For the entirety of my two hours playing Agents of Mayhem, I had one question on my mind: Why isn't this a Saints Row game? It's an open-world third-person shooter from Volition, the same studio behind all four of the outrageous games. It has a cartoony art style, a rude sense of humor, and a squad of misfit agents who aren't quite the Good Guys. Sound familiar?
It turns out Agents of Mayhem is considered part of the wider Saints Row universe, but Volition insists this is a new IP and a fresh start for the developer. "At this point we thought it was just time to explore another avenue, [and] get something else that we really wanted to get at out there," producer Kate Nelson told me. "So it was a similar direction for us in terms of tone and humor, because that's what we really like, and we want everybody laughing along in our games.
"We started with our 'special sauce' at Volition; we like to be known for the tone and humor that came across in a lot of the Saints Row games, so we wanted to have a game along those lines."
Much of Agents of Mayhem's aesthetic and tone takes inspiration from Saturday morning cartoons: it's reminiscent of Transformers, Power Rangers, and other animated shows I used to watch as a kid--our squad of anti-heroes even have their own cheesy, guitar-laden theme tune (skip to 1:30 in the video above).
"A lot of the initial concepts of the game came from '80s nostalgia," says Nelson. "Saturday morning cartoons, that kind of vibe. We like the idea of taking your action figures, throwing them together, and seeing what happens."
But this cartoon, as you'd expect from Volition, isn't for children. The game contains an arsenal of weapons, characters swear profusely, and talk of sensitive subjects such as sex and alcohol is frequent. It certainly earns its M for Mature rating.
The tone could have felt out of place--lines like "Those robots were weak ass" would feel incongruous and crass in most games, after all--but in the context of Agents of Mayhem's world, it works. Volition has built a world that feels cohesive not because it is a particularly great sandbox--in fact, Mayhem's future-Seoul setting mostly looked bland and felt repetitive--but because the cartoon style pervades every inch of the game. The writing, character art, anime-inspired cutscenes, ridiculous abilities, and oversized weapons add to the sense that you're in some secret adult version of Cartoon Network your parents never told you about.
In combat, enemies are dumb but plentiful, as they simply swarm straight toward you until you take out every single one. The twist comes from having a trio of heroes to switch between. At the start of each mission, I could choose to take into battle any three of the preview build's nine characters, each of which has their own special abilities and unique personalities. My favorite was Daisy, a Chicago skater who came equipped with a giant minigun and a chip on her shoulder against authority figures--which led to some entertaining conversations between the teammates.
Switching from one character to another--which causes your current body to dissolve into thin air and the next to drop into their place--is as simple as tapping right or left on the d-pad, lending combat a snappy pace. The strengths and weaknesses of each agent means that you'll need to keep changing in order to attack different sorts of enemies. Daisy, for example, is useful against swarms of weak soldiers thanks to her minigun and its zero-cooldown special ability. Meanwhile Oni--a former Yakuza hitman--is armed with a silenced pistol that's perfect for pinpoint headshots. The swapping mechanic is welcome: without it I fear combat would too often veer towards gratuitous chaos, but there's just about enough here--in combat and in their charismatic dialogue--to keep things fresh.
All this would make Agents of Mayhem the perfect multiplayer shooter. Multiple heroes strong or weak against certain types of enemy, each with their own distinctive personality and weapon set, each working well or not so well with other agents; even in the current build, you can unlock gun and character skins to show off your abilities.
Except there's no-one to show off to. Despite seemingly being perfectly suited to squad-based multiplayer in the same vein as Overwatch or Battleborn, Agents of Mayhem is single-player only.
Despite seemingly being perfectly suited to squad-based multiplayer, Agents of Mayhem is single-player only.
"We really wanted to explore that single-player experience," explains Nelson. "Having that big bad guy and having your team of heroes swapping in and out. The swap mechanic makes it feel like you are your own team. We love the idea of mixing and matching your own heroes, and each hero can actually be built in multiple different ways, because you can switch out their special abilities [and] you can change their passive abilities."
When I asked if multiplayer could be added to the game after its August 15 (August 18 in Europe) launch, Nelson replied, "We're always looking for future possibilities for features, but this game is a single-player game."
As a result, Agents of Heroes felt like something of a missed opportunity. Short, quick multiplayer rounds where you swap heroes frequently--and witness them badmouthing your friends' characters--could have cultivated some unique and hilarious moments. Instead, we have what could be a somewhat unremarkable shooter that, while undoubtedly containing its fair share of wacky laughs and satisfying kills, doesn't look to be innovating sufficiently to set it apart from its own predecessors.