How Agents Of Mayhem Retains Saints Row’s Humour, Vulgarity And Action

Truth be told, I went into playing Agents of Mayhem with next to no expectations. That’s partly because outside of a trailer from last E3 we’ve heard very little of the game, but also because I only got the call to come and play the game about an hour before the event actually started, missing out on the pre-hands on presentation.

Being dropped into the tutorial mission with three characters at my disposal, it felt like Volition were heading down the path of a more linear action game, and I had the furtive glee of then finding myself in an open world with some menus to sneakily explore. Was I meant to know this is another open world game? Am I meant to be seeing the ways you can customise the characters? Obviously, the answer was yes.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Agents of Mayhem feels like a Saints Row game by another name at times. There’s a similar sense of humour, the characters handle in a similar way, all the way down to the way the game loads a new mission. However, it’s also good that Volition are breaking out of the Saints Row franchise and almost starting afresh. Truth be told, there weren’t many places that they could take The Boss and the Saints after the end of the fourth game, so it’s great to have new characters, a new menace to face off against, a slightly different tone, and a whole new city to play in.

So, where to begin? Perhaps with the new world that Volition have created. Everything changed on one fateful day, known in the game as Devil’s Day, in which the underground terrorist organisation of LEGION dramatically emerged, using teleportation technology and dark energy weapons to spread devastation across the globe. With much of the world in ruins, a futuristic spin on Seoul is the new locale for this game, as the remaining governments of the world turn to MAYHEM to try and save them from LEGION. Now, MAYHEM aren’t exactly a bunch of goodie two shoes, and their leader, the femme fatale-styled Persephone used to be a part of LEGION, but they’re better than nothing. At the very least, Persephone quite desperately wants to take out Doctor Babylon, the head of LEGION’s Ministry of Pride.

The titular agents are a suitably silly mish-mash of misfits, the twelve agents coming from all walks of life. Hollywood is an action movie start turned real life action hero, Fortune was a “sky pirate”, Rama is an immunologist with archery skills, Braddock used to be a USMC Drill Instructor, while Daisy ruled the roller derby ring, and now rolls around the streets on skates and with a mini-gun… and a head splitting hangover most days.

It does feel like every major game studio is trying to push towards having a wider cast of more varied characters, with Overwatch being a shining beacon of how well that can work in a multiplayer game. For a single player adventure, though, it opens up new possibilities with story telling. Other characters can interject in your mission, with Daisy hijacking a comms channel at one point, adding her slightly vulgar twist to proceedings, or as you play with a particular trio of characters you might have dialogue specific to those three, telling their stories and building those relationships up for you.

All of these characters also make for one major change to the gameplay. Yes, this is a very familiar and quite loose feeling third person shooter when all of the action kicks off – and actually, all characters have a triple jump so you’ll often be leaping through the air – but you can now switch back and forth between the three characters that you took on a mission. All of these characters have their own weaponry and their own abilities, such as Fortune’s Cannonball energy projectile or Hardtack’s harpoon that teleports enemies right in front of him for his shotgun to deal maximum damage.

You can really start to combine them depending on their roles, with a tank character to soak up damage while the others aren’t in play and are letting their shields recharge, or a character that’s better from a distance and sniping stepping up for the start of a battle.

The more often you use your special attack, the faster the Mayhem meter charges up, letting you unleash a signature ultimate attack on the enemies. Braddock’s cigar becomes a beacon for an orbital laser to rain down fire, Fortune’s drone named Glory appears and stuns nearby enemies, Hardtack pulls out a mine launcher that’s great for setting up an ambush, and so on.

There’s a great deal of customisation, with upgrades and gadgets being unlocked that modify a character’s abilities and their effects. It’s actually a rather unexpected side to the game, but one that’s welcome to see, as long as it comes to truly affect the game.

One disappointment is that Agents of Mayhem is a purely single player adventure. One of my favourite things from the third and fourth Saints Row games was being able to play through them in co-op, and the way that this game is set up feels like it would have been perfect for more of that over the top co-op play. Sadly that’s not the case, and it’s something I feel will be sorely missed.

But overall, this is probably what a lot of fans of Volition’s work are wanting to see. It’s another open world action game that has humour and over the top action at its heart, and while it’s not called Saints Row, it’s probably for the best that they move on and don’t try and top the sheer nonsense of the fourth Saints game, carving out a niche for a new franchise.