Best Saints Row Games

On August 31, 2023, the Embracer Group shut down Volition, the game studio behind Descent, Red Faction, the Summoner games, and, most famously, the Saints Row series. It’s a rough time, as the workers have pointed out the significance of their shutdown date (e.g., no medical insurance for September). With luck, they'll be able to bounce back elsewhere. But the original Volition studio is now no more.

The rights to Saints Row will likely go to Deep Silver who, depending on their whims, may bring the series back via another developer, or lock it in the vault for years to come. Whatever happens, people can still track down the main games and give them a spin (for now). But which ones are the best of the bunch? Which is the best Saints Row game?

Updated March 18, 2024 by Dave Heath: All's been quiet on the Saints Row front, and will likely remain so for a good while. Yet the closure of its original developers, Volition, still lingers fresh. That's in part because the Embracer Group shut down six other studios within the same 6-month time frame as Volition, laying off 1,300 employees and canceling 29 games in development.

The industry in general is suffering from a mismatch where games are recording high profits, but the CEOs and executives are still laying off workers and shutting down developers en masse. As good as recent years have been to play games, it's been a bad one for those making them. So, this list has been updated with some of Saints Row's lesser-known entries and canceled games, and a little tweaking and reordering here and there to the classic entries to effectively rank the best Saints Row games.

8 Mobile Games, Flash Games, and Unreleased Projects

Metascore: N/A

• Developers:
  • Mnemonic Studio Ltd (Saints Row Mobile)
  • G5 Entertainment (Saints Row Mobile 2)
  • Punch Entertainment (Saints Row: Total Control)
  • THQ Digital Phoenix (SR: Money Shot)
  • Mass Media Games, Savage Entertainment (Saints Row: Undercover)
  • Heavy Iron (Saints Row: The Cooler)

• Platforms:
  • Nintendo 3DS, PS3, Xbox 360 (SR: Money Shot)
  • PlayStation Move, Xbox Kinect (Saints Row: The Cooler)
  • PSP (SR: Undercover)
  • Java Mobile Phones (Saints Row Mobile 1 & 2
  • Facebook (Saints Row: Total Control).

• Release: N/A

Saints Row caught on as an alternative option to Grand Theft Auto. The series encouraged creativity with its customizable Playa/Boss, and stuck to the gangland drama and yuks when their Scottish-made rivals tried telling serious stories. Within that they built a keen fanbase, which the original publishers, THQ, thought would like to see in other markets and forms. For example, they tried entering the mobile gaming scene with Saints Row Mobile 1 and 2, where developers Mnemonic Studio and G5 Entertainment tried condensing the series into a Java-enabled phone.

The results looked surprisingly like the original GTA on the PS1. It was a 2D, top-down affair, but more zoomed-in to accommodate old phone screens. Fans could probably get it to run on a Java emulator, but there's little reason to do so beyond nostalgia for the pre-smartphone days. Punch Entertainment's Saints Row: Total Control would do the same for people who remember Facebook's Flash games, as it saw the player reclaim Stilwater by clicking on buildings and rival gangsters. The game was removed from the site in 2011 and is now inaccessible.

Ironically, it's easier to play SR's canceled games, as their prototypes have been leaked over the years. Saints Row: Money Shot would have seen players play as Cypher, Ultor's best assassin. They would have guided her sniper bullets in and around obstacles to catch their targets (including SR1's Dex). If they picked the right bullets for the right missions, and carried out mid-mission objectives, they'd earn extra points. It also would' have unlocked rewards in SR3, but after its cancelation they were made part of its Moneyshot Pack DLC.

More intriguingly, Saints Row: Undercover would have been a PSP spin-off from SR2. An undercover cop working for Chief of Police, Troy Bradshaw, would join the Saints in order to stop a civil war within the gang from spilling over into the rest of Stilwater. It would have offered the same open-world crime spree gameplay of the main series, but in handheld form. After inheriting the project from Mass Media Games, Savage Entertainment managed to make a prototype. Sadly, those at Volition weren't pleased with it, leading to the project's shutdown.

Lastly, Saints Row: The Cooler was going to be a brawler set within the SR universe, with support for the Xbox Kinect and PlayStation Move. It would have seen the titular Cooler go into grimy locations like slaughterhouses and prisons to defuse situations with his fists. Employees from the developer, Heavy Iron, compared it to The Fight: Lights Out in terms of gameplay, and it ws judged to be 60% complete when it was canceled. Its assets and tech were reused to make UFC Personal Trainer: The Ultimate Fitness System.

7 Saints Row 2022

Metascore: 61

While Volition’s shutdown is sad, it wasn’t out of the blue. Some people, including those at the studio, mentioned that their position was precarious. Following THQ's fall and their shift to Plaion and later the Embracer Group, they needed a big success to make their future more secure to their figurative overlords. Agents of Mayhem couldn’t get the job done after its lacking critical response, so hope was riding high on a new take on Saints Row.

The Saints Row 2022 reboot was meant to be a more up-to-date take on the series. It was lighter and brighter, with less 2000s-era humor and more up-to-date gags. That was the intention, anyway. The results didn't work in the studio's favor. In addition to the glitches, dull activities, and wonky fast travel, the new Boss and their gang were less appealing than the originals. The worst glitches were patched out, but they couldn't change the new gang from being bland Gen Z stereotypes. It's a sad note for Volition to go out on.

6 Agents of Mayhem

Metascore: 62

It's technically not part of the main series, yet Agents of Mayhem does tie into Saints Row beyond sharing a developer. The game follows the 'Recreate the Earth' ending from Gat Out of Hell, where Persephone Brimstone's MAYHEM organization, complete with the Saints' logo, takes on the evil LEGION group in Seoul, "the city of tomorrow". It even brought back SR2's Pierce, and SR3's Kinzie and Oleg under aliases, plus Gat as himself.

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The game was still open-world, but it was now a third-person shooter inspired by Saturday morning cartoons. Possibly Overwatch too, as each playable character had their own weapons layout and tactics to use in brighter, more cartoony locations than either SR1 & 2's Stilwater or SR3 & 4's Steelport. Some fans and critics felt it had potential if it had the chance to develop, comparing it to SR1. But SR1 wasn't considered as buggy or grind-heavy as Agents of Mayhem was. Thus, it wasn't a success, further adding to Volition's woes.

5 Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell

Metascore: 64

There is debate on whether the multi-year AAA game development cycles are sustainable, and if there should be more games that are low on budget but high in creativity. It works for indie games, but bigger studios are prone to producing games that would have been better off as DLC. For example, Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell, where the series’ chad Johnny Gat and Kinzie dive into hell to save the Boss.

It had a new map with new weapons, activities, and some familiar faces from the games’ past. But it was just Saints Row 4 without customizable characters and more hit-or-miss yuks (Gat sings!). Fans of SR4's wackiness would have enjoyed it enough as essentially an extra DLC campaign for that game. Fans who preferred the classic gangland violence of the old games would still hate it, and new players wouldn't get much out of it unless they knew Johnny Gat from elsewhere, like Divekick.

4 Saints Row

Metascore: 81

It’s the game that started the whole series, as the Playa is taken in by the Third Street Saints to help them stand up against their rivals. Being the first Saints Row game, it had the most room for improvement. Some of its controls and activities feel wonky compared to the sequels (e.g. Tracking down hits in the Hitman activity), and the Playa's customizable options are limited as they're male only and mute. It was also an Xbox 360 exclusive, so unless it gets its own remaster some day, only those with Microsoft machines can play it.

Yet it still holds plenty of charm. It was criticized for being a Grand Theft Auto clone at the time, made to satisfy fans until GTA 4 came out. But its serious elements are refreshing to go back to after more than a decade of wackiness. The storylines, gags, gang perks (such as wearing Saints colors to get an XP boost), and the city of Stilwater itself all hit a sweet spot that SR3’s suspiciously shaped bats can’t reach.

3 Saints Row: The Third

Metascore: 84 (original), 74 (Remastered)

Whether Saints Row: The Third or its sequel stands ahead of the other depends more on the gamer’s taste in the end, as they’re otherwise too similar. They use the exact same maps, graphics, and assets for the most part. Yet, SR3 came first and sticks to the classic formula of taking over the city from rival gangs with the right cars and firepower. For many, that's enough to put it ahead of its sillier successor, but it had some flaws. Many of which are still in its Remastered upgrade.

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It was a graphical and gameplay upgrade over SR2, but a content down-grade. There were fewer customizable options, no mini-games, and fewer activities spread more thinly across the duller, more generic Steelport. To make up for this, Volition leaned more heavily into the wackiness. Murder-themed game shows! Shark guns! Luchadors! Partners with bad AI! It's still a fun, functional game, but it's like a stick of gum: it loses its flavor all too soon.

2 Saints Row 4

Metascore: 86

Saints Row 4 was originally going to be a DLC chapter for SR3, called "Enter the Dominatrix." But with Volition's original publisher, THQ, crumbling and time for a new game pressing, the developers expanded into a new entry about the Saints fighting aliens in both cyberspace and literal space. It essentially reused everything from SR3, but gave the Boss (or "President" this time) superpowers they could upgrade over the course of the game.

This shift from being a GTA-like game to a Crackdown-esque one spun the series further down the goofy spiral, and it was even buggier than SR3, crashing if the player so much as looked at the screen wrong. However, the activities had more variety, the superpowers were fun to experiment with, and it had some nice callbacks to the prior games. Yet aside from a few missions here and there, the game lost the series' urban charm.

1 Saints Row 2

Metascore: 81

Ultimately, it's clear which game is the most beloved among the series' fans. While Saints Row 2 still has some jank from the first game (like shooting from vehicles, etc.), it hits that sweet spot between serious drama and crazy hi-jinks. When some players found GTA 4 too dour, SR2 was there to provide something more wild. It had sewage attacks on pimps and hos, chopper attacks on marijuana farms, and more creative options than before.

Players could make the Boss a man, woman, or anything in between and beyond, complete with voice options for the first time. There were more mini-games and activities which, if completed fully, gave the Boss upgrades. It resembled SR1 enough with the Stilwater setting, controls, graphics, etc., but it refined enough features to make it a good jumping-on point for fans without 360s. If the series does make a comeback, it should follow SR2's template.

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