When one thinks of the well-respected open-world franchises, many come to mind, including the zany and cartoonish Saints Row franchise. While the series has been dormant for a while, with the exception of a Switch port of Saints Row: The Third, series developer Volition announced that a new Saints Row game is in “deep in development.”
Publisher THQ Nordic dropped the news in an interim financial report. They call the game a “first full entry” into the Saints Row franchise. No further details have been shared regarding the status of the development. However, fans of the series will certainly be pleased with the news because it has been years since a new Saints game was released. The previous game, Saints Row IV, came out all the way back in August of 2013. Afterward, there was an expansion called Gat out of Hell but that came out at the start of 2015.
The focus Volition had on Saints Row switched to Agents of Mayhem, which is a game set in the Saints Row universe but isn’t connected to the series. According to Steam, the reception of Agents of Mayhem was largely mixed, with players either loving it or hating it. The game only received a score of 62 on Metacritic, which is lower than all of the Saints Row games, including the expansion. Considering all of this, it comes as no surprise that the company will set its sights back on Saints Row.
The report also gave some details about more upcoming projects. For instance, the publisher has assigned Dambuster Studios to work on the development for Dead Island 2. A TimeSplitters game could also be in the works since the Deep Silver studio was able to snag the IP. The series' co-creator, Steve Ellis, has also joined their team. Some confirmed titles announced at E3 are SpongeBob – Battle for Bikini Bottom, Destroy all Humans! and Darksiders Genesis. THQ Nordic noted that these were all very well-received.
As mentioned earlier, there isn't a large amount of available information on the specifics of the upcoming entry to the Saints Row series. There’s no telling when we’ll hear more, but the news announcement itself does suggest that it’s possible we may be getting some details soon.