Acting for Two: Try acting for four in Yuri Lowenthal's case. Being the voice of Matt, Professor Genki, Andy Zhen in Gangstas In Space, and Jimmy Torbitson in The Trouble With Clones DLC.
Celebrity Voice Actor: Compared to the first two games, there aren't as many, but there are some notable names amongst the cast -
Daniel Dae Kim, of course, reprises his role as Johnny Gat, if only briefly.
Phillipe Loren is insistent on the fact that he is Belgian, not French... so of course, they hired French actor Jacques Hennequet to voice him.
Shaundi, the Token White girl of the Saints (at least at the start of this game), is voiced by black actress Danielle Nicolet.
Viola is pretty averse to showing her skin (and is particularly uncomfortable with wearing the Bloody Cannoness outfit) and, while her default outfit does show off some of her curves, is otherwise functional and conservative. Amusing, since Sasha Grey, like Tera Patrick before her in Saints Row 2, is a former adult film star.
Kinzie is one of the tallest female characters in the series, being almost as tall as the Boss, who is 6'2" (188cm) tall. Natalie Lander, on the other hand, is significantly shorter at only 5'0" (152cm).
Charles Shaugnessy, who played the Cockney-voiced Boss in Saints Row 2 (Male Voice 3), is replaced by Robin Atkin Downes.
Female Voice 1 went from Katie Semine to Laura Bailey.
Eliza Dushku, who played Shaundi, is replaced by Danielle Nicolet.
Throw It In!: The rickshaws inexplicably exploding when destroyed during the getaway from the Safeword nightclub was initially just placeholder behaviour until they could be given proper scripting. When that was implemented, a vocal faction of the dev team insisted that the placeholder script was funnier, and they got their way just days before the game went gold.
There was going to be a Spin-Off game called Saints Row: Money Shot/Saints Row: Drive-By, which would have been about an Ultor assassin named Cypher, which would have taken place between Saints Row 2 and The Third, and would have bridged a few gaps like giving closure for Dex, with Cypher assassinating him. The game was never made, and Money Shot was instead released as a standalone clothing and weapons pack for the game (getting Money Shot would have allowed you to unlock the outfits in the Third).
Originally, you were going to unlock the Syndicate tower as a crib if you chose to spare it, and it's still presented as one. Also, the storyline changed many times during development, leading to many elements being dropped. Shaundi was originally going to get a big piece of Character Development and deal with survivor's guilt instead of going all Ax-Crazy, and Gat was going to be revealed as alive and well, and in need of rescue. That second plot appears in Saints Row IV.
Averted with the Fart in a Jar. Originally it was to be cut, the developers believing it was too over the top for the game, but word spread of its existence, leading to fan outcry over the cut. It was ultimately re-included as the final upgrade for the flashbang.
Originally, the gang specialists were going to be included as Homies. There is a ton of recorded dialogue for each of the gang specialists, especially Kirsten, the Decker's cyber-skating, Shock Hammer-wielding specialist.
Killbane was originally going to use a dirty bomb to destroy Stilwater, giving the player extra incentive to kill him. This was dropped alongside Shaundi's survivor's guilt story arc for being "too dark".
The Kill Killbane ending was supposed to be the original canonical ending for the game. The expansion pack "Enter The Dominatrix" would've continued the storyline based on the idea that The Boss let Shaundi and Viola die in order to kill Killbane.
Despite the presumed implication of the ending, Enter the Dominatrix was to have Shaundi alive even though the bomb went off, and the internal names of some audio logs indicate they were originally meant for Viola, even though she too was supposed to be dead.
Trailers and advertisements for the game showed Philippe Loren as a much younger man and painted him up to be either the final boss of the game as well as the mastermind behind the entire syndicate, or a rival to The Boss who ends up fighting alongside him when STAG comes rolling in. In the actual game he is an old man who, while fairly badass in the short time he appears in, gets killed off early in the game and replaced with Killbane. He doesn't even get a proper boss battle.
Originally, Viola and Kiki were supposed to be Japanese twins named Natsuko and Yukako (nicknamed Suki and Yuki) who ran an all-female gang made up of heavily armed former prostitutes to counter the original all-male Morningstar with Philipe and his well-dressed henchmen. However, midway through development the plan was scrapped, both gangs fused together to streamline the story, and Viola and Kiki were made Caucasian to avoid the whole "badass Asian chicks that are subservient to an older man" stereotype. This explains why Morningstar has the most variations of grunts (8), why it is the only gang with both male and female grunts (the only females in any other gang are the Deckers' specialists), why it is the only gang that control two districts (Downtown and New Colvin) and why their female grunts' extremely stripperiffic outfits clash so much with the males' more formal and conservative attire.
