This is a write-up to detail the history of a pretty tragic story within the gaming scene that a lot of people probably aren't aware of.
Saints Row 2 on PC has gone down in history as one of the worst PC ports ever made. One of the reasons for this, and as to why it was never fixed post-release, is that the PC port was outsourced outside of Volition, to CD Projekt, and the source code had promptly been "lost."
Mike Watson, aka IdolNinja, was a Saints Row 2 modder that attempted to fix the janky port with his mod Gentlemen of the Row, released in 2009. For the most part, it worked pretty well and solved a lot of issues. But it was still far from stable.
In March of 2014, IdolNinja accepted a full time position with Volition. In March of 2019, he had found the long-lost source code for Saints Row 2, and IdolNinja was able to continue his efforts in an official capacity blessed by "the powers that be," even being able to incorporate community fixes from the Saints Row 2 modding scene into the upcoming patch.
Progress was steadily going along as IdolNinja and partner Minimaul worked on the patch largely in their free time, until tragically in 2020, and subsequently in 2021, IdolNinja was diagnosed with and passed away from cancer. On August 3rd, 2023, Volition promised to release the SR2 PC patch in memory of IdolNinja's efforts. Later that month, on August 31st, 2023, Volition announced that their studio would be closing, and that would be the end of the decade-long effort to fix Saints Row 2 on PC.
However, it would not be the last time we hear about what went wrong during the developement process of the SR2 PC patch. Co-developer and partner to IdolNinja, Minimaul, shut down the SaintsRowMods community in February of 2024, of which he and IdolNinja were in ownership of, where IdolNinja had solicited the Saints Row modding community for collaboration on the PC patch.
Shortly thereafter, Minimaul reinstated SaintsRowMods under new ownership, and issued a statement regarding the change of ownership, and shining a light on why the SR2 PC patch never saw the light of day (over-promising on deliverables and lack of communication on his side). Further information on this event can be watched here.
And with that, the last person familiar with the project had officially stepped away, leaving IdolNinja's legacy unaccomplished, and Saints Row as a franchise completely dead in the water.
