“It was honestly kind of shocking that this was so far along.” “It has some minor player customization - there’s an actual open world here,” says associate video editor Josh Stinson. Development of the game didn’t get incredibly far before the game was canceled in 2009, but Volition employees still seem surprised by what the studio was able to do on the console with the time it had. In the studio’s own words, it “isn’t a handheld developer,” so work was delegated to a separate studio. Titled Saints Row Undercover, Volition originally planned to port Saints Row 2 to the PSP before deciding to focus on a handheld-exclusive game.

The franchise (and studio) even survived the bankruptcy of former parent company THQ, but there was one game that Volition didn’t make the cut: a Saints Row for the PSP. Inside Volition: Saints Row UndercoverVolition’s Saints Row series may have never become as huge as Grand Theft Auto, but the wacky and sometimes supernatural open-world games have been among the most creative in the industry.

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