Saints Row 4 launches on current-gen consoles and PC this August. But why, unlike games like Assassin's Creed 4, Watch Dogs and Destiny, isn't Volition holding out for a next or cross-gen launch?
Remember this year's Saints Row(opens in new tab)? Volition would probably prefer that you didn't, which might go some way to explaining why the studio recently decided to upgrade everyone's copy of Saints Row 4(opens in new tab) to its full-fat Re-elected Edition, containing all the game's story and cosmetic DLC and even introducing cross-play between Steam, Epic, and GOG versions of the game.
Unfortunately, that upgrade seems to have backfired, and players now report a myriad of bugs with their new version of SR4. Both the Saints Row Steam forums(opens in new tab) and subreddit(opens in new tab) are filled with players complaining of broken saves, crashes, and mods failing to function. It's also received a few hundred negative Steam reviews(opens in new tab) since the update. If it's succeeded in washing the taste of Saints Row (2022) out of players' mouths, it's only because it tastes even worse.
I wonder if Volition's getting reorged under Gearbox impacted the quality of their release.
When it comes ranking the Saints Row games, there are a couple of weird ones you have to consider, though this is Saints Row after all.
Juan at SwitchWatchTV got his hands on Saints Row 4 Re-elected for Nintendo Switch. Check out his review here and see what he thinks.
um what about the classic, the great Red Faction 1
Or maybe the Summoner sucked.
The summoner was my launch game for PS2. I liked it. Wasn't great, but nowhere near horrible. The cities where so damn big yet had terrible draw distance aided by fog. You ran aimlessly across endless brick. Till you find a structure.
Awesome memories! Good game or not, up to Summoner everyone was complaining about jaggies and shimmer with the all powerful PS2. Summoner was supposed to be a break through and the boards at beyond3d and elsewhere lit up when James Hague said the Volition team had figured how to run full scene anti aliasing with a "negligible hit on the game's performance". While their method didn't end up guaranteeing that PS2 software would never have jaggies or shimmer again, the mood and talk at the time were energized for sure.
Great memories and amusing to consider how in a lot of ways, "the more things change, the more they stay the same".
Love being a long time gamer.
Its pretty simple actually. The install base on the current gen is large. For a smaller studio to make money, it can't afford to wait another year, and risk low sales on a platform that will only have a few million units in the wild.