Drew at Press Start Australia writes: "With Saints Row IV, the name of the game is fun. It takes great mechanics from other successful games and mashes them all together in the one open world. The comedy while largely dependent on pop culture references and experience with the franchise as a whole works to great effect. The game boasts a varied visual aesthetic that is at times let down by graphical glitches and is powered by the same game engine used by its predecessor. I wish they would have taken the time to really flesh out the direction of the game and not rely as much on the the foundation of Saints Row: The Third. Its not hard for me to recommend this game but if you are coming in hoping for Grand Theft Auto experience you will be disappointed. Fun, silly and most assuredly funny, this game is in a bizarre league of its own."
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.
