Pierce

Lore & Background

Pierce Washington, one of the main characters of Saints Row 2 and Saints Row: The Third.

Reader's Guide

Name: Pierce Appears in: Saints Row (2006) Role in the Saints' rise: Pierce is the head of the Vice Kings, one of the four major rival gangs the 3rd Street Saints must outcompete for control of Steel City. He represents the physical ceiling of the gang war—when you're in his territory, the enemy doesn't just shoot back; they hit back, and they hit back hard.

Key relationships and betrayals: Pierce commands the Vice Kings' lieutenants and street-level soldiers. His relationship to the 3rd Street Saints is purely adversarial; there is no negotiation, no truce. He is the muscle answer to the Saints' territorial ambitions, and his faction is a persistent thorn in the player's side throughout the campaign.

Signature moments: Pierce is the type of enemy who makes a standard firefight feel like a mugging. His Vice Kings are visually distinct in the open world, and encountering him in his own turf raises the stakes noticeably. He is the 'big bad' you have to work around or work through to keep your territory intact.

Voice and visual notes: Pierce is a wall of a man. Broad, heavy, built like he was assembled from spare parts at a hardware store. His Vice Kings wear a recognizable color scheme that sets them apart from the Ronin, the Dukes, and the Marabunta. In the game's irreverent, over-the-top tone, Pierce is the guy who makes you realize that 'shooting the bad guys' has a physical cost when the bad guy is the size of a vending machine.

Did You Know?

• Pierce is a loyal lieutenant in the 3rd Street Saints, not the leader of the Vice Kings—that role belongs to Benjamin King.
• Pierce is a slim, average-height African-American man, not a towering, heavily muscled enforcer.
• Saints Row (2006) was developed by Volition and published by THQ, establishing the franchise's open-world gang-war formula.