History Fridge / SaintsRowIV

* They never DID find Johnny Gat's body because [[spoiler:Zinyak abducted him. Johnny had never been dead to begin with, so there was no body TO find! This does raise the question about Zombie Gat]] who you unlock at the end of Saints Row the Third, and why Philipe Loren talks about using [[spoiler: Johnny's body]] as an example not to resist him. It could just be a clone or impersonator Loren used, though.
** Also possible [[spoiler: Zinyak put a replacement there so as not to get people looking.]]
* On the subject of Johnny Gat, it actually makes sense that he'd be able to survive Loren stabbing him with a Bowie knife, despite the fact that Jyunichi stabbing him with a katana in the second game was enough to hospitalize him. Apart from the fact that a Bowie knife's a lot smaller than a katana, and therefore logically should cause lesser injuries, Jyunichi shoved that sword ''right through Johnny's body''. Loren just stuck his knife in Johnny's stomach. [[spoiler:And then Zinyak captured Johnny and presumably healed him before imprisoning him, just to rub salt in the metaphorical wound.]]
* How exactly [[spoiler: Zinyak got on the airplane in the first place to abduct him]] seems like FridgeLogic. That is until the end of the game when you learn that the Zin have [[spoiler:time travel capabilities and that Zinyak has been using it to abduct or make copies of earthlings he had taken a liking to.]]
* How does the Boss [[spoiler: survive taking out the nuke and falling tens of thousands of feet into the Oval Office without a parachute? By the end of ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'', you should have unlocked No Explosion Damage and No Fall Damage - the Boss is immune to both]]. No Fall Damage could also be unlocked in ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2'', and in all previous Saints Row games you could always pull a parachute from nowhere. Perhaps there was one hidden in the combat suit as well.

* Why does [[spoiler: Zinjai only show up to advise the Boss in the GoldenEnding]]? If you play through the entire text-based adventure series, it turns out that [[spoiler: Zinyak was very much a BadBoss, going so far as to stuff Zinjai into the simulation after ''he'' invented it. By completing all of the loyalty missions, the Boss shows that they care deeply about all of their subordinates, thus convincing Zinjai that they're a much preferable alternative to Zinyak, so he volunteers his services and hands over the keys to time-travel technology that will keep the Saints in power.]]
* The mission title ""Back By Popular Demand" seems to be giving the player the false hope for the return of Gat. However, the title actually refers to the return of [[spoiler:[=SR2=] Shaundi]], who is also very popular.

* [[ScaryBlackMan Mr. Sunshine]] from ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2'' appearing as the DJ for 420 makes no sense at first, but remember that other prominent gangs and gang leaders appear and are explicitly said to be based off of the memories of the Saints [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg (and Ben King)]] as they are trapped in the simulation. Sunshine is probably another creation of the simulation. Him being the only member of the Sons of Samedi to return might also be a meta-joke about the fact that [[MadeOfIron the man just did not die]] [[spoiler: until the Boss cut off his head and threw it in a meat grinder]].

* Though being deprived of superpowers during most of the main questline and several of the sidequests is frustrating, this has an in-universe justification, instead of just being FakeDifficulty to make the quests more challenging: The superpowers are basically the result of Kinzie hacking the Boss' avatar properties. In the quests, the lack of superpowers usually happens in the real world (in which their absence is obviously logical) and in specific simulations not part of the main ones (Kinzie didn't have time or couldn't hack the Boss' avatar inside them). In the quests set inside the main simulation[[note]]with a couple of exceptions, which makes sense too: the Boss doesn't have superpowers in Asha's loyalty mission because it's a training simulation, and the Professor's Genki game played with [[spoiler: Johnny Gat]] lacks them because it celebrates the Boss' reunion with an old friend, so the Boss didn't want to have an unfair advantage in the game[[/note]], the Boss is able to use them.

* The homie conversation between Keith David and [[spoiler: Maero]] reveals that [[spoiler: the Boss has never talked about Maero to Keith.]] It's PlayedForLaughs with [[spoiler: Maero]] as the butt of the joke, but what was he responsible for? Possibly the darkest mission in Saints Row history, [[spoiler: where the Boss had to personally put Carlos out of his misery after he suffered a horrendous [[WhatADrag keelhauling]] at the Brotherhood's hands. No wonder the Boss doesn't want to talk about him]].

* Phillipe Loren's [[TheOtherDarrin new voice actor]] is [[WatsonianVersusDoylist probably just the result of schedule conflicts for the original actor, but it also makes sense from an internal perspective]]. In ''Saints Row IV'', Loren appears as an AI created by Matt Miller. Loren died early during the story of ''Saints Row: The Third'', at the very least five years earlier (not counting the unspecified length of the hiatus between the end of ''The Third'' and the prologue of ''IV''). Also, the destruction of Earth obviously prevented Matt from keeping any Syndicate-related notes, documents, or audio recordings he may own, but he would probably not have kept them anyway since he abruptly defected from the Syndicate and fled to England to join MI6. So, [=SRIV!Loren=] has a different voice because he has been made from scratch, entirely based on Matt's old memories of Loren.

* While being trapped in your personal hell is horrible, it becomes worse for Johnny when you realize that he was abducted in the third game. We don't know how much time has passed between the end of SR3 and the first level of this one, but afterward, there's a five-year TimeSkip to the present. We also don't know how long Boss was in his own simulation before Kinzie busted him out (it was, at least, enough time for her to escape, free Keith David, steal an alien vessel, and learn how to pilot it). At the very least, he was trapped in there for over five years. At worst, he could've been there for nearly ''a decade''. That means a decade of reliving Aisha's death in SR2 coupled with his inability to save her. [[TheWoobie Wow, that must suck]]. On the plus side, when he escapes it, it helped him get past her death and come to terms with it, and now he's happy to move on with his life (and possibly start a relationship with the Boss).

* When Zinyak busts out a reading from ''Macbeth'', the Boss casually dismisses it. Some voices claim ignorance, while others just go right for the throat ("Fuck Shakespeare! Jane Austen or go home!"). This is listed as an example of the Boss being BookDumb. However, previous games have shown that the Boss is ''really'' good at finding an enemy's {{BerserkButton weakpoints}} and pounding on them with an oversized purple dildo until they let their guard down. If you listen to Klassic 102.4 you'll find Zinyak's. The Zin warlord ''hates it'' when people dismiss or disrespect the classics he adores. For example, he closes out his announcement of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" by [[DisproportionateRetribution threatening to execute anyone who dares refer to the piece as "the Dracula song".]]

* Fun!Shaundi is far more spacy and clueless than she ever was in ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2.'' But it's a simulation of who she was, from Zinyak no less. It's intended to be a mockery to troll the real Shaundi. Or that's how Shaundi remembers herself, what with her low self esteem and survivor's guilt. Fun Shaundi becomes a LOT less airheaded after "proving" to her future self that she wasn't just a worthless burnout.
* The existence of the Power Armor actually gives a reason for the superpowers in the simulation to exist. Kinzie (or the Wardens) aren't just pulling those powers out of their ass -- they're patching them over from whatever training simulations exist to teach people how to use that armor.
* In the two missions set in the 50's any swearing is bleeped out except for the last lines, which demonstrates that The Boss has broken it.
** In the second visit, Boss swears a LOT as they're running around disrupting the simulation, with some voices taking it so far as to drop one ClusterFBomb after another. Boss is testing to see if what they're doing is having any effect. And overloading the language filter to make the simulation crash faster. And, yes, venting frustration about being back in it in the first place.
* By merging Enter The Dominatrix and Original Saints Row 4, Volition lost something they planned ahead for: the music. Look how puny the selection is, to the point that they had to cut a station. Now, imagine the new stuff as added on, instead. Then, go listen to some of the songs from Saints Row: The Third. In particular, [[Music/{{Otep}} Rise, Rebel, Resist]] and [[Music/MarilynManson Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon]]. Some of the Saints Row: The Third soundtrack selection makes a ton more sense if you take into account Enter The Dominatrix.
* [[ScaryBlackMan Mr. Sunshine]] from ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2'' appearing as the DJ for 420 makes no sense at first, but remember that other prominent gangs and gang leaders appear and are explicitly said to be based off the memories of the Saints [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg (and Ben King)]] trapped in the simulation. Sunshine is probably another creation of the simulation. Him being the only member of the Sons of Samedi to return might also be a meta joke about the fact that [[MadeOfIron the man just did not die]] [[spoiler: until the Boss cut off his head]].
* The locations of Pierce's Audio Logs in Virtual Steelport are rather significant: one is in a basketball court (mirroring his Japanese advert for Saints Flow), the second is in Sunset Park (where you first meet him after arriving in Steelport), and the third is in Broken Shillelagh (which is his favorite hangout, as well as the Saints').

* "The Boys Are Back In Town" is about old friends returning to much cheer, violence, and nostalgia. The same things that come with the return of Johnny Gat and his loyalty mission where the song plays.
* Though being deprived of superpowers during most of the main questline and several of the sidequests is frustrating, this has an in-universe justification, instead of just being FakeDifficulty to make the quests more challenging. The superpowers are basically the result of Kinzie hacking the Boss' avatar properties. In the quests, the lack of superpowers usually happens in the real world (in which their absence is obviously logical) and in specific simulations not part of the main ones (Kinzie didn't have time or couldn't hack the Boss' avatar inside them). In the quests set inside the main simulation[[note]]with a couple of exceptions, which makes sense too: the Boss doesn't have superpowers in Asha's loyalty mission because it's a training simulation, and the Professor's Genki game played with [[spoiler: Johnny Gat]] lacks them because it celebrates the Boss' reunion with an old friend, so the Boss didn't want to have an unfair advantage in the game[[/note]], the Boss is able to use them.

** When Kinzie is guiding the Boss to leave the 50' Steelport simulation, she directs him to a Professor Genki-shaped fountain, which she refers as a "cat statue". Since Professor Genki is a television celebrity in the setting, why does she refers it in such a generic way instead of using his proper name? Because, as a stereotypical nerd, it's likely that Kinzie has a very limited knowledge of mainstream pop culture.
** It also has a gameplay justification. This line of dialog has a critical importance ingame (it leads to a weapon), so using "cat statue" instead of a specific reference makes this part a lot easier to players who didn't play ''Saints Row: The Third'', and don't have any idea who "Professor Genki" is.

* Keith doesn't show up in any storyline missions after his personal nightmare arc... But of course he doesn't. He has turned on the Boss, which is why the Boss doesn't trust him to come along in their mission.

* One of the guards in Asha's nightmare says "Not again!" when you kill him. At first it seems like a joke, but eventually it's revealed that the nightmares play over and over again, and that both Asha and Mr. X remember the previous loops. If they remember, what's to say the guards don't, and if they do they'd certainly remember being killed. Suddenly, 'not again' makes a lot more sense...

* In the credits when the characters sing along to "Just a Friend" (which includes a majority of the main cast), Zinyak is absent with a line. Why? Because he fucked up Biz Markie earlier in the game!

* The homie conversation between Keith David and [[spoiler: Maero]] reveals that [[spoiler: the Boss has never talked about Maero to Keith.]] It's PlayedForLaughs with [[spoiler: Maero]] as the butt of the joke, but what was he responsible for? Possibly the darkest mission in Saints Row history, [[spoiler: where the Boss had to personally put Carlos out of his misery after a [[WhatADrag keelhauling]]. No wonder the Boss doesn't want to talk about him]].
* After rescuing Pierce, the Boss is much nicer to him than in the previous games. In the opening cutscene of Pierce's rescue mission, the Boss is called out by CID for constantly treating Pierce like crap.
* When Boss manages to break the '50s-sitcom Steelport simulation, Zinyak pulls them out and drops them into...[=SR3=] Steelport. Everything about the way Steelport worked in the previous game is here; you can still steal cars, kill people, and cause chaos. But the cribs are gone, you can't buy the shops, and there's no Forgive and Forget. Even if Boss leveled up enough to become invincible like in previous games, they'd eventually run out of things to do. Everything Saints has been turned into a Zin parody for the express purpose of reminding the Boss that they're a Zin prisoner in a Zin cage, and the only way out is to give up the false freedom the Boss has been given in exchange for a life of no freedom at all. Kinzie may have been the only factor keeping that version of Steelport from being a much greater FateWorseThanDeath for Boss than wholesome-'50s-sitcom Steelport ever would've been.
* When Zinyak busts out a reading from ''Macbeth'', the Boss casually dismisses it. Some voices claim ignorance, while others just go right for the throat ("Fuck Shakespeare! Jane Austen or go home!"). This is listed as an example of the Boss being BookDumb. However, previous games have shown that the Boss is ''really'' good at finding an enemy's {{Berserk Button}}s and pounding on them with an oversized rubber cock until they let their guard down. If you listen to Klassic 102.4 you'll find Zinyak's. The Zin warlord ''hates it'' when people dismiss or disrespect the classics he adores. For example, he closes out his announcement of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" by [[DisproportionateRetribution threatening to execute anyone who dares refer to the piece as "the Dracula song".]]
** But don't worry, Zinyak pays Boss back in kind later on by fucking up Biz Markie.
* Why does, in Matt Miller's loyalty mission, Nyte Blayde's acting becomes much worse once he accuses Matt of having betrayed him? Because, since Zinyak personnally caused the simulation to go off the rails, and since Zinyak has already been characterized as a {{Troll}} who especially loves messing with his prisoners to break their mind, it totally makes sense to assume Zinyak took special effort to ''also'' ruin Nyte Blayde's voice acting, to make sure to piss off Matt.
* Phillipe Loren's [[TheOtherDarrin new voice actor]] is [[WatsonianVersusDoylist probably just the result of scheduld's conflicts for the original actor, but it also makes sense from an internal perspective]]. In ''Saints Row IV'', Loren appears as an AI created by Matt Miller. Loren died early during the story of ''Saints Row: The Third'', at the very least five years earlier (not counting the unspecified length of the hiatus between the end of ''The Third'' and the prologue of ''IV''). Also, the destruction of Earth obviously prevented Matt to keep any Syndicate-related notes, documents or audio recordings he may own, but he would probably not have kept them anyway since he abruptely defected from the Syndicate. So, [=SRIV!Loren=] has a different voice because he has been made from scratch, entirely based on Matt's old memories of Loren.
* When the Boss receives from Kinzie the sidequest of gaining the control of the Leather and Lace store, Kinzie mentions it's one of her favorite shops. ''Saints Row: The Third'' contained a few references to Kinzie being a BDSM fan. In both games, goods sold by Leather and Lace include BDSM gear.
* Asha's simulation being ThatOneLevel makes perfect sense from a character standpoint. For many of the other characters, the nightmares provided by Zinyak always exploit their personal failures or fears. However, in a gameplay perspective, they can be overcome with ease given the player's relative detachment from their significance. Asha's hell, however, takes form of the more objective form of failure. That is to say, the odds are stacked against her even without the personal punches of friends dying and the simulation's insults. None of the player's upgrades work here either, there's an abundance of DemonicSpiders in the form of Murderbots, and the boss of the nightmare being an absolute bullet sponge ensures that overcoming this nightmare being as difficult as possible in gameplay.

** The Boss, however, doesn't get much facetime in Saints-Ultor media. They can't act worth a damn, and their being a fully-customizable player character means the promo-art Boss seen on billboards and advertisements may not look anything like the "real" Boss. With Gat, Pierce, and Shaundi getting most of the brand's spotlight, the Boss isn't promoted by the Saints as a Gat-level MemeticBadass warrior, so Zinyak went off of what he saw of the Boss in the Saints' history: a silly, braggadocious clown who only lives to sow chaos and kill people while spewing profanity, cracking jokes and wearing ridiculous costumes. Which isn't someone that an arrogant CulturedBadass GalacticConqueror like Zinyak would take seriously as a threat.

* While being trapped in your personal hell is horrible, it becomes worse for Johnny when you realize that he was abducted in the third game. We don't know now much time has passed between the end of SRTT and the first level of this one, but afterwards there's a five year TimeSkip to the present. We also don't know how long Boss was in his own simulation before Kinzie busted him out (it was, at least, enough time for her to escape, free Keith David, and steal an alien vessel and learn how to pilot it). At the very least, he was trapped in there for over five years. At worst, he could've been there for near enough ''a decade''. A decade of reliving Aisha's death and his inability to save her. Wow, that must suck. On the plus side, when he escapes it, it helped him get past her death and come to terms with it, and now he's happy to move on with his life (and possibly start a relationship with the boss).

** The Boss, however, doesn't get much facetime in Saints-Ultor media. They can't act worth a damn, and their being a fully-customizable player character means there's no in-universe promo art of them to put up alongside that of Pierce, Shaundi, or Johnny. The Boss isn't promoted by the Saints as a Gat-level MemeticBadass warrior, so Zinyak went off of what he saw of the Boss in the Saints' history: a silly, braggadocious clown who only lives to sow chaos and kill people while swearing, cracking jokes and wearing ridiculous costumes. Which isn't someone that an arrogant CulturedBadass GalacticConqueror like Zinyak would take seriously as a threat.

* When the Boss receives from Kinizie the sidequest of gaining the control of the Leather and Lace store, Kinzie mentions it's one of her favorite shops. ''Saints Row: The Third'' contained a few references to Kinzie being a BDSM fan. In both games, goods sold by Leather and Lace include BDSM gear.