We’ve seen the new Saints Row in action. Deep Silver invited us to a hands-off demo of the reboot of their open-world criminal empire series, which promises to be a grounded reboot of the over-the-top gang simulator. 

Grounding Saints Row is a tricky thing to pull off. It’s a series where you were quite often nowhere near the ground, figuratively and literally. In the last full game, 2013’s Saints Row IV,  you were the President of the United States fighting off an alien invasion and capable of leaping skyscrapers. A stand-alone expansion that followed was set in Hell. 

It’s been seven years since 2015’s Saints Row: Gat out of Hell, which is enough time for developers Volition to take the series offline and back to its roots. The new Saints Row is filled with characters and stories that you can relate to in a contemporary open world inspired by the U.S. Southwest. Back to reality, where the Saints take on rival gangs to own the city of Santo Ileso, not aliens. 

But it’s also still capable of sublime absurdity, even in the midst of all-out gang warfare gameplay. Here’s what we learned. 

The Saints start from the bottom

At the start of the game, the Saints are not big-time criminals; they're just four roommates looking for a score. The opening mission, called “Making Rent,” is a small-scale heist against a scuzzy payday loan shop to pay the rent. They walk in, point guns, and leave with cash. But there’s also a trademark joke in there: the safe is unlocked by your gang mate hammering “5” on the keypad over and over.

Growth comes by taking on the three rival gangs of Santo Ileso, who are the most consistent threat during the demo. The police show up when you make enough noise, such as robbing a payday loan shop. The Saints flee, and we get to see an early example of the new driving model. It lets you sideswipe pursuit vehicles like a champion boxer aiming a right hook, sending them exploding into the air.

But it’s the gangs that hold the city, and you’ll be fighting them to build your empire. 

Take power from rival gangs

There are a number of confrontations with rival gangs in the hands-off demo. As well as popping up during the first mission in a gun battle, enemy faction, the Panteros, are a target for a main-story assault shortly after. One that shows this new Saints Row can still revel in absurdity. 

The plan is to wreck the gang’s HQ, which also serves as a forge to craft all their gear, so wiping it out will keep them at bay. To do that, the Saints commandeer a tourist helicopter that happens to come with rockets and a minigun. Only in Saints Row would a tourist attraction be fully loaded, and it’s quickly unloaded, explosively, into the Panteros’ members on their lunch break. 

You can dial up the phone and change your character's skills and perks at any time. “Pineapple Express” will let players grab a nearby enemy, drop a grenade into their pants, and throw them. Perks are passive and let you boost your sneaking skills or be more fire-resistant for as long as they’re selected. Those particular upgrades make the Panteros battle a lot easier. Each gang has a unique style, and the Panteros prefer close-up battles and rush the player, leaving them in a perfect position to be explosively pantsed. Player characters have dodge rolls and kicks that give plenty of movement and crowd control options, so even though there’s a lot of shooting, there are more than enough melee skills and secondary powers to let you express yourself. 

The Panteros’ HQ is destroyed by the player dropping explosives into a monster truck and driving it into the forge. In a series where you ride on the side of a missile while Aerosmith’s “I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing” plays, that counts as grounded. 

Saints Row's customization is everywhere

Let’s say you’re running around the Vegasy drag of El Dorado, one of the cities that make up the game world, and you decide your distressed jeans and purple hoodie are passé. You can bring up the in-game phone and dial in a new look. As long as you have the clothing unlocked, you can go from a street thug to an armored schoolmarm look with the press of a button. Saved pre-sets make things swift and simple, but they don’t stop there. 

Your wardrobe is vast. You can build an asymmetrical boss of any gender profile you like. Each piece of clothing can be color-coordinated, each limb swapped out with a prosthetic that can be recolored or have the outer shell swapped. It’s a lot, and it allows players to build unique bosses. But it’s only the start. 

Guns can be restyled and modded, too. That shotgun not popping enough for you? You can change its material, its color, and add a decal. You can even swap the model out for something else, like an umbrella. Weaponry also has ammo options and upgradeable signature abilities, which can boost all kinds of power. The most basic they demonstrated turned the pistol into a machine gun. As your gang grows, so does your HQ, and it too can be customized. The old church’s faded facade can be restyled with ostentatious statues and wall hangings, adding a neon glow to the place of worship. 

Cars have a host of creative customizations. There are 80 base vehicles, from bikes to food trucks, and each has a number of paints and mods. It can be as simple as changing out paint jobs (from decals, to paint type, color, and glossiness) to incredibly complex mods: add a roof to the convertible sports car, swap out bumpers, redo the interior. Tires can be restyled and resized (to better show off your own choice of under-car lighting). 

You can even add an ejector seat. Why? Because that’s the best way to launch yourself into the air and engage your wingsuit. 
 

Saints' gameplay is still over the top

Wingsuiting is one of the main traversal options, and you can activate it by flying out of the car and catching some air. As you glide over the world, you can gain extra height by booping off the heads of wandering civilians, Mario style, and launching back into the air. 

A mission against a quasi-celebrity raver gang called The Idols begins with you dragging one of the gang members in a porta-potty through a vast camp of their followers. It's pure Jackass, and the poop-covered victim leads you to the Santo Ileso sign, prepped to explode with one of your friends strapped to it. It’s probably one of the few occasions where you don’t want something to explode. 
The Idols are treated to some of the Saints’ more advanced weaponry in response. There’s the Thrust Buster, an American football bomb that sticks to people and fires them into the air like a firework. There’s an exploding Pinata launcher. At one point, a Quantum Aperture is deployed, which lets you shoot through walls. 

Even something as simple as a saloon brawl starts out with some cowboy movie camera angles and ends up with the player throwing punches that are literally on fire. 
 

The War Table lets choose your own path

All this gang warfare has a purpose: to build the Saints into a force to be reckoned with. The game’s world is a huge chunk of the U.S. Southwest, with a number of cities and deserts supplanting the industrial Stilwater of previous games. It takes a lot of effort to take it all over. 

You’re free to make that happen from the War Table. The table is a new feature that sits in your HQ and lets you plan your expansion. From there, you can select one of several Criminal Ventures throughout the city, which are themed missions. It puts you into a battle for control of an area, letting you select the area and the type of mission that takes place in that spot.Choices include setting up a high-end clothing boutique, building a pirate radio station, boosting a gun-runner's profits, and a lot more. Of course, we get to see the gun-running mission. In it, you take control of a gun-running operation by live-streaming the merchandise’s explosive capabilities, You’re joined by a co-op buddy, who can come along for the ride at any time in the game. They arrive in a helicopter with a giant magnet attached and grab the player’s car. They could have biked, wingsuited, or car-surfed to meet up. But a magnetized chopper is pure Saints Row. The pair absolutely wreck a number of cars in an eyebrow singeing symphony of violence and gain a bigger foothold in the city. They also sold some more guns. 

Saints Row is out Aug. 23, 2022, exclusively on the Epic Games Store.