Saints Row doesn’t evolve the series, but it never needed to
The first thing that comes to mind when Saints Row is mentioned is The Penetrator, the floppy purple pleasure device synonymous with the third game in the series. I don’t imagine I’m alone there. It’s a strange legacy for a franchise that reaches back 16 years, but a fitting one. Saints Row has never been about breaking the mold in terms of gameplay — it was a derivative series from the start. What it has always been about is over-the-top action, ridiculous encounters, and a heavy dash of crude humor.
Saints Row, the 2022 reboot, doesn’t break the mold either. It takes sparse influences from more recent open-world sandboxes, but still focuses on the core of the series: a cast of cartoonish characters, blockbuster action, and an open world that just begs for you to cause mayhem within it. Saints Row doesn’t evolve the series, but after spending four hours with the game at a preview event, I realize it never needed to.
If you’re looking for cutting-edge open-world gameplay, you won’t find it in Saints Row. The reboot doesn’t do anything new — it simply gives you a list of objectives of varying severity to tackle across the wide map of Santo Illeso.
I went through about 10 main missions, spending some of my time tackling side objectives and exploring as well. These missions are mostly linear in the beginning, taking you to locations you can’t explore in the open world and punishing you for getting sidetracked (a bit like Red Dead Redemption 2).
Outside of the 25 main missions, you have 10 side missions, several Side Hustles, and dozens of points of interest that unlock collectibles, skins, money, and fast travel points. I was able to experience a bit of each, but what surprised me is how much I didn’t see. In the four hours
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