of hopefully many bad guys to say hello.

As should be obvious now, Agents of Mayhem appears to be embracing a comic book-styled approach akin to Infamous or Crackdown. Heroes and villains have plenty of mysterious powers to play with, and the story of the world will be epic in scale. Just how that ties back into the oddball, over the top themes of the Saints Row universe is unclear – for now.

More details regarding Agents of Mayhem will be forthcoming as E3 approaches and beyond. IGN, who seems to have an exclusive deal with Deep Silver regarding announcement coverage of Agents of Mayhem, will be putting out details on the game over the next month.

Agents of Mayhem is scheduled for release in 2017 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Source: IGN