How to find Saints Row’s huge Red Faction Easter egg

It’s a minor miracle Saints Row has returned after a turbulent move to a new publisher, a nearly decade-long hiatus, and a botched spinoff. It’s fitting then that the latest entry’s largest Easter egg celebrates a dormant video game franchise that hasn’t been so lucky.

The New Saints Row The 15-year old series is being relaunched. Its coastal metropolis opens worlds are traded for the sun-baked American southwest. This fictional city was heavily inspired by Las Vegas, Clark County, and other nearby areas. To give the setting depth, the game’s writers and world builders dropped historical placards throughout various parks, monuments, and landmarks. The signs, when tapped, dish brief backstory about the area’s culture and politics through tinny speakers.

Image: Volition/Deep Silver via Polygon

Red Faction Memorial Park is my favorite historic destination. Located a short drive from the hero’s first safe house, the park is a not-so-subtle celebration of the Red Faction series, also created by Saints Row developer Volition.

Saints Row’s story, the Red Faction is a band of striking workers who, on May 22, 2001, “sought to end inhumane working conditions and unethical human experiments.” The Ultor Corporation squashed the revolt, but the park — a brutalist cement pond staged around a stone spire — honors their resistance. Red Faction Brew Works is situated alongside the park. Their logo closely resembles that of the Red Faction’s original logo. The logo features a hand holding a pint and not a pickaxe.

Red Faction in real life was a sci fi franchise which debuted May 22, 2001. It culminated with an award ceremony in 2011. Armageddon – Red Faction. Although it is the best entry Red Faction: GuerrillaThe series, which recently got a remaster was otherwise ignored as the rights were moved between companies after the corporate pillaging at THQ.

Image: Volition/Deep Silver via Polygon

Red Faction has been a target of Saints Row’s games in the past. Saints Row 2.The Red Faction Memorial Park even suggested that the series are set in the same universe where the Ultor Corporation, a malevolent entity, has control. The Red Faction Memorial Park’s fiction seems to confirm the reboot also fits into the shared universe, with Saints Row taking place many decades before its sci-fi sibling.

What I also find fascinating is the reading of subtext from real life. The Red Faction Memorial Park’s references to the mistreatment of workers reflect, intentionally or not, the creation of modern video games.

Videogame industry has a reputation for unjust pay, intense crunch periods, toxic workplace cultures and widespread mismanagement. Although Volition has not received any specific complaints regarding its development during Saints Row or Red Faction, Polygon did a lengthy report in 2014 on the missteps that caused THQ to collapse. This was followed by a swelling of projects cancelled and subsequent layoffs.

Is it possible to read too much into Easter eggs? Maybe. It is amazing how many hours it takes to make a city in virtual reality with a brewery and memorial for their lost series. Perhaps this is an amusing remark about a sibling franchise. Or maybe it’s a nod at just how hard it’s become for workers to make a game, and how incredible that any game makes it to the finish line.

If you’d like to see the Red Faction Memorial Park for yourself, here’s the location on the map.

Image: Volition/Deep Silver via Polygon