BioGamer Girl states, "Saints Row IV began development as an add-on for the previous title in the series, but it seemed the DLC, named Enter the Dominatrix, would never be released after publisher THQ went bankrupt late last year. Luckily for fans of the series, Deep Silver purchased the rights to the video game series allowing the continued development of the DLC that would later turn into the full release of Saints Row IV."
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.