How to find Saints Row Red Faction giant Easter egg

It’s a small miracle that Saints Row has returned after a tumultuous transition to a new publisher, a nearly decade hiatus, and a botched spin-off. It’s fitting, then, that the latest entry’s biggest Easter egg celebrates a dormant video game franchise that hasn’t been so lucky.

The new Saints Row Reboots the 15-year-old series, trading the open worlds of the coastal metropolis of the past for a sun-kissed American Southwest, a fictional city heavily inspired by Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County. To add depth to the setting, the game’s authors and builders placed historical posters in various parks, monuments, and landmarks. When the signs are tapped, tinny loudspeakers tell brief background stories about the culture and politics of the region.

Image: Volition/Deep Silver via Polygon

My favorite historical destination is the Red Faction Memorial Park. 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.

in the Saints Rows The Red Faction is a group of striking workers who on May 22, 2001 “wanted to end inhumane working conditions and unethical human experimentation”. The Ultor Corporation put down the revolt, but the park – a brutalist cement pond laid out around a stone tower – honors their resistance. Next to the park is the Red Faction Brew Works brewery, whose logo resembles the original Red Faction logo, with a fist clenched around a pint of beer rather than a pickaxe.

In real life, Red Faction was a sci-fi franchise that debuted on May 22, 2001 and peaked in 2011 Red Faction: Armageddon. While his best entry, Red Faction: Guerrillawhich recently received a remaster, the series has otherwise been neglected as its rights have been shuttled between companies following corporate looting of THQ.

Image: Volition/Deep Silver via Polygon

Saints Row games have winked at Red Faction in the past. Saint row 2 went so far as to suggest that the two series take place in the same universe controlled by the malicious Ultor Corporation. The Red Faction Memorial Park fiction seems to confirm that the reboot also fits into the shared universe, as Saints Row is set many decades before its sci-fi sibling.

But what I find just as interesting as the in-fiction lore is the optional reading of real-world subtexts. Red Faction Memorial Park’s references to worker abuse reflect, intentionally or not, the emergence of modern video games.

The video game industry is notorious for unequal pay, periods of intense crisis, toxic office cultures, and rampant mismanagement. While no specific complaints about Volition were reported during development of the Red Faction and Saints Row series, Polygon reported extensively in 2014 on the missteps that led to the collapse of THQ and with it a spate of canceled projects and related layoffs.

Are we reading too much into an Easter egg? Maybe. But consider how long it takes game developers to create an entire virtual city block with a custom memorial and brewery dedicated to their fallen game series and the work that went into it. Maybe this is a nice nod to a sibling franchise on the ice. Or maybe it’s a nod to how hard it’s become for workers to make a game and how incredible every game makes it to the finish line.

If you would like to see Red Faction Memorial Park for yourself, here is its location on the map.

Image: Volition/Deep Silver via Polygon