When we write that Grand Theft Auto is the absolute king of the sandbox genre, we’re kicking in an open door. In the wake of King, other games have tried to copy the formula and get their share, usually without much success. Saints Row is an exception to this. Although the series of games from development studio Volition did not come close to the huge success of GTA, Saints Row managed to occupy its own place in the gaming world. Where GTA has been limited to fairly sensible storylines and settings, Saints Row – certainly in the later parts – is quite over the top. In the fourth part, you played a kind of superhero who had to fight against aliens on behalf of humanity, and in the Gat expansion of Hell, you ended up in the underworld of Hades.

Released in 2015, this expansion was also the last original content we saw from Saints Row. There have been reproductions of previously published parts, but that’s it. However, there is good news for fans of the series, because the period without new content is almost over. At the end of next month, Volition and publisher Deep Silver Saints Row will be releasing. In fact, the game does not carry any subtitle or number. So we are dealing with the so-called reboot: a new beginning for the series, as we have already seen many well-known game series. According to Volition, the game should be more like the first games in the series, when the focus was still on gang wars and not on later rarities.

Saints Row takes place in a whole new world with new characters, new factions and new stories. However, what does not change is that at some point the player becomes the leader of The Saints, the gang around which the series revolves. These saints have nothing to do with the saints from previous games, except that the name and logo are the same. In all of this, you are shaping your own lead character, with the freedom of choice to play as a man or as a woman. This Saints Row may be below the top from the last games in the first series, but that certainly doesn’t mean that this element is completely gone. You can have fun with hairstyles, tattoos and other things, so you can still create some very strange characters.

Of course we didn’t spend much time on that now. After all, if you have about four hours to play the beginning of Saints Row, it’s not smart to dive too deeply into the cosmetic part of your character. However, we did manage to tap into a cute character who can best be described as a “platinum blond metal god with a porn mustache.” Unfortunately, we cannot share our copy of “The Boss” with you, as we were unable to take any pictures ourselves while playing. Believe us when we say he would be a worthy gang leader. By the way, you can actually assemble your gang boss using a file Boss Factory for download. You will be able to import your own creations, or those of others, into the game if you wish, once you start playing it.