Review: Saints Row: The Third Remastered is a Crude and Lewd Time Capsule

Do you ever have those moments when you suddenly remember a time you did or said something incredibly stupid as a kid? You’re not quite sure why this memory reemerged, but the embarrassment stings all the same. If someone were able to convert that phenomenon into a video game, it would probably be Saints Row: The Third Remastered. 

This remastered game is by no means a bad video game, but it is undeniably ridiculous. Of course much of it is by its 2011 design, but a lot of the absurdity from this enhanced port results from the content trying to hold its own in 2020. Having one of the main selling points being that the gameplay and themes are identical to its original release is a strange one—something that holds it back.

Even so, Saints Row: The Third is still a milestone—not just for the series, but for humor in video games in general. It is an odd title to look back at almost ten years later, and although modern-day games are better off not emulating this juvenile humor anymore, perhaps this remaster can serve as a reference point to show how far games have come.

I still have very vivid recollections of playing 2008’s Saints Row 2 on the Xbox 360, and how much of a graphical and artistic leap The Third would be a few years later. Character models and faces were more expressive, animations were more realistic, and the series would finally use color. The first two games looked like dirt and gravel, while the third game was hard candy. Just as the Saints themselves were at their peak in The Third, so too were their game’s aesthetics.

Remastered, despite not reaching 60 frames-per-second on consoles, still certainly looks like the fresh coat of paint as advertised, with improved lighting standing out in particular. It may not look like a brand new game in 2020, but I did eventually begin to admire the improved textures and models on the cars and vehicles, especially after I realized that the current-gen port of Saints Row IV is lacking in those details. But as much as I hate to use the word “jank” in a professional context, even this remaster has a lot of it.

Sometimes my car would suddenly stop moving, only to completely disappear and reveal my floating, sitting player character. Many a time, dead enemies would be stuck and clipping through buildings or other pieces of geography. Combining those together were multiple instances where I hit an NPC while driving, who would then be stuck clipping through my moving car, waving their ragdoll noodle limbs around. It’s almost as if the glitches of the original game were preserved for the sake of humor, in a Goat Simulator-like fashion—what wasn’t funny, though, were the handful of times the game completely crashed on me.

Despite the game’s technical aspects still being quite dated at its core, the aforementioned graphical improvements are impressive enough. Watching the light during sunset reflect on my character’s glossy vehicle was a nice, unscripted moment that nostalgic remasters strive to create. But no graphical changes could hide the back that the story, and the jokes, in particular, are painfully dated. 

It won’t even take long to see what passed as har-har back then; the menu will remind you that the game’s horde mode (which also happens to be a very early 2010s gameplay trope) is named “Whored Mode.” “Whore” and “ho” are words frequently thrown around throughout the story, usually in a derogatory way. The character of Zimos, an aged pimp who can only speak with an auto-tune voice box (again, the early 2010s) is often the main offender.

At one point, Zimos will lead you into a mission that has your player character sold off as a sex slave, fighting their way out of a brothel while completely buck naked. Another Zimos mission will have the player saving “hos” from a boat, freeing them from imprisonment in crates; it’s extraordinarily dark when you think about it, but of course, the game plays this—and sex work in general—for laughs.

Zimos is attempting to meddle with the prostitution business of rival gang Morningstar, which frequently comes under scrutiny by the Saints. They’ll throw the usual monikers of “whore” and other related insults to Morningstar turncoat Viola DeWynter, who is voiced by then-adult star Sasha Grey. At one point, she becomes fed up with Pierce’s insults, owning the fact that she is into kink and shows no shame for it. 

It’s the one empowering moment in a game that uses the idea of sex being subversive and weird as its one big joke; “whores” are enemies in the horde mode, BDSM is unnatural, and men run around in gimp suits as a gag. Not that one would expect any more from a game that has a giant, floppy dildo as a weapon called “The Penetrator.”  

Saints Row: The Third Remastered was put together by Sperasoft, so I have every reason to believe that the original development team at Volition is working on a fifth installment to bounce back from their poorly-received Agents of Mayhem. The biggest question seems to be what a new Saints Row game in the 2020s would even look like.

I’d like to believe that societal attitudes towards sex and kink have evolved since then, and any new games in the series would be wise enough to not use memes and pop culture gags that would instantly date it (hearing “noob” and “epic fail” in Remastered was slightly painful). Humor has always been a difficult endeavor for video games and with all of its sins, there is still something to be admired in The Third’s new approach.

This game might be in the ranks of Bulletstorm, Duke Nukem Forever, and the earlier Borderlands games in depending on sophomoric humor—you know, the type of jokes that young teenagers would find “mature” and “edgy.” But seeing how straight-faced and self-important the open-world games from Rockstar are, the very attitude that Saints Row strives to mock, it was refreshing to see a game that took those gameplay elements and made them funny.

You can still hijack a car, but you can cartoonishly jump through the windshield and literally kick out the occupant. Rather than your character being so fragile, you can bounce and get ragdolled after being hit by oncoming vehicles. Simple melee attacks are now elaborate and extremely tongue-in-cheek animations. And yes, you can hit people in the nuts.

I want to see a fifth Saints Row that is aware of its checkered past with humor, a self-aware title that looks back at its own history and cringes. Something where despite the characters potentially being awful, the game signals to the players that they’re indeed that awful, a la It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. While Saints Row IV was a knock on superhero open-world games, perhaps a fifth game can mine comedy from the formulaic modern-day Ubisoft open-world games with all their goddamn towers.

Saints Row is the Fast & Furious or The Evil Dead of video games, constantly evolving into something dumber while remaining smart by being self-aware at how dumb it’s become. We may finally be ready for a smarter Saints Row—but I wouldn’t mind keeping the nut-punching in.

This game was reviewed on a PlayStation 4 with a code provided by the publisher.