Saints Row is finally making a return with a new game after roughly eight years, not including expansions and spin-offs. The fifth mainline entry in the series, simply titled Saints Row, will not pick up after the events of the fourth game and will instead take the series back to its roots. Developer Volition has opted to go back to the more crime-focused elements of the series as opposed to doubling down on the superpowers and outlandish fantasies that the last game decided to take on.
Geoff Keighley had previously teased that a Saints Row reboot would appear at Gamescom 2021, but Volition has been keeping a tight lid on the specifics. Outside of some remasters, one expansion, and a spin-off with a lukewarm reception, the core series has largely lied dormant since 2013. Saints Row 4 launched just a month prior to Grand Theft Auto V to great success, but it also left the developer in a bit of a bind. Volition had pushed the series to its limits by making the player character a sort of emperor of the universe, meaning there was no where left to take the series in a fifth game.
As a result, Volition will be rebooting Saints Row this coming February. After a handful rumors of what the next Saints Row game would be, it was confirmed at Gamescom 2021 that the series will be running it back to its roots as an open-world crime game. The series will be moving to a new location known as Santo Ileso in the southwest part of the United States. The setting will feature desert landscapes, big cities, and more suburban areas to create a varied map. Players will once again create a new character from scratch and help build the Saints from the ground-up as both a formidable gang and a noteworthy empire. As expected, two-player co-op will also return with cross-gen capabilities.
Since only Saints Row remasters have been released in the franchise over the last few years, it'll be refreshing to play in a new sandbox with new characters and gameplay opportunities. Volition has had a lot of time to stand back and learn from other developers who have innovated lots within the open-world genre over the last decade. Rockstar Games released two hugely successful games in Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 and have only built upon their online components with updates, so perhaps the Saints Row reboot will follow suit.
Ubisoft has also experimented with games like Watch Dogs, allowing for new takes on the genre narratively and mechanically. Whether Volition will be able to offer something that can at least co-exist with those other games isn't a sure thing, but the new trailer conceptually looks like a promising return to form. Saints Row won't make players wait very long to find out if it's ultimately worthy of their time.
Saints Row will be available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, and PC on February 25, 2022.
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