Quick answer: The 2022 Saints Row reboot launched broken and reviewed badly, scoring between 61 and 68 when every previous game in the series managed 81 to 86. Volition then spent a year fixing it, shipping over 200 bug fixes in one update and a free new district in another. By the time it was genuinely good, it was too late: Embracer shut Volition down in August 2023 after thirty years. Buy it cheap today and you get the fixed version. Just know what you're buying.
Original illustration created for IGGG Guides.
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There are two Saints Row reboots. One is the game that shipped on 23 August 2022, which was genuinely in poor shape, and which almost every review you'll find online describes. The other is the game as it stands now, after a year of patches, a free district and three expansions.
The sad part is that by the time the second version existed, the studio that built it was weeks from being closed.
How badly it reviewed, in context
| Game | Year | Metacritic |
|---|---|---|
| Saints Row | 2006 | 81 |
| Saints Row 2 | 2008 | 81 to 82 on console |
| Saints Row: The Third | 2011 | 84 |
| Saints Row IV | 2013 | 86 on PC |
| Saints Row (reboot) | 2022 | 61 to 68 |
A note on that range. Reported figures for the reboot vary between 61 and 68 depending on platform and on which Metacritic page you read, since aggregates shift as reviews are added. PS5 sits lowest, Xbox Series and PC higher. A range is the honest answer, and the gap to the rest of the series holds whichever end you take.
Individual reviews split further than the average suggests. The Washington Post called it "barely playable". VGC's verdict was a "buggy, dull mess". VideoGamer gave it 4 out of 10, IGN and GameSpot both 6. And yet Game Informer gave it 8.5 and Destructoid gave it 8, which is a spread you rarely see on one game.
That spread is explained almost entirely by bugs. Reviewers who hit the worst of them described something broken. Reviewers who didn't described a decent, silly open-world shooter. Both were playing the same build and both were telling the truth about their own experience. We ran into the same measurement problem from a different angle in our Terminator: Resistance review.
What Volition fixed afterwards
Original illustration created for IGGG Guides.
| Update | When | Cost | What it did |
|---|---|---|---|
| "The Bright Future" | Nov 2022 | Free | Over 200 bug fixes and stability work. Fixed co-op, mission and subtitle sync problems. Added PS5 DualSense support, a voice pitch slider, seven new garages and 50+ vehicle save slots |
| The Heist and the Hazardous | 2023 | Paid | First expansion. Widely considered the weakest and very short |
| Doc Ketchum's Murder Circus | 2023 | Paid | Second expansion |
| "Dustfaire" update | Aug 2023 | Free | A whole new district, Vallejo, plus new activities, better clothing layering, challenge tracking, trophy and achievement fixes, and the ability to save with cheats on |
| A Song of Ice and Dust | 8 Aug 2023 | Paid | Third and final expansion. Five missions, a new faction, four vehicles. The best of the three, though still only about two hours |
Giving away an entire new district for free, a year after a bad launch, is not the behaviour of a studio that had given up. Note what is missing from that list too: no battle pass, no currency, no store. For all its problems this is a game that sells you a box and three expansions and then stops asking.
Then the studio was closed
Original illustration created for IGGG Guides.
Three weeks after that final expansion shipped, on 31 August 2023, Embracer Group closed Volition effective immediately. The studio had existed for thirty years, starting as Parallax Software in 1993, creating Descent, FreeSpace, Red Faction and Saints Row along the way. It had celebrated its anniversary two months earlier. Around 340 people were affected.
The immediate cause was not really this game. Embracer's two billion dollar funding deal collapsed in mid-2023 and the restructuring that followed cut thousands of jobs and dozens of studios. Volition was among the first well-known casualties. The reboot's performance made it an easy one to choose.
On sales, be careful with the numbers. Embracer said pre-orders beat expectations and the game topped the UK physical chart in week one, then fell 80 percent in week two. It passed a million players by October 2022. A former Volition community manager later stated publicly that it sold around 1.7 million, which would make it the lowest-selling mainline Saints Row, against 5.5 million for The Third. That figure is a former employee's claim rather than a publisher confirmation, and the frequently cited hundred million dollar budget is a report, not a disclosure. Treat both as indicative. The broader pattern is not in doubt, and we traced it across the industry in why big budget games stopped being fun.
Is the game itself any good?
In its current state, yes, with qualifications.
The combat is the strongest part. Gunplay is punchy, and a Doom-style system where brutal takedowns restore health keeps fights moving forward instead of pushing you into cover. Unlockable skills genuinely swing difficult encounters. The driving is arcadey and satisfying.
The character creator is excellent and still among the most flexible in any open-world game. You can rebuild your Boss at any point in the campaign, and the game is built around that character being the star.
Co-op deserves more credit than it usually gets. The full campaign is playable online with a second player, and progress carries both ways between co-op and your solo save, so nothing is wasted. It's the best way to grind through the busywork.
And the map is overstuffed in the old-fashioned way, so many icons that the interface eventually moves some of them to a separate tab. Criminal ventures are the main income source and therefore effectively mandatory, and some of them, hauling containers in particular, are filler. The story moves too fast through its own beats, and the supporting cast plays things straighter than the tone around them. Visually it looks last generation, and on PS5 you pick between a locked 60fps at a soft 1080p, 1440p at an unstable 60, or 4K at 30.
Buy, wait or skip
| You are | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Playing with a friend | Buy on sale | Full campaign co-op with shared progress. This is the version of the game that works best |
| You bounced off it in 2022 | Reconsider | Over 200 fixes plus a free district landed after you left |
| A fan of The Third or IV | Lower your expectations | The tone is tamer and the writing weaker. It is not the sequel you wanted |
| New to open-world crime games | Start elsewhere | Plenty of better options at the same price |
| Tempted by the Expansion Pass | Only if bundled | Three short expansions. Only the last one is genuinely good |
| Hoping for a sequel | Don't | The studio no longer exists. The rights sit with Plaion and nothing is confirmed |
Where to get it, and what comes next
It's on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. On PC it was an Epic Games Store exclusive for a full year before arriving on Steam on 24 August 2023, so both stores carry it now. It also appeared as a free PlayStation Plus title in September 2023, so check your library before paying. Discounts run deep and often, with 67 percent off and more appearing regularly, and the Gold and Notorious editions bundle the Expansion Pass.
As for the series, the IP moved to Plaion after Volition closed. In late 2025 Chris Stockman, design director on the original Saints Row, said publicly that he had been asked to pitch a prequel. A pitch is not a game, and plenty never get past that stage, but it's the only sign of life the franchise has shown. If you want something in the same space that is still being supported, The Division 2 has had seven years of updates and counting.
Verdict
Worth playing cheap, especially in co-op, and not the disaster its reviews suggest any more. The combat is good, the character creator is excellent, and the version on sale today is a long way from the one that shipped. It is also the weakest Saints Row by a wide margin, with filler activities, a rushed story and a tone that never commits. Volition fixed almost everything they could and were closed anyway. Assessed against the final patched build including the Dustfaire update.
Frequently asked questions
Is Saints Row still buggy?
Far less than at launch. The November 2022 "Bright Future" update shipped over 200 bug fixes along with co-op, mission and stability repairs, and further updates ran through August 2023. Reviews calling it barely playable describe the launch build.
Why did it review so badly?
Three reasons: a very large number of launch bugs, writing and characters that disappointed fans of the earlier games, and open-world design that felt a generation out of date. It landed between 61 and 68 against 81 to 86 for every previous entry.
Does it have co-op?
Yes, the entire campaign online with two players, and progress carries between your co-op session and your single-player save in both directions.
What happened to Volition?
Embracer Group closed the studio on 31 August 2023, effective immediately, as part of restructuring that followed a collapsed two billion dollar funding deal. Volition had operated for thirty years. Saints Row was its last game.
Is the Expansion Pass worth buying?
Only if it comes bundled cheaply. The three expansions are all short, the first is the weakest, and only A Song of Ice and Dust from August 2023 is genuinely recommended. The substantial free content, including the Vallejo district, needs no purchase.
Will there be another Saints Row?
Nothing is confirmed. The rights sit with Plaion. In late 2025 the original game's design director said he had been asked to pitch a prequel, but a pitch is a long way from a release.
How long is it?
Roughly 20 to 25 hours for the story, considerably more if you work through the criminal ventures and side activities, which the game nudges you toward since they fund your progression.
Where to go next
- Destroy All Humans! 2 – Reprobed, another open-world comedy that scored below its own predecessor
- The Division 2, the game that was nearly cancelled and got seven years instead
- Terminator: Resistance, where critics and players reached opposite conclusions
- How big open world maps really are, measured properly
- Why studios keep closing after a single underperforming game
- What is actually worth playing right now
- Browse more Open World, Action and Multiplayer guides
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