Review: Saints Row (2022)

destructoid.com:

Volition was kind of between a rock and a hard place with Saints Row by the time Gat out of Hell came out. At that point, they had gone so far down the well of absurdity that it was impossible to climb back out. So when they revealed they were rebooting the series seven years later, it made perfect sense.

The decision to marry both new and old-school Saints Row concepts is a little bolder. That strategy isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but there’s plenty of wackiness to find in the open world.

Saints Row (PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X [reviewed])Developer: VolitionPublisher: Deep SilverReleased: August 23, 2022MSRP: $59.99

Although it has a mostly comedic tone (and maintains the series’ signature over-the-top nature mostly by means of gameplay), the new Saints Row does attempt to ground the story foundationally. In what I would call a mix of Saints Row 2 and 3, there’s a push and pull with dramatic cutscenes that ingratiate the audience to the team of heroes through hardship — and scenes where you drive a property manager around in a car in a silly fashion (and hit sick jumps) until he coughs up a deed. It runs the risk of alienating portions of both audiences, but for me, it mostly worked because of the way said silliness is worked into the core of the game.

The meat of Saints Row involves the rags-to-riches story of the “boss” (that’s you), and how the titular gang was started. Working as a henchman for a private military contractor, you quickly attempt to rise in the ranks and meet an abrupt end at the company. From there a mini-mystery is concocted for the boss, but the focus mostly zips into you and your gang’s personal struggle and humble origins.

Compared to your fully customizable boss with multiple