10 Best Video Game Openings NO ONE Talks About
6. Saints Row 2
The original Saints Row was okay, but nothing to set the world on fire. But when GTA 4 came out, abandoning the insane energy of its previous titles to instead go all in on a heavy, emotional story, Saints Row 2 decided to fill the void that was left behind. What resulted was something truly insane.
Saints Row 2 starts off making two things transparently clear to the player: it's been a long time since the first game, and in that time, the player character - from now on referred to as The Boss - went out and got an actual personality.
The opening to Saints Row 2 is a fun-as-hell prison escape that actually structures itself differently based on whether or not you've played before and want the tutorial or not.
Either way, it ends with a thrilling boat chase, followed by a quick establishment of the larger stakes: the Saints have been wiped out, a bunch of other gangs and the Ultor corporation have taken over to fill the void, and The Boss is about to make all of them regret the life decisions that led them to this point.