Saints Row – The Third

Saints Row: The Third is a 2011 action-adventure game developed by Volition and published by THQ. It is the sequel to 2008’s Saints Row 2 and the third installment in the Saints Row series. It was released on November 15, 2011 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, and May 10, 2019 for the Nintendo Switch. The game is set in the fictional city of Steelport, and continues the story of the 3rd Street Saints, once again putting players in the role of the gang’s leader, who is fully customizable.

Description

Saints Row: The Third is an action-adventure game played from the third-person perspective in an open world, such that players explore an unrestricted environment. Similar to the premise of the previous Saints Row games, the player’s goal is to lead the Third Street Saints gang to overtake its rival gangs in the city turf war. While the protagonist is the same, the game introduces a new setting, the city of Steelport, with its own three gangs: the Morningstar, Luchadores, and Deckers, together known as the Syndicate. To further complicate matters, the government’s Special Tactical Anti-Gang unit (STAG) is summoned to quell both organizations.

The Third is the first in the series to intertwine the narratives of its three-gang structures, and presents the player with story-altering decisions. The series has been considered a clone of Grand Theft Auto that later positioned itself as more “gleefully silly” in comparison. In combat, players select weapons from a weapon selection wheel, including pistols, submachine guns, shotguns, and rocket launchers alongside special weapons such as UAV drones and a fart-in-a-jar stun grenade. Player melee attacks include running attacks such as DDTs and a purple dildo bat. Players may use vehicles to navigate the city, including a hover jet (known as the F-69 VTOL) and a pixelated retrogame tank that are unlocked through story missions.

Once special vehicles are unlocked, they are in unlimited supply and can be delivered directly to the player-character’s location. Player actions are intensified with what Volition calls the “awesome button”, where for example the player will divekick through the windshield into the driver’s seat of a car. The main story campaign missions can be played alone, or cooperatively either online or via System Link offline. Some elements are added to the campaign for the second player. There is no competitive multiplayer, but a “wave-based survival mode” called Whored Mode that supports up to two players. Players customize their characters after the introductory mission.

Player-character bodies, dress, and vehicles can be customized, as well as home properties. Players can additionally share their character designs in a Saints Row online community. Apart from the main story missions, there are optional diversions to make money and earn reputation, such as Insurance Fraud, where players hurt themselves in traffic to maximize self-injury before a timer expires, or Mayhem, where players maximize property destruction before a time expires. Some of these diversions were introduced in previous Saints Row games. Activities serve the plot and are positioned as training the player-character or damaging the Syndicate. They can also be repeated.

Outside of structured diversions, players are free to make their own fun by purchasing property, shopping for items, finding hidden sex doll and money cache collectibles, and wreaking unsolicited havoc. There are also “flashpoint” gang operations that grant respect when disrupted. Attacking others increases the player’s notoriety level, as depicted with stars. Three years after the events of Saints Row 2, the 3rd Street Saints have merged with the Ultor Corporation to become a media and consumer empire with their own brand. While robbing a bank in Stilwater to promote an upcoming film about themselves.

The Boss (Troy Baker, Kenn Michael, Robin Atkin Downes, Laura Bailey, Tara Platt, Rebecca Sanabria or Steve Blum) and the Saints’ top lieutenants, Shaundi (Danielle Nicolet) and Johnny Gat (Daniel Dae Kim), encounter unanticipated resistance on the job, which ultimately leads to them being arrested. The group are bailed out by Phillipe Loren (Jacques Hennequet), head of an international criminal enterprise called “the Syndicate” that owned the bank they robbed, and held as captives aboard his jumbo jet. After refusing Loren’s deal to give him most of their profits in exchange for their lives, the Saints stage a breakout, though Gat is forced to sacrifice himself to allow the Boss and Shaundi to escape.

In response to the incident, Loren orders the Syndicate to attack the Saints, and ensure that their empire is destroyed. Shaundi and the Boss land in the city of Steelport, firmly ruled over by the Syndicate’s three main divisions: the Morningstar, a sophisticated gang led by Loren and his lieutenants, sisters Viola (Sasha Grey) and Kiki DeWynter (Megan Hollingshead), who dominate the gun and sex trades; the Deckers, a hacker gang led by Matt Miller (Yuri Lowenthal), who dominate the city’s cyber black-market; and the Luchadores, a Mexican wrestler-themed gang led by Eddie “Killbane” Pryor (Rick D. Wasserman), who operate their own casino and deal steroids.

After Saints lieutenant Pierce Washington (Arif S. Kinchen) arrives with backup, the Saints secure a hideout, and go after Loren’s operations, ultimately killing him in his own skyscraper. In the process, they rescue Oleg Kirrlov (Mark Allen Stuart), a former KGB agent being forcefully cloned to provide super-soldiers for the Syndicate, who helps them to track down other allies: ex-FBI agent Kinzie Kensington (Natalie Lander), who seeks to disrupt the Deckers; veteran pimp Zimos (Alex Désert), who lost his business to the Morningstar; and Angel de la Muerte (Hulk Hogan), Killbane’s embittered former wrestling partner.