Saints Row IV turned a street gang into a presidential administration, then dropped the whole thing inside an alien computer. It should not work. It works anyway, and it holds up more than a decade later because it commits to the bit harder than almost anything else from 2013.
Volition developed the game and Deep Silver published it. It arrived in August 2013 on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, then moved to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Linux in 2015. A Nintendo Switch port followed on March 27, 2020, and a Google Stadia version landed on November 1, 2021. The critic aggregate sits at 8.4 out of 10 across 14 outlets.
Trailer, via GameSpot.
From MI6 Raid to Oval Office
The setup is the best joke the series ever told. A few months after Saints Row: The Third, the 3rd Street Saints help MI6 agent Asha Odekar and former Deckers leader Matt Miller stop a terrorist plot by Cyrus Temple, the former head of S.T.A.G. The Boss and lieutenants Shaundi and Pierce Washington breach the base, kill Cyrus and stop a nuclear missile from reaching Washington, D.C.
Five years later, the Boss is President of the United States. Actor Keith David plays himself as Vice President. The Cabinet goes to the Saints, Asha, Matt and former Vice Kings leader Benjamin King, voiced by Terry Crews. Then the Zin arrive.
The alien empire, led by Zinyak, destroys the White House and abducts the Boss, Keith and most of the Cabinet. The Boss wakes inside a simulation built on a 1950s sitcom, described in the game’s own fiction as their worst nightmare. Kinzie Kensington, the Saints’ hacker, pulls them into a second simulation modeled on Steelport.
That structure is the smartest thing in Saints Row IV. Every rescue mission becomes a genre exercise, and the game uses the simulation as permission to do anything.
Superpowers Rewrite the Whole City
Steelport returns nearly identical to the version from Saints Row: The Third, with new custom levels built for individual story missions. What changed is the player. Elemental powers and superpowers raise jump height and running speed until the Boss can hop over buildings and outrun vehicles. Fire and ice projectiles, telekinesis and shockwaves on landing are all on the table.
Upgrades run through a skill tree fed by collectible data clusters scattered around town. Play too rowdy and the Zin’s police analogue steps in. The character editor remains as deep as the series’ reputation demands.
The shift matters because it removes the friction that usually defines open-world games. Travel stops being a chore. Combat stops being cover-shooting. Missions still include standard shooting and racing, but they also swing into zombie crowds, tank shoot-outs, side-scrolling brawls, fights against supersized daikaiju energy drink cans, and a dubstep gun used to interrupt 1950s Americana.
That last one is the game in miniature. It is a dumb idea executed with total confidence, and it lands because nothing around it apologizes.
Mass Effect 2, The Matrix, Zero Dark Thirty
Saints Row IV aims at science fiction games and films, most directly Mass Effect 2, along with The Matrix and Zero Dark Thirty, plus the broader pile of nerd culture the series had been mining since 2006. The 1950s sitcom opening is its own separate joke, and a meaner one than it first appears.
The voice cast is doing real work here. Troy Baker, Kenn Michael, Robin Atkin Downes, Laura Bailey, Diane Michelle, Sumalee Montano and Nolan North all voice the Boss across the customizable options. Danielle Nicolet plays Shaundi. Arif S. Kinchen plays Pierce. Natalie Lander plays Kinzie. JB Blanc plays Zinyak. Rebecca Riedy plays Asha, Yuri Lowenthal plays Matt Miller, Richard Epcar plays Cyrus Temple.
| Element | Saints Row: The Third (2011) | Saints Row IV (2013) |
|---|---|---|
| Setting | Steelport | A near-identical simulation of Steelport |
| Player role | Leader of the 3rd Street Saints | President of the United States |
| Movement | Standard open-world traversal | Super speed and super jumps |
| Antagonist | Human gangs and S.T.A.G. | The Zin, an alien empire |
| Tone | Over-the-top parody | Over-the-top parody plus science fiction |
What the Superpowers Cost
Here is the trade. Once the Boss can cross Steelport in seconds and shrug off most threats, the city stops being a place and becomes a backdrop. Saints Row: The Third made Steelport feel like territory worth holding. Saints Row IV makes it feel like a level select screen with better jokes.
The game knows this, which is why it keeps throwing new toys and new mission types at the player. But variety is not the same as weight. The zombie crowds and the daikaiju cans are memorable set pieces, and they are also disposable. You do them once.
The story carries more of the load than it did in previous entries. Rescuing each captured Saint from a simulation built on their personal nightmare gives the campaign an emotional throughline that the series had not attempted before. It is still a comedy, but the comedy has stakes now.
Two Players, Both Absurd
Two-player cooperative play is supported, and the game keeps the single-player and multiplayer modes the series had established. The co-op works because the superpowers make the two players equally absurd. There is no support role here, just two people who can both leap over buildings.
The port history is worth noting because it stretched the game’s life well past its original console generation. The 2015 move to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Linux kept it in circulation. The Switch version in 2020 and the Stadia version in 2021 pushed it further. That is a long tail for a game that was, at release, the fourth entry in a series that many expected to end there.
It was also the first game Volition developed after its acquisition. The studio built something that reads as a farewell to the original Saints Row storyline, and it behaves like one. The game is the final main installment of the arc that began with 2006’s Saints Row.
Where the Jokes Land
The parody mostly works because it is specific. Mass Effect 2 is the clearest target, and the game’s structure borrows from it openly. The Matrix and Zero Dark Thirty get their turns. The 1950s sitcom simulation is the sharpest single sequence in the game, and it is also the shortest-lived.
Where Saints Row IV stumbles is when the joke is the whole scene. A dubstep gun is funny for a minute. A supersized energy drink can is funny for a minute. The game rarely asks these gags to do more than arrive.
That is a fair criticism and also a small one. Saints Row IV is not trying to be a serious open-world game with a comedy skin. It is a comedy that happens to be an open-world game, and it is honest about that.
Numbers, Dates and Cast
- Developer: Volition, with High Voltage Software
- Publisher: Deep Silver
- Release: August 2013 (Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
- Later ports: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Linux (2015); Nintendo Switch (March 27, 2020); Google Stadia (November 1, 2021)
- Critic aggregate: 8.4/10 across 14 outlets
- Modes: Single player, multiplayer, two-player co-op
- Perspective: Third person
Saints Row IV earns its 8.4. The superpowers are the headline, but the structure is what makes the game last. Trapping the Boss in a simulation gives Volition a license to build any level it wants, and the studio uses that license more often than it wastes it.
The cost is Steelport itself. The city that anchored Saints Row: The Third becomes scenery, and the game never quite replaces what it gave up. What it offers instead is speed, absurdity and a campaign that treats its own characters seriously enough to rescue them one by one.
That balance is rare. Most games that go this silly do not bother with the second half. Saints Row IV does, and it is the reason the game still reads as more than a novelty.
The port history tells you the market agreed. A 2013 release that keeps resurfacing through 2021 on new hardware is not coasting on nostalgia. It is a game people keep wanting to hand to someone else.
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