Believe it or not, it has been 9 complete years since Saints Row IV, and to be sincere, not a lot has modified (minus the superpowers and alien invaders, clearly). The merely titled Saints Row is a reboot of the collection, sporting a wholly new setting, new characters, and a recent story — however the gameplay construction that the property has been peddling since day one stays. At its core, it is a mission-based, third-person shooter with a sandbox setting — however this can be a sandbox that feels prefer it’s flew straight in from the PS3 period of open world design.

The map turns into more and more coated in exercise icons as you progress by way of the principle narrative, to the purpose the place the map display screen truly stops displaying sure forms of markers, and strikes them to their very own separate tab. Here in 2022, it comes throughout as overkill — the sort of bloat that may make even a Ubisoft title blush. But by way of its constantly over-the-top gameplay and penchant for stupidity, Saints Row nearly manages to get away with its brazen content material padding.

Saints Row continues to be at its finest when utter chaos is unfolding. Whether it is throughout a very explosive fundamental mission, otherwise you’re simply attempting to outlive towards a dozen SWAT groups, there’s nothing fairly prefer it by way of tone. It’s dumb jokes and ultraviolence from begin to end, like a cartoon model of Grand Theft Auto.

It all kicks off with the sport’s sturdy character creator. You’re free to make any sort of murderous antihero you need, and also you’re additionally free to regulate their look at any time throughout gameplay. Whoever or no matter you resolve to be, your creation is the star of the present. In typical franchise style, your ‘Boss’ is bigged as much as be a born killer — a comically violent power of nature who blasts their approach by way of the legal underworld to determine their very own gang, the Saints, throughout the opening hours.

You’re joined by three finest buddies in your conquest of Santo Ileso: numbers man Eli, harmful driver Neenah, and shirtless muscle Kevin. As far as Saints Row characters go, they’re comparatively grounded, and, it could possibly be argued, a bit boring. Their extra critical streaks do not actually gel with the rampant homicide and unapologetically daft plotlines, however they do permit your Boss, in all of their potential absurdity, to face out.

The story’s received some genuinely nice moments, however it appears like all the pieces strikes a contact too quick. The fundamental missions themselves make up roughly a 3rd of the sport’s 25-ish hour marketing campaign, and in consequence, it struggles to correctly doc the Saints’ rise to energy. Most key plot factors drop with out a lot warning, and also you’re shortly ushered from one narrative beat to the following by way of snappy cutscenes. Ultimately it does work — we have been left feeling pretty happy because the credit rolled — however there was positively room for a extra elaborate rags to riches storyline right here.

But our starvation for extra story missions is indicative of the sport’s wavering high quality with regards to aspect actions. This is essentially the most feature-rich Saints Row but — paired with the collection’ largest map by a ways — however a whole lot of the actions simply really feel like busywork, plain and easy. Returning excursions like Insurance Fraud, the place you hurl your self into oncoming site visitors to make huge bucks, are nonetheless nice enjoyable — however they fully overshadow jobs the place you are tasked with driving poisonous waste-bearing vehicles very slowly throughout the map, or ‘Choplifter’ missions wherein you ferry containers between areas. Wowzer.

It would not be so unhealthy if there have been only a few of those duties dotted in regards to the metropolis, however as we wrote earlier, the map is lined in icons. Granted, you do not have to do them, however Criminal Ventures, as the sport calls them, are by far your largest supply of earnings — and also you want that cash to construct extra companies and subsequently unlock the following story missions. And to be clear, do not go into Saints Row anticipating in-depth enterprise administration. You get to resolve what fronts go the place, however that is about it.

Thankfully, the busywork is made (principally) bearable by way of the title’s punchy gun-based fight and arcade-y driving mechanics. It simply feels good to play; a DOOM-esque system, the place you regain well being by performing brutal takedown assaults, offers every battle an pleasurable move, and as you stage up, you achieve entry to numerous particular skills that may flip the tide of a tough encounter. A welcome evolution of the Saints Row gameplay components in nearly each approach.

It’s price mentioning that there are a great deal of accessibility choices, too, which exist alongside your normal issue settings. You can tweak incoming harm, the severity of closing dates, autoaim, and extra to fit your wants, whereas controller inputs could be remapped completely.

And you already know what’s additionally price a point out? Co-op, as a result of it is particularly effectively applied right here. You can staff up with one other participant on-line and play by way of the entire recreation collectively if you’d like, fundamental missions and all. As you’d anticipate, having one other human to clown round with offers Saints Row an extra comedic edge, regardless of bouts of co-op-specific bugginess. Any progress that you simply make with a good friend carries again to your single-player marketing campaign, and vice versa, which will help alleviate the grind of ticking off tedious aspect jobs.

Meanwhile, on the visuals entrance, Saints Row is distinctly last-gen. Not in any respect ugly, however definitely not a looker both. Character fashions are fairly primary — generic NPCs are particularly bland — and the sport’s graphics choices depart quite a bit to be desired. Favouring efficiency on PS5, you possibly can select between a locked 60 frames-per-second at an excellent muddy 1080p, or you possibly can go for 1440p with a body fee that targets 60, however does have a foul behavior of dipping. At 30fps you possibly can pump the decision proper as much as 4K, however for a title that may be so action-heavy, the halved body fee is a flip off. But hey, these desert sunsets look pretty — dramatic lighting is certainly one of many recreation’s graphical strengths.

Conclusion

Saints Row is a largely profitable reboot, even when it typically feels dangerously outdated by way of open world design. Its story and characters could be hit or miss, however the expertise is carried by enjoyable gameplay and an endearingly dumb sense of humour. Despite the brand new faces, Saints Row is certainly nonetheless Saints Row — simply greater and most likely higher.