Saints Row: The City of Santo Ileso
I was Art Director on Saints Row (2022) and was responsible for developing the high level art direction for the game including the world of Santo Ileso and its varied districts.
I had the opportunity to work with some amazingly talented Associate Art Directors, Art Leads, and artists, both internal and external, to develop the concepts and ideas below to define and describe the world of Santo Ileso.
Check out my GDC 2023 presentation "The Art Direction of Saints Row" for an overview of the style of the game. It's available in the GDC Vault!
https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1029337/The-Art-Direction-of-Saints
For the city of Santo Ileso, our goal was to get a world with an identity of its own, and varied districts with distinct personalities. Although the City of Santo Ileso is fictional, we painstakingly researched many southwestern cities and landmarks, and fused them together to create our new world. For instance, our districts of Rancho Providencia and Mercado are a mix of El Paso, Texas and the old town section of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Overall, we created 10 visually unique urban areas for the game. Design then broke up those 10 visually distinct districts into smaller chunks for city takeover gameplay reasons.
Santo Ileso is a fictional city in the American southwest. The historic Route 66 runs through the city and adds to its weird charm.
City Skyline screenshot featuring the Marshall 'boot' building in the main financial district and the marina district on the far shore.
Good overview of some of the City of Santo Ileso Districts, narrated by Creative Director Brian Traficante.
Map of the City of Santo Ileso and the surrounding deserts. Districts are Lakeshore, Marina del Lago, Monte Vista, Old Town, Rancho Providencia, Mercado, Smelterville, El Dorado, Sanatorium Flats, and the center island is an abandoned factory town.
Screenshots of El Dorado, Marina del Lago, and the 'party street' in Old Town.
Screenshots of Rancho Providencia, an abandoned water park in Sanatorium Flats, and the railyards in Smelterville.
Screenshots of Lakeshore, the Marina del Lago district, and a freeway going over Rancho Providencia.
Early concept of the City of Santo Ileso by Sperasoft. For this concept, we were looking to establish the variety of the world and some of the major landmarks. You can see Panther Rock, the Boot building, and the Santo Ileso sign.
Early concept of the City of Santo Ileso by Sperasoft. This shows an early direction for the marina district, where we were experimenting with theming our upscale district based on greek/roman pantheons.
In creating our city, we developed many brands and municipal items. Here is the city crest, created by James Taylor. The scorpion element is a historical reference to the Scorpion Motors founder, and a landmark in the world.
Concept art created to help define the modern western tone of the world. Concept by Sperasoft.
Concept defining our earliest benchmark scene in Rancho Providencia. The bar on the right is called "El Bar Visual". Concept by Sperasoft.
Night version of the same benchmark scene concept. Concept by Sperasoft.
Rancho benchmark interior concept by Sperasoft. Created to define the interior of El Visual Bar benchmark interior.
Concept for Rancho Providencia by Sperasoft. We created a number of concepts during development for districts to determine their style.
Concept for the Marshall Tower by Sperasoft. The design of the skyscraper is a cowboy boot, reflecting the Marshall Sci-Fi Cowboy aesthetic. Its also one of the 5 major landmarks in the world, and can be seen from a great distance.
Concept for the El Dorado casino strip by Sperasoft. Idea here was to imagine a casino strip where time stood still from the 50s/60s. Many of these buildings are inspired by old Las Vegas casinos long gone.
Concept for the Aztec Casino in El Dorado by Josh Norman. In the final game, this casino is under construction representing the new, massive casinos that took over the Las Vegas strip.
We created a number of different Santo Ileso murals to spread through the world. This mural is also featured in the opening Volition logo sequence. Mural by Jose Vazquez.
We created a number of different Santo Ileso murals to spread through the world. This one can be found in Lakeshore. Mural by Jose Vazquez.
We created a number of different Santo Ileso murals to spread through the world. Mural by Jose Vazquez.