Volition tried to listen to fans and make the Saints Row 2.5 we asked for according to Flippy and mrsaintsgodzilla, two of the biggest and more reliable fan sources who had insider info. It was shitcanned by Deep Silver and likely embracer by large and restarted development into the dogshit we got. You can see some of the elements that made it into the game like all the neat customization compared to SR3, and like, customizing your safehouses I think but it never got finished or properly expanded. The story should have gone back to its roots. Hell fans were baited and switched. The initial teaser hyped people up, believing it'd be a return to roots and all about the gangs now that its rebooting. Nope. A nigger female, DON'T FUCK WITH MY (NERDY FAGGOT) FRIENDS.
None of this excuses Volition for what they did, but they also made SR1 and SR2 and red faction guerilla at one point. And while I hate 3; they put Kanye West in its best and most iconic mission opening. We pretty much lost another studio to corpo mishandling, god knows what'll happen to that office's history. Its kind of somber. They had a chance to reboot and return to a formula we like and they were sabotaged and made something they did not wanna make. And you can tell they didnt have heart in it, with how bad the story and cutscenes are made lol. There was more heart put into SR3's remaster than the reboot!