Saints Row 2 features three new gangs as well as the rise of the Ultor corporation. Each gang operates in different ways, so learning how to counteract a specific gang's preferred combat style can help tremendously in tough situations.
3rd Street Saints[edit]
- Notable Characters: The Player, Johnny Gat, Shaundi, Pierce, Carlos
The 3rd Street Saints are virtually history at the start of the game, as various important members of the gang from Saints Row have moved on to bigger and better things or wound up dead. As the protagonist, its your job to reform the shattered Saints into the gang it once was, and retake control of Stilwater from the hands of the Ronin, the Brotherhood, the Sons of Samedi and the sprawling Ultor Corporation.
The Saints are the same ethnically-diverse bunch they were in Saints Row, and opt for a purple-and-gold colour scheme for their outfits and cars. The default gang cars themselves are tuned up, modified versions of wide four-seaters like the Compton. Starting effectively from scratch, the Saints participate in pretty much all illegal activities such as prostitution, protection racketeering and drug trafficking (or at least the player does), but with expansion can buy up many of the businesses in Stilwater from fast food restaurants to upmarket jewellers shops and plastic surgeon's clinics.
Note that initially no "hoods" are controlled by the Saints; as you do story missions and strongholds you will slowly wrest control of hoods from enemy gangs. Periodically enemy gangs will attempt to take back turf you have taken from them, in what is called a Pushback; these are detailed more under the Territories guide further down this page.
The Ronin[edit]
- Notable Characters: Kazuo Akuji, Shogo Akuji, Jyunichi
- Initially-owned Hoods:
The Ronin are a gang based around Japanese traditions, formed by Shogo Akuji shortly after his arrival into Stilwater. The Ronin are formed mostly of people of East Asian origin, but also some westerners. After the 3rd Street Saints reform and begin to take back Stilwater, Shogo sees his attempts at driving back the Saints fail, leading to the arrival of the infamous Kazuo Akuji, Shogo's father, to take over the gang.
The Ronin have a distinct yellow colour scheme supplemented with black and white. Their activities are mainly in prostitution and retail, and they own the majority of the North Island. All Ronin members carry around a samurai sword as their melee weapon, and this is usually supplemented with either single-or-dual-wielded pistols and SMGs. One of the most notable features about this gang is that they use motorbikes a lot, and this works to your advantage if you are attempting a getaway with your Ronin notoriety at a high level; any Ronin bike infantry that appears you can just knock off in a car. Their main car is the quick Hayate Z70, which can be a pain to escape from but fortunately is not particularly tough.
The Brotherhood[edit]
- Notable Characters: Maero, Jessica, Donnie, Matt
- Initially-owned Hoods:
The Brotherhood are a gang formed by Maero as a result suffering discrimination for his size and tattoos after migrating to Stilwater. Brotherhood members are mostly white or hispanic in origin, and are all heavily-pierced and tattooed. After the player refuses an offer to join with the Brotherhood and share in a "shipment", the two gangs are locked in a battle with each other, picking at each other's weak points.
The Brotherhood's colour scheme is mainly red with a bit of gold and black. Their interests lie mainly in arms trafficking and in automobiles and racing. Their territory is mostly in the southeastern side of Stilwater, extending across about half of the southern island and most of the southern coast. Brotherhood members don't carry any weapons by preference, although you will see them with a variety of shotguns and rifles, possibly even the odd RPG at higher notoriety levels. Also, their vehicles consist of lots of large, souped-up 4x4 vehicles, which can present a problem due to increased toughness. A fast car can outrun them, or alternatively aiming at the drivers will put individual pursuers out of action.
Sons of Samedi[edit]
- Notable Characters: The General, Mr. Sunshine, Veteran Child
Named after the "Vodoun lord of the dead", as Shaundi explains, the Sons of Samedi are a gang run by the mysterious Haitian gentleman known only as "The General" and his faithful voodoo practitioner friend Mr. Sunshine. The Sons are from a wide variety of minority groups including the homeless. The Sons of Samedi are hit hard as the Saints repeatedly attack their drug production facilities, prompting the mysterious group to fight back.
The Sons' main colour palette is green, and their main activity is in drug trafficking and production, and in particular their designer drug, Loa Dust. They own a large amount of central and western Stilwater, although mainly on the South Island. Samedi members mostly carry a machete as their melee weapon, as well as an assortment of low-grade rifles, pistols and SMGs. Their cars are mostly high-capacity cars like the Churchill and Danville, which even after being tuned up are still quite slow, but at high notoriety levels you will be against up to four more rifle-toting Samedi with each car that appears.
Ultor Corporation[edit]
- Notable Characters: Dane Vogel
Not technically a gang, but still a major player in Stilwater's current situation. Operating mostly from the redeveloped and gentrified Saints Row, and specifically the skyscraper called the Philips Building, Ultor helps fuel gang warfare to weaken the gangs, and then move in with their superior military forces to take control. After Ultor starts the process anew after the Saints defeat the final opposing gang, the Saints band together to fight back against the corporation whilst Dane Vogel machinates his plan and ambitions from within.
Ultor is not a gang, but it is basically the police force in Stilwater; especially towards the end of the main story police vehicles and officers brandishing the Ultor logo will form the majority of your opposition. Their vehicles are, of course, police vehicles like the Five-O, the Peacekeeper SWAT van, the Tornado attack helicopter, the FBI van, and the deadly Bear APC (the latter two of which are only encountered at maximum police notoriety). Their colour scheme is mainly black and the iconic burnt-orange. It is also worth noting that areas owned by Ultor are shown as white on your map and cannot be taken over at any point in the game, even after completing the Ultor missions.
Gang Notoriety[edit]
Gang/Police Notoriety[edit]
By attacking/killing members of a particular gang, tagging in hoods owned by that gang, and destroying gang property you will raise your gang notoriety. This is shown by the coloured bar across the top half of the ring around the mini-map in the bottom left corner of the screen - red for the Brotherhood, yellow for the Ronin, green for the Samedi. Once the bar fills it resets to zero and a gang icon appears in the bar, up to a maximum of five. The more icons, the longer it will take for the notoriety to deplete to zero, and the more frequent and harsh the gang attacks against you will be. The gangs tend to be more tenacious than the police at the first two notoriety levels, although this is soon eclipsed by the police force's superior firepower in the higher notoriety levels. If you happen to have notoriety above zero for multiple gangs, the highest one will be displayed.
Getting Rid of Notoriety[edit]
You also have your own notoriety level with respect to the police, which increases whenever you do any illegal action that isn't traffic-or-gang-related, such as destroying public property like fences and signposts, running over/shooting pedestrians, and of course, assaulting police officers and police vehicles. Killing gang members will immediately raise your gang notoriety by one, but will NOT raise your police notoriety. You can be in serious trouble if you find yourself at above three in both gang and police notoriety, and are not in a hood you own where you have homies for backup. Later police notoriety levels become extremely difficult to deal with, so find a Forgive and Forget or an Activity/Mission quickly (outlined below).
Providing you don't do anything to anger the cops or a particular gang, such as return fire on those shooting at you, and just escape, your notoriety will decrease slowly over time. The rates at which notorieties for each of the three gangs and the police diminish can be increased as level-based rewards for certain activities, which are specified in the Activities appendix of this guide. Alternatively, if you are near to a Forgive & Forget, marked with a devil with a halo icon in a green diamond on your maps, you can pay an amount of money proportional to your current notoriety levels to completely eliminate all current notoriety. Image As Designed plastic surgeons can also reduce your notoriety like this, as does starting any Activity or Mission (providing you're not currently in one).
Territories[edit]
Progressing through the main story missions and completing gang strongholds (side-missions which can be completed in any order) will confer control of territories or "hoods" of Stilwater to you and the 3rd Street Saints. There are a total of 45 ownable hoods in Stilwater (which excludes the ones owned by Ultor and as such cannot be taken). By the time you complete all three of the gang mission arcs you will own either all 45 hoods or 44 if you have not done the single 3rd Street Saints stronghold mission. Each hood that you own will pay $500 a day into your gang stash which you can access at any of your hideouts, and in addition to this, all stores (green diamonds) within that hood can be purchased, which from then on will give you discounts on all items sold there as well as providing a further daily payment to your gang coffers. The amount that the store costs and the amount it pays per day varies from store to store - see the Stores page for more details.
Any territory you own will be patrolled frequently by small groups of Saints on foot who you will find walking aimlessly on the sidewalk, and by Saints in gang cars. Should you get into a pickle with a gang or the cops in these areas, your fellow gang members will open fire on your enemies. So if you have a tail you need to get rid of, driving through a hood you own will help since any damage dealt by your gang members will not count towards your notoriety and will most likely slow your enemies down or divert their attention.
Pushbacks[edit]
Occasionally, if the gang you took a territory from is still active they will attempt to take back one of their old territories in what is called a "pushback". Although pushbacks never succeed and you will never in theory lose control of a territory as a result of this, you will have the mission header on your screen for as long as you remain in the hood and enemy objective markers on your map, as well as a constant gang notoriety in those areas and frequent enemy patrols. Pushbacks are completed by finding all of the marked enemy gang lieutenants and killing them. Often you only need to get near and a group of your Saints friends will take your targets out for you, but if it looks like they're losing, help out. Upon completion you will receive a random small amount of money, and your hood will be back to normal.