4 Reasons Why The Saints Row Reboot is a Good Thing

Saints Row has been announced to the masses during gamescom 2021, and while the excitement was palpable, so was the upset. No more Stilwater or Steelport, goodbye Johnny Gat and Shaundi… But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Yes, I would have loved to have a fifth entry in the saga that was “crack house to White House to Ruler of Hell”, but we’re not getting that. We’re getting a reboot, so there’s no use whining about it - we’re getting a new Saints Row game! Rejoice!

New Locations

We’ve seen Stilwater twice, and Steelport twice, so honestly that’s done to death. Both towns were in the American North West, so setting Saints Row much further south opens up a ton of potential. Sequels won’t even have to remain local, they can branch out to other cities but keep a similar make-up. Unless Santo Ileso is amazing, of course.

A Return to Normalcy

Saints Row IV starts with you becoming the President of the United States of America, and ends with you becoming the ruler of the galaxy. Literally the only thing that Volition could do to top that was to take on Satan! Then where do you go from there?! People wanted time travel, but that’s definitely a step back from taking on an alien overlord. Volition saw that the series had to return to its roots, so a total reboot does that without collateral damage of minimising existing characters. And hey, at least it wasn’t all a dream.

New Characters to Love

Johnny Gat is one of my favourite characters in gaming. Heck, maybe even my favourite fictional character. Daniel Dae Kim is a fantastic actor whose portrayal of Gat is my personal definition of cool. But it’s time for new actors to portray new characters for me to love and adore! Just from the cinematic trailer, I can already tell that Kevin is going to be a highlight. Neenah isn’t Shaundi, but she’s Neenah and I’m excited to discover what that means. Eli may actually be the first smart character who is an original Saint, instead of an add-on who got fired from the FBI! There was nothing wrong with Kinzie, but the original Saints got super lucky with their decision making before the events of Saints Row: The Third…

Bring Back Fuzz

Since the original Saints were celebrities, it didn’t really make sense for them to star in the reality TV show Fuzz. In Saints Row 2, you pose as a police officer to beat down criminals for TV ratings, and I missed that in the following games. Again, in-universe they had an excuse to not let the leader of the Saints pretend to be a cop, which was fine back when they were an unknown gangbanger. Since The Boss in Saints Row will be an unknown gangbanger, bring back the Fuzz!

So if you’re hating on the reboot, just relax! For one thing, Volition is behind this game, and they always make fun games. For another thing, Volition created the original series, so who else knows what’s best for the Saints?