Review: Saints Row IV: Gat Out of Hell

Known to have no boundaries in term of obnoxious craziness, the Saints Row series dropped their fourth episode last year, breaking all kinds of expectation. As players and critics have welcomed the original title at a time where GTAV was nowhere to be found, Volition were preparing for a new add-on: Gat Out of Hell. The studio’s publishers – Deep Silver – later decided to focus on next gen, and thus Saints Row IV got remade for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, bundled with Gat Out of Hell.

As is often the case with such projects, Saints Row IV: Re-Elected & Gat Out Of Hell is a simple remastering for current generation consoles. The latter is accompanied by all the original DLC and expansions to date, as well as obviously Gat Out of Hell. This remastering obviously eludes to a technical evolution, but in this case, the work on Grand Theft Auto V puts it to shame.

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This version is logically the best output so far on consoles. But these improvements, such as better depth of field or increase in resolution, do not open the fountain a youth for this 2013 game. Especially, as Volition did not bother to correct certain bugs from the original version: aliasing, screen tearing, etc. In addition, some bugs that made the reputation of the series are still there: Enemies that merge with a wall, lips moving out of sync, and much more. That said, the Saints Row franchise has never been a renowned series for its technical qualities. Limitations have not prevented the game to be fun and Saints Row IV Re-Elected is still a blast.

Now no need to dwell on the plot of Saints Row IV, more than a year and a half after its release, the humor and the absurd story of the game are still amusing. One aspect of this re-release I was more interested in was Gat Out of Hell, a new standalone expansion (which doesn’t Saints Row IV base game) included when you buy Saints Row IV Re-Elected. As with all illogical story plots, Johnny Gat anr Kinzie Kensington are sent to hell (a place that looks suspiciously like the city of Saints Row IV) in order to save the Saints boss.

The gangster, historical heroes of the series, has been kidnapped by Santa because he wants him to marry his daughter Jezebel. Even if this synopsis shows that the offbeat side of the license is still there, it is clear that Gat Out of Hell is the least inspired in comparison to what Volition writers have proposed so far. Despite some good ideas as a Broadway-styled musical sequence or the presence of William Shakespeare in charge of hell’s nightclub, the game gives a sort of impression that the studio’s writers have run out of ideas.

If we add to that to the fact that the main campaign of this standalone application will take you about five hours to be finished, players who are returning to Saints Row IV from 2013 don’t have enough reason to dive back in this re-release version. For others, the conclusion is different: newcomers won’t be wrong to pick one of the funniest experiences that came from the previous generation.

Saints Row IV: Re-Elected & Gat Out of Hell was reviewed using an Xbox One copy of the game purchased by the reviewer. The game is also available on PlayStation 4. The original title is available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published.