Volition has been trying to figure out what to do withSaints Rowfor nearly a decade at this point. What do you do after you’ve gone to Hell, fought aliens, served as a knock-off G.I. Joe hero, fought hackers as a toilet, and became President of the United States?
Face the existential dread of modern Millennial life, of course!
Yeah, it’s not exactly what anyone expected from the Saints Row reboot, but in the strangest turn of events… Saints Row gets it. There have been several games now trying to capture that pickles-and-milk contradictory vibe of optimism, empathy, cynicism, and nihilistic shrugging that is my generation’s whole thing. The constant tug of war between despair and striving for a better world. A game about delinquent criminals striving to craft their own DIY empire realistically shouldn’t have this much heart, nor does a game with this much bite manage to still make you care about its world.
That’s the real gambit of Saints Row. More than ever before, your customizable character has an arc and is built to fit a specific mold. Characters don’t just exist for one-liners and plot convenience, but they feature arcs like out of aBioWaregame. You might not be navigating dialogue trees, but every quest still reveals more about The Boss and how they ended up here. They’re a natural-born killer in a Tarantino-esque world where “the murder industry” is as every day a career as accounting. Like DC’sHarley Quinnshow, the violence is made into an edgy allegory for cutthroat work environments, a natural convenience for the gameplay that recontextualizes everything else.
The Boss has a local idol they hoped to work under as a mentor, but he’s a burnt out, cranky old man who just uses you as hired muscle. The day job you start with at Marshall Defense Industries is Starship Troopers meets an NRA gun-nut’s wet dream, and the MDI want to grind any personality out of you so you “fall in line.” The MDI and local gangs are like local chain franchises, with all but one of your roommates having to work for one of your rivals before things go to hell.
You and your roommates are obvious friends of convenience who’ve bonded to survive in an insane housing market. You have each other’s backs, but that’s just the start. Your friendship with each of them grows over time, with personal loyalty missions that delve into why they each ended up in as dire a financial state as The Boss.
ALSO READ:Best Companions In The Fallout Franchise, Ranked
Neenah lost her mother and blew her money on an art history degree, yet only her auto maintenance skills interested anyone. Kevin was a foster kid who had nothing and only really cares about connecting with people — provided they aren’t shooting at anyone he cares about. Eli knows he’s in out of his depth beyond the finances, and he needs your help toughening up to handle a world full of uncaring, self-serving pricks.
Each serves as a lens to some aspect of the generation, whether that’s unfulfilled dreams, a less materialistic worldview, or uncanny self-awareness. The Boss caps this off with probably one of the better finales in the series’ history. Your greatest challenge isn’t if you can shoot all your enemies, but if you can overcome your own insecurities — and then you get to shoot all your enemies as payoff. It’s rare to experience a game that realizes combat can be cathartic rather than just a challenge to overcome, especially with difficulty modifiers letting you tune things to your preference.
There’s been some derision thrown at Saints Row for relying heavily on side quests, but that also feeds directly into the themes Volition is aiming for. You feel that early game struggle to get cash and obtain power. Your guns only just do the job, you and your roomies’ car is a piece of crap, and you’ve barely got any clothes.
You weren’t born rich, so you’re expected to earn your way to success. You take the dirty jobs no one else will, and you get out of dodge the second you’re able to. Whether it’s smuggling or late-game tasks like heists and toxic waste disposal, you’re in the thick of it, sometimes literally. That said, most side quests are also fairly open-ended, respecting player agency far more than your typical sandbox game, as do the Challenges that grant you new Perks to modify your abilities. If you have invested the resources into enhancing yourself, there’s legitimate payoff. The power of being rich will actually save you some hassle, but so can creative thinking.
Even ignoring the fact that the game is actually refreshingly brief by sandbox game standards, these side quests exist for a reason. They always feature some new storytelling focus, whether it’s adding life to the world or learning more about the cast. Unless you do nothing but collect crates of lost drugs for hours on end, it’s impossible to escape some new exploration of the themes at play. There’s a dedicated mission about team-building and not burning yourself out while you escape the law with hoverbikes.
ALSO READ:The Simpson’s Hit & Run Needs a Sequel, Not A Remake
Heck, your income, after you’ve put in the time, can be so immense that you can just wait and use your investments to invest even more money. If that isn’t the fantasy of anyone struggling for cash right now, I don’t know what is. The key difference from the other gangs is, as ruthless and over the top as the Saints may be, they actually give a damn about themselves and their allies. They don’t care if something’s “cringe” or absurd, just that a loyal friend needs them. The Boss gets dragged into a city-wide LARPing tournament just so Eli isn’t left out of one of his favorite hobbies, for crying out loud! The heightened surreality framed by the absurdist elements makes it all click.
The fact that all of these disparate elements actually payoff, sometimes tens of hours later, is incredible. What sounds like a throwaway gag on the radio turns out to be a post-campaign storefront with silly unlockable bonuses. A rival from your days at Marshall reappears in the LARP for you to settle the score with them. Some of the most remote locations on the map can have a quest tied to them that sticks with you long after the fact. There’s far more connective tissue here than you’d expect, and it’s lovely to see it in service of a story where the heroes actually overcome the abusive power structures dwarfing them.
Saints Row might not redefine what sandbox games can do or shatter your expectations of what a Saints Row game can be, but it’s still a remarkably fun time. You don’t get many games this player-driven in their world progression that are also packed with charismatic storytelling. The sheer amount of people you’ll meet who are also just trying to hit it big, or even aiming lower with the humble aim ofsurvival,is incredibly relatable.
It’s a shame most folks' first impressions were of a botched launch that should’ve been delayed, because there’s a heart to Saints Row that’s incredibly refreshing. It still has enough snark to go around, but it’s finally trying to be more than a series of parodies and edgy revenge missions. It truly gets its target audience, and I hope that with time, more will finally give it the chance it deserves.
NEXT:Should Persona 6 Move On From The Series' High School Setting?
