NOTE: Some minor spoilers for “Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell” are present in this article
After a leaked trademark suggested that Saints Row developer, Volition Inc. was hard at work on a mysterious new game, one they claimed to be saving for E3 this year, it seems that Volition just couldn’t wait to share their new baby with the world. Volition announced Agents of Mayhem today, and despite some rumours that the game would be a hero-based online multiplayer shooter akin to Battleborn or Overwatch, it appears that these rumblings were way off the mark, as the game is actually a single-player-only sandbox game, done in much the same spirit as Volition’s highly beloved Saints Row games.
The trailer shows off a futuristic setting in Seoul, South Korea, as a mysterious energy-distributing invention is targeted by a villain called Doctor Babylon, working for a faction called L.E.G.I.O.N. Intercepting the baddie however are a trio of agents in service to an organization called M.A.Y.H.E.M., including a lady sky pirate named Fortune, who commands a combat drone called Glory, a brutish and lewd Navy man named Hardtack, and a vain pretty boy and reality TV star named Hollywood, who shoot up Doctor Babylon’s soldiers. They then team up to battle against a huge robot that Doctor Babylon pieces together with the mysterious energy device, save for Hollywood, who leaves the battle in the hands of a stunt double, go figure. Fortunately, Hollywood does manage to shoot a tracker onto Dr. Babylon as he gets away. It doesn’t sound much like Saints Row, but the same tongue-in-cheek ensemble spirit is definitely there from Volition’s urban chaos-themed series.
Despite being a new IP however, Agents of Mayhem may have a pretty big connection to the Saints Row universe after all, and may even take place within it! This is spelled out pretty bluntly at the end of the announcement trailer, when M.A.Y.H.E.M. boss, Brimstone is being reprimanded for her agents operating like a street gang, which Brimstone muses at, before the camera pans out to show the logo of the 3rd Street Saints gang from the Saints Row series emblazoned in Brimstone’s office!
That’s not all either. If you were paying attention during the ‘retcon’ ending of Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell, where Johnny Gat asks God to remake the world and retcon the Saints Row canon, the new Saints characters, now portrayed as cops, discuss capturing a female criminal called, “Brimstone”, the very same Brimstone that appears to head M.A.Y.H.E.M.! This likely suggests that Gat Out of Hell’s retcon ending is canon for the Saints Row/Agents of Mayhem universe, and that Agents of Mayhem is likely being treated as Saints Row V in disguise, with the Agents of Mayhem canon being born from Gat’s wish to have God restore the planet, after it was destroyed by evil alien emperor, Zinyak early in Saints Row IV.
Whatever the case, Volition promises to answer many lingering questions about the game over the coming months, in a steady trickle of gradual information. Agents of Mayhem is in development for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and appears to be targeting a release in 2017.
Keep rampaging to Eggplante for all major news and updates on Saints Row and Agents of Mayhem.