The New Saints Row Is Getting Trashed By Critics

If you're hoping Saints Row will satisfy your hunger for GTA's re-release, then you'll want to wait a little longer. We have a review of an open-world crime game developed by Volition and coming out tomorrow for consoles and PC, but so far...not good. 

First announced last summer, Saints Row is a full-on reboot of Volition's long-running  GTA clone series, and 2013's Saints Row IV (unless you count 2015's standalone  expansion, Gat from the Hell). ), no new entries have been seen since. Saints Row was originally part of a February 2022 release rush that included  Horizon Forbidden West, Dying Light 2, Sifu, Elden Ring and more, but Volition moved to August due to needing to polish it. Postponed. 

But all the sophisticated games in the world can't save a game that  many reports seem to be fundamentally broken. Right now, Saints Row is sitting at a 63 on review aggregation site Metacritic—a rare low point for a critical beat that tends to collectively treat 7/10s as an absolute baseline. 

Sure, some reviewers praised parts of Saints Row, including its character creator—which was released earlier this summer and is robust enough to instantly become a mini-monster factory for players—and its new setting, the fictional Santo Ileso. NPR described the writing as “witty” and “compelling.” But many reviewers were largely negative. Our colleagues at AV Club said Saints Row is “dull,” “buggy,” and has “flashy concepts [but] very few ideas on how to execute [them].” VGC called it “painfully generic.” Inverse deemed it a “middling experience.” Ars Technica said it`s “beyond redemption.” 

Kotaku did not receive a review code for Saints Row ahead of its release. But based on what our colleagues in the gaming press corps have to say about it, this may be a blessing: I wouldn`t wish a 40-hour sprint through this open-world game on any of my colleagues (unless they`re named Zack Zwiezen, sorry bud!). This is what critics are saying about Saints Row. 

Saints Row is a complex multi-level game. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, and if you've played a Saints-Row game in the past, it's an open-world game that's hard to quell, no matter how diligently the game seems to be maintained. has a compulsive pleasure to it.If you  probably like it and have never played it, this is a decent entry point.Was a fan of Saints Row 2 but found the later entries in the series  a bit too aggressive If so, check out the new Saints Row. It still has that comedic serial edge, but it doesn't break the button. However, although the game annoyed me at times, and the core gameplay loop wasn't particularly new or innovative, Saints Row is the first game I've returned to after writing a review. I  started playing just for myself. - Prevent Todd Harpers players from having too much fun. ...that tonal problem is the function that makes