The ridiculous action of 2011’s third entry in the Saint’s Row franchise marked the moment the series truly took flight.

Breaking free of its Grand Theft Auto-inspired roots, Saint’s Row: The Third cranked the humour to 11, the carnage to 3,000, and delivered a fantastic high-octane experience.

Taking the misadventures of the gang and giving it a current-gen sheen, this remaster is nothing short of amazing.

Story

Set five years after the events of Saint’s Row 2, we join a gang gone global.

With reality shows, sneaker endorsement deals and even their own brand of soda, the 3rd Street Saints have become a household name.

A botched bank robbery sees them go fist-to-face against a shady organization known as ‘The Syndicate’, wrestling for control of all-new city Steelport.

Saint’s Row: The Third introduces a motley crew of new characters, rival gangs as well as much-loved mainstays (Shaundi!) as you gather your troops and take over the town.

Moral choice was the order of the day back then, so many missions have branching choices for how pivotal scenes play out…some with far-reaching impact.

Often surpassing expectations, it delivers crass antics, Michael Bay-besting set pieces and pathos in unexpected places to deliver a wild ride over its 15-odd hour playtime.

Gameplay

Open-world the way we like it, the sprawling metropolis is a joy to conquer throughout.

Most of your time is spent on foot, but the handling of various vehicles makes navigating the city second nature.

The introduction of the ‘awesome’ button makes every altercation entertaining, from performing wrestling suplexes to booting people from the cars, the overblown action never feels out of place.

Gunplay is a little stiff, but the sheer variety of weapons on offer – including the addition of the Genki items originally offered as DLC – are all present and correct.

Many quality-of-life improvements introduced in Saint Row before GTA – like a sat-nav and in-game smartphone – remain here, ensuring that you’re never far away from the ultra-violence.

A litany of side missions return – everything from insurance fraud to causing as much wanton destruction in a short time frame – to keep the world from becoming stale in between missions.

On that front, this three-quel brings back a leveling system – XP for your misdeeds adds to a ‘respect’ meter, acting as the gateway to new weapons, unlocks and additional members of your crew.

It’s not a limiter to progress for those looking to breeze through the story, but brings some welcome variety to playstyles and action if you wish to see all Steelport has to offer.

Graphics

Developer Sperasoft has brought all of 2020’s technical wizardry and brought it to bear on a classic, delivering visuals that put many remasters to shame.

From all-new lighting to effects on explosions, reflective surfaces, motion blur and the addition of HDR support, Saint’s Row Remastered wouldn’t look out of place in a current-gen showcase, with visuals that entirely disregard the fact this game is close to a decade old.

Removing the frame rate cap on the Xbox One X version tested also saw the title run at a silky 60 frames per second in most situations.

The rogue’s gallery of characters have even seen totally redesigned faces and animation, with Johnny Gat and the crew looking gorgeous throughout both cutscenes and gameplay.

Interestingly, elements like greater traffic density give a bump to the overall gameplay experience, making the city feel more alive and entertaining as opposed to a diorama of destruction.

It’s difficult to overstate just how impressive a revamp this game has been given!

Audio

Another notch in its belt was the series of radio stations that help fill out the world – nine here in total spanning all genres from hip-hop to electronic and classical. Not quite as cleverly crafted as in the other vehicular stealing game, they still provide a great soundscape for Steelport.

And yes, Kanye’s anthem ‘Power’ is still in the game for that level.

Weapons are still booming, the voiceover work is still top-notch and cringey at the right times (the auto-tuned vocals of Zimos continue to be hilarious), and cars are still aggressively noisy.

Sterling work all around.

Summary

Frankly, the game has no business looking this good.

Entirely enhanced visuals, married to the phenomenal soundtrack and fun, outlandish gameplay we fondly remember – with all the DLC – makes this an unmissable package.

Hurled onto modern hardware, Saint’s Row The Third: Remastered is simply unbridled carnage living its best life.

If it means folks are setting the stage for a Saint’s Row V – despite Volition’s public distancing from work on this masterful remaster – we are ready.

Available now on Xbox, PC and PS4. Review code supplied by publisher.

Byron Simpson

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