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New Saints Row trailer details the game’s new gang and setting

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A new trailer for Saints Row gives players a good look at who the new Third Street Saints are, who they’ll be fighting, and what the backdrop for their aggressive criminal takeover will be.

SAINTS ROW Welcome to Santo Ileso Trailer

While the upcoming self-titled Saints Row game will be keeping some things the same, the reboot is set to introduce multiple changes to the franchise. A majority of those differences won’t be in gameplay, but rather the game’s setting and cast of characters.

Saints Row will take place in Santo Ileso, a city set in the American Southwest. In the trailer, developers working on the game stress that this new locale is extremely important, as it fits into the game’s overall theme (and weirdness). The game’s map will be the largest of any title in the Saints Row franchise, but it’s not clear how much of that terrain will belong to the city of Santo Ileso, and how much of it will be the surrounding desert. Regardless, Saints Row‘s new setting seems like a fair departure from the likes of Steelport, the city players romp through in Saints Row 3 and 4.

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Along with a new setting, players will be greeted by a new cast of characters in the Saints Row reboot. Johnny Gat and Shaundi are nowhere to be seen and are instead replaced by Eli, a money-laundering genius; Nina, a talented getaway driver and gearhead; and Kevin, a wild gun nut with a passion for cooking. Naturally, players still fill the shoes of The Boss, who they can customize as much as they’d like.

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In a preview for Saints Row, developer Volition confirmed that while much of the game would be new, it would still have the same Saints Row bones. The game will include the same wacky arsenal of weapons, stylish vehicles, and ways to make money, including mini-games like Insurance Fraud.

Saints Row is set to release on February 22, 2022 for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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Otto Kratky
Otto Kratky
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Otto Kratky is a freelance writer with many homes. You can find his work at Digital Trends, GameSpot, and Gamepur. If he's…
Saints Row doesn’t evolve the series, but it never needed to
The Boss shooting at police in Saints Row.

The first thing that comes to mind when Saints Row is mentioned is The Penetrator, the floppy purple pleasure device synonymous with the third game in the series. I don’t imagine I’m alone there. It’s a strange legacy for a franchise that reaches back 16 years, but a fitting one. Saints Row has never been about breaking the mold in terms of gameplay -- it was a derivative series from the start. What it has always been about is over-the-top action, ridiculous encounters, and a heavy dash of crude humor.

Saints Row, the 2022 reboot, doesn’t break the mold either. It takes sparse influences from more recent open-world sandboxes, but still focuses on the core of the series: a cast of cartoonish characters, blockbuster action, and an open world that just begs for you to cause mayhem within it. Saints Row doesn’t evolve the series, but after spending four hours with the game at a preview event, I realize it never needed to.
Not an evolution

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Saints Row reboot still looks wacky, even if it’s formulaic
The main character of Saints Row glides in a wingsuit.

The Saints Row series is making its grand return after seven years. The Saints Row universe fully reset at the end of the Saints Row IV DLC Gat Out of Hell, so Volition's next game is a full-on reboot of the series. After the underwhelming Agents of Mayhem, this reboot allowed the developer to redefine what a Saints Row game could be without the constraints of classic characters or settings. Unfortunately, that new vision is much more plain than I'd hoped despite the series' expected madcap tone.
While the results of this reimagining have the enjoyable and wacky Saints Row flair that one would expect, I was left quite underwhelmed by a recent hands-off preview of several missions, combat, and the open world in Saints Row. This upcoming game is set in a new Southwestern city of Santo Ileso and features a new cast of Saints characters, so Volition has an opportunity to go big and bold here. Ultimately, it's looking formulaic for a series that's known for being off-kilter and wildly creative.
SAINTS ROW – Game Awards Gameplay Trailer
Grounded absurdism 
During my hands-off preview, I got to see the new team of Saints in a variety of missions. These include a loan agency robbery gone wrong that results in a big car chase, a raid of a car-loving Panteros gang's headquarters in a helicopter, and a rescue mission for one of the player-character's friends after he's kidnapped by a bunch of Deadmau5-looking crooks from a gang called the Idols.
The new cast of Saints seems likable enough, but the "angry but endearingly funny millennial" tone of each character's writing has yet to be nearly as endearing as classic Saints Row characters like Johnny Gat or Kinzie Kensington. The "try-hard lulz" writing that the series was known for isn't as funny now as it was in 2015 when the last Saints Row game was released. It's hard to tell from this early look if Volition's writers will succumb to the same unfunny writing problems that plagued 2019's Borderlands 3.

Also, because it's an entirely new cast of characters that have yet to prove themselves to fans, there isn't any nostalgia factor that can help make up for subpar jokes. Currently, Volition's strategy is to give the narrative a sense of "groundedness" despite its kooky aspects to make players care about this character and that narrative.
"Absurdism for the sake of absurdism, that's where everything feels fluffy, and it doesn't feel like anything really means anything," lead writer Jeremy Bernstein said at the preview event. "We worked very hard to avoid that, so there's a groundedness, even to the most absurd things that you do in the game." It remains to be seen if this new, more grounded approach successfully introduces a new cast and setting for Saints Row or just leaves me yearning for the classic Saints and city of Steelport.
Absurdly generic 
While each mission that I described earlier does have the Saints Row series' trademark quirk, they aren't exactly pushing the boundaries of what to expect from a third-person, open-world game so far. While I only saw a few side missions, like one where players had to ride shotgun and fend off cops for a jewelry thief, our look at the map and missions suggest that Saints Row may be a fairly boilerplate open-world game.

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Everything can be customized in the new Saints Row game
Vehicles in Saints Row.

Whereas previous Saints Row games have let players dress up their character however they wanted, the franchise's upcoming reboot title will take that feature a step further. Saints Row gives players even more control over their boss's looks, as well as the final say on how their guns, vehicles, and even gang appear throughout the game.

In a lengthy showcase, Saints Row developer Volition detailed the game's deep customization systems. It all starts with the new boss of the Saints, whom players can make into anyone they want. Customization starts at what has been available in previous games in the franchise -- yes, including crotch and breast sliders -- and then some. If players want, they can make a true-to-life Shrek, or they can create a boss fitted with running blade prosthetics and pearlescent skin. Every part of the body can be customized, and when it comes to facial features, things don't have to be symmetrical either. Players can have their boss look like a veritable Picasso painting if they want.

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