Game On: Saints Row has arrived, but who’s it for?

I was cautiously optimistic when the Saints Row reboot was unveiled at the August 2021 Gamescom. On one hand, it was evident that the overall tone of the game would be a departure from earlier titles in the series when the trailer didn’t display the same level of profane humor and bombastic gang-related antics as its predecessors. On the other hand, the franchise had arguably become too ridiculous with 2013’s Saints Row IV and 2015’s Saints Row: Gat out of Hell.

Agents of Mayhem followed in 2017, which sold poorly and led to layoffs at developer Volition. Suffice to say, most people would agree that Saints Row was due for a reimagining. Where Volition began to lose people is when studio development director Jim Boone stated that the old Saints Row titles were “of an era – they made sense within that era, and we were able to do things that felt good back then. But that tone is not something that we feel like we want to do today.”

This of course led to an outcry that Saints Row was “going politically correct,” and while the final product proves those accusations were overblown, Volition absolutely did dial down the absurdity and offensiveness. It’s a questionable choice when the 2020 remaster of Saints Row: The Third was a commercial success, and in a world where TV series South Park continues to thrive.

Many fans were hopeful that the Saints Row reboot would be more akin to the series’ first two entries, which were far less absurd than the games that followed. But Volition didn’t do that, either. It’s as if they were attempting to appease both sides of the fanbase, but ultimately managed to please almost no one. Reviews for the game are mixed: its Metacritic score sits between 64-70/100 depending on the platform. Critic reviews above 70/100 are few, but no one’s willing to grade it lower than 40/100.

While there are a significant number of glitches in Saints Row, few of them are game-breaking. There are issues with pop-in, erroneous AI behavior, and plenty of physics glitches, but nothing too egregious – Bethesda’s best-known franchises The Elder Scrolls and Fallout are notorious for the very same issues, but those games are nevertheless considered timeless masterpieces.

Saints Row isn’t held back by bugs, but rather, the core of the game itself. There’s fun to be had – who doesn’t love the idea of review-bombing an establishment on Yelp leading to a shootout in the parking lot? – but such moments are few and far between, while the game is chock-full of repetitive missions punctuated by cringe-inducing story beats and jokes that almost never land.

This reboot takes the franchise in a baffling direction, because Saints Row has always thrived more from its identity than the gameplay itself. It’s always existed in the shadow of Grand Theft Auto, because from a mechanical standpoint, GTA has always been superior – more vehicles, more activities, tighter driving mechanics, better physics, and so on.

But Saints Row managed to carve out a name for itself anyway with its goofy antics, memorable cast of characters and solid gameplay loop. Volition embraced the absurdity of being a crime lord in a video game and cranked it up to 11. This newest Saints Row elects to ignore this strength of the series and pulls punches at every turn – for what audience, exactly?

All of this might’ve been acceptable if the game had introduced enough new gameplay elements to meaningly innovate upon the open-world genre. In that way, the game could’ve grabbed peoples’ attention in lieu of the iconic Saints Row absurdity. But Volition didn’t really accomplish that either – there’s a wingsuit and some neat finishing moves in combat, but that’s about it in terms of fresh concepts.

Saints Row is decent – it’s competently put together, but it’s too comfortable walking when it should be running. If I get the urge to play an entrepreneurial gang leader terrorizing city streets with bazookas, attack helicopters and nudity, I’d much rather fire up the timeless Saints Row: The Third.