THQ Nordic, the company behind the Darksiders and de Blob re-releases, has bought Koch Media, owner of Saints Row and Dead Island publisher Deep Silver, in a deal worth 121m euro.
Saints Row 4
Volition's latest is dressed for excess, and won't disappoint fans of its particular brand of wilful stupidity.
Spotlight
Digital FoundryDigital Foundry vs Saints Row 4: Re-Elected on PS4
Take Gat and party.
VideoChristmas live streams and free games all day!
Indie games, Minecraft challenges and Saints Row 4 DLC, live from 3pm GMT, complete with fabulous prizes.
Saints Row 4: Enter The Dominatrix review
Tune in, strap on, cock out.
Digital FoundryFace-Off: Saints Row 4
Virtual insanity.
Key events
23rd November 2016
Saints Row 4 gets proper mod support three years after launch
22nd January 2016
18th January 2015
16th January 2015
Behold: Saints Row: Gat out of Hell's glorious launch... infomercial?
25th November 2013
22nd October 2013
10th October 2013
Saints Row 4 Enter the Dominatrix DLC release date announced
29th August 2013
24th August 2013
14th August 2013
15th March 2013
Jelly DealsJelly Deals: Get Saints Row 2 on PC for free at GOG.com for the next two days
Plus, 75% off other Deep Silver titles.
A note from the editor: Jelly Deals is a deals site launched by our parent company, Gamer Network, with a mission to find the best bargains out there. Look out for the Jelly Deals roundup of reduced-price games and kit every Saturday on Eurogamer.
Saints Row 4 gets proper mod support three years after launch
Better late than never.
Saints Row 4 finally has proper mod support - three years after it came out.
Developer Volition has added Steam Workshop support for Saints Row 4 on PC, which makes it a lot easier to create and install mods.
Expect to see plenty of new weapons, clothes and other user-generated madness available to add to the game. At the time of publication, one of the most popular mods is a flamethrower guitar, because Saints Row 4.
PlayStation Plus' July Instant Game Collection revealed
Furi! Saints Row: Gat Out Of Hell! Paragon!
Sony has unveiled its Instant Game Collection - i.e. PlayStation Plus freebies - for the month of July.
Saints Row 4 and Dead Space receive Xbox One backwards compatibility
Dead Space is also a Games with Gold offering for April.
Dead Space and Saints Row 4 are now backwards compatible on Xbox One.
Sunset Overdrive and Saints Row 4 headline April's Games With Gold
Also includes The Wolf Among Us and Dead Space.
April's Games with Gold - i.e. free games for Xbox Live Gold subscribers - has one of the service's best offering's yet.
Cancelled Saints Row PSP game unearthed
Canned Saints Row: Undercover to be live-streamed next week.
A cancelled Saints Row PSP game has been revealed.
Dubbed Saints Row: Undercover, the canned project was shuttered in 2009 when developer Volition and then-publisher THQ decided it wasn't up to scratch with the series' standards.
Amusingly, most folks at Volition these days didn't even know it existed. As explained in the video below, Volition associate video editor Josh Stinson simply happened upon the game laying in a wayward PSP dev kit tucked away in a storage room.
Digital FoundryDigital Foundry vs Saints Row 4: Re-Elected on PS4
Take Gat and party.
Released towards the end of the last-gen lifecycle, Saints Row 4 demonstrated how dated console hardware struggled to keep up with the technological demands of the latest triple-A titles. Despite numerous improvements over its predecessor, the game suffered from poor frame-rates and compromised image quality, impacting on the overall enjoyment of the game. While the wacky sci-fi settings, satirical humour, and crazy range of weaponry still allowed for enjoyable moments on both Xbox 360 and PS3, it was clear that the PC game was by far and away the best way to enjoy the experience.
Amidst a proliferation of last-gen titles arriving on PS4 and Xbox One in 'remastered' forms, the release of Saints Row 4: Re-Elected is something of an opportunity, allowing us to potentially enjoy what is a great game, free from the compromises wrought by last-gen hardware. But this is more than just a simple port. For those jaded by the procession of remastered games arriving on the new consoles, Saints Row 4: Re-Elected includes a significant extra to sweeten the deal: the inclusion of the Gat out of Hell expansion, a brand new standalone release on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC but included as part of the deal for PS4 and Xbox One owners.
It's an enticing extra we'll be looking at closer to release, but for the purposes of this article, we're checking out the core Saints Row 4 experience and the upgrades made to the game. Given the massive leap in GPU power, there's the potential for running the new edition at 1080p60 - the gold standard for remastered titles on current-gen consoles. But just how well has High Voltage converted across the original work? Are we looking at a simple PC port or a more fleshed out reworking of the game's visuals?
Behold: Saints Row: Gat out of Hell's glorious launch... infomercial?
Operators are standing by.
You've got to hand it to Volition and Deep Silver, the developer and publisher behind Saints Row 4. In addition to creating one of the smartest, funniest, most fun, and shockingly progressive adventures in recent years, it's also assembled quite the marketing campaign for its upcoming next-gen re-release, Saints Row 4: Re-Elected, and standalone expansion Gat out of Hell.
This latest launch trailer takes the form of an infomercial espousing the virtues of Saints Row 4's new content. You know, things like "enhanced graphics, extra nut kicks, sharing and livestreaming, extra polygons, 666 times the colours, one million p or more resolution, more english speaking aliens, [and] more obscure pop culture references."
As a bonus, that number at the bottom actually leads to a very funny six-minute message. Though we're not sure if the "calls from outside the US and Canada may be charged at your telecommunication provider's international call rates " line is a joke or not. But if you can, give it a listen.
Saints Row creative director Steve Jaros joins Valve
Departs Volition after a decade.
Saints Row developer Volition's creative director Steve Jaros has joined Valve Software, the developer announced via Twitter.
Saints Row 4 SDK released for PC
Modders can now design and create their own weapons. God help us all.
Volition has released the first official SDK for Saints Row 4, enabling modders to begin creating their own weapons for the famously anarchic sandbox game. Weapon models from the upcoming Gat Out Of Hell standalone expansion are included.
Saints Row developer Volition expanding team size by 100
Time to take the fifth.
Saints Row studio Volition has announced plans to hire 100 new employees, bringing its staff size up to a total of 300.
Saints Row 4 fan is making a semi functional Dubstep Gun
May not actually kill.
Saints Row 4's most iconic weapon has got to be its Dubstep Gun: an alien terror thats bizarre beats forces its victims to dance until they fall victim to the shower of sparks the gun rains upon them. Now Saints Row fan KazeXenami is making a semi-working replica of the weapon that lights up and plays music - even if it's not functional as a deadly weapon.
Saints Row 4 PC and Company of Heroes 2 are free to play this weekend
And at least half off to buy.
Steam's current free weekend offering is rather enticing with the delightfully goofy - and disarmingly sophisticated - open world adventure Saints Row 4 along with World War 2 strategy game Company of Heroes 2 being free to play between now and Sunday at 9pm GMT.
VideoChristmas live streams and free games all day!
Indie games, Minecraft challenges and Saints Row 4 DLC, live from 3pm GMT, complete with fabulous prizes.
Yo ho how ya doing? Ian is heading off on his Christmas holidays tonight, so he's planning to stream stuff on YouTube all day to celebrate, starting with festive-themed Xbox Live indie games at 3pm GMT, sledding into a Minecraft Christmas challenge at 5pm and jingling around in Saints Row 4's new Christmas-themed DLC at 7pm.
Hey Ash, whatcha doin' in Saints Row 4?
You can now add real life gaming celebrities as homies.
Saints Row 4 has added the cast of popular web show Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'? as allies in its new DLC pack.
Saints Row 4 announces How the Saints Save Christmas DLC
Ho ho ho motherf*****, I have a Christmas Dubstep Gun.
Saint Row 4 is set to kick off the holidays in style with its yule-tide themed DLC, How the Saints Save Christmas, due on 11th December for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
Free for Season Pass owners and $6.99 (about £5) for everyone else, How the Saints Save Christmas will contain three new story missions, two new vehicles (Flying Reindeer, Santa's Sleigh), and three new weapons (Red Rider BB Gun, Christmas Dubstep Gun, and the North Pole).
The add-on will follow the story of the curmudgeonly boss of the Saints not caring enough to save Santa who's trapped in the game's Matrix-like simulation. Naturally the buck falls to the gang to cheer up the president of the United States with the true meaning of Christmas.
Saints Row 4: a fun game that makes serious points
Beneath the parody, there's a brilliant game about friendship, sex and strong women.
For years I've been saying I've wanted a game where I could play as an overweight, slightly older female protagonist. Call it my weariness of alpha male space marines or my undying affection for Love & Rockets lead Maggie Chascarillo, but I've always felt that this is a thing that needs to happen. Whenever I tell people this they assume I mean some sort of experimental curio - maybe an "interactive drama" (whatever that means) like The Walking Dead or Beyond, or perhaps the sort of casual adventure game that gets marketed to stay at home moms who frequent Bigfish. But that's not necessarily what I'm after. Instead, I've always wanted a big, stupid action game starring a chunky badass lass.
Saints Row 4: Enter The Dominatrix review
Tune in, strap on, cock out.
Enter the Dominatrix is potentially a fascinating case study in how games evolve. In its nascent form, it was an expansion pack for Saints Row: The Third until THQ decided it merited a full-blown sequel. This, then, presents a shorter, alternative take on the Zin invasion, with the simulated Steelport in which the Saints are trapped taken over by a rogue AI program, the titular Dominatrix.
Volition opts not to take the opportunity to discuss the vagaries of game development, and instead plays it for laughs. Which is probably for the best, as it turns out. This isn't a particularly great expansion in mechanical terms, but the way it's presented papers over a lot of cracks.
It all hangs upon a very post-modern conceit that, in other hands, could have been horribly smug or indulgent. The action is framed as previously unseen footage, revealed by the cast to journalist Jane Valderama on her TV show. The Saints, including characters from previous games that didn't make the cut in 4, comment on events throughout, winking to camera during the interstitial interview snippets, and in one case - namely, SR4 absentee Donnie - moaning about their lack of screen time.
Saints Row 4 Enter the Dominatrix DLC release date announced
Out later this month for £6 or as part of the Season Pass.
The Saints Row 4 Enter the Dominatrix DLC launches on 23rd October 2013, Deep Silver has announced.
It includes new weapons, new characters, new enemies and new missions, packaged together for £5.99. Season Pass owners get it automatically.
The second half of the season pass and final mission pack, How the Saints Saved Christmas, launch later this year.
Flying Wild Hog's new Shadow Warrior reboot has added Saints Row 4's giant purple dildo, the Penetrator, to its arsenal.
Saints Row 4 GAT 5 DLC free on Steam today
See what they did there?
On the day Grand Theft Auto 5 releases, Volition has announced the GAT 5 downloadable content for Saints Row 4 - and made it free for one day only on PC.
Saints Row 4 sells one million copies in first week
PC sales up 3:1 on Saints Row: The Third.
Saints Row 4 sold one million copies during its first week on sale, Koch Media has announced.
PC sales were up by a ratio of 3:1 compared to PC sales of Saints Row: The Third.
IP owner Koch Media, parent company of publisher Deep Silver and developer Volition, hailed Saints Row 4 as a "breakthrough commercial achievement". A sequel for next-gen consoles now seems likely.
Saints Row 4 beats Splinter Cell: Blacklist in UK chart
But sells less than Saints Row: The Third.
Saints Row 4 has beaten chart rivals Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Disney Infinity and The Bureau to the top of the UK all-formats chart.
Digital FoundryFace-Off: Saints Row 4
Virtual insanity.
Xbox 360
PlayStation 3
PC
Grand heft auto.
It feels strange to say it, but Saints Row has to be chalked up as one of the success stories of the current console generation. It's an unlikely kind of triumph: what began as little more than a poor man's GTA has evolved into a kind of anything-goes sandbox action game, but it's hard to pick out a defining characteristic beyond the fact that it lets you do stupid stuff.
Four games in and it's reinventing itself again. Cars are no longer for stealing; they're far better used for throwing. Yes, we're in superhero territory, the ground occupied by the likes of Prototype and inFamous, and a potentially tricky area for a series as famously chaotic as Saints Row to attempt to conquer. Happily, Volition has made it work, hitting that sweet spot between empowerment and vulnerability.
It finds that balance partly in a fitting threat level. Saints Row's pimps and gangsters just aren't going to cut it any more, not least because, at the outset, it turns out the Saints' influence has spread as far as the White House. Your protagonist doesn't have long to enjoy his presidency, though, because no sooner have you passed a bill to cure cancer or end world hunger (a jab at Fable 3's moral dilemmas, perhaps), a race of alien invaders beams down and kidnaps all your friends, imprisoning you in a simulation of Steelport, the fictional city we saw in the last game.
Imagine Saints Row in the 1950s
And more from Gamer Network on YouTube.
This week Gamer Network's video digest brings more history, from the 1950s to the present day. UK developer Eutechnyx is put under the microscope and, on an even smaller scale, some Skylanders get placed onto a pedestal.
Superpowers, dubstep and general mayhem.
Saints Row 4's a thing, then. A very noisy, energetic and mad thing, and an extension of a series that's never really been known for subtlety. If anything Saints Row 4's like an unhinged version of its predecessor - not surprising, perhaps, given that it started life as a slice of absurd DLC - but anyone who's played Saints Row 3 will know that's no small achievement.
Saints Row dev "didn't appreciate" THQ's focus on porn actresses
Promoted porn star as "special producer".
Some staff at Saints Row studio Volition were uncomfortable with former publisher THQ's emphasis on porn actresses when promoting the series, a producer has revealed.
What Volition cut for Australian version of Saints Row 4
UPDATE: Aussie version incompatible with others in co-op.
UPDATE: Australia's cut version of over-the-top open-world adventure Saints Row 4 will be incompatible with other versions in co-op.
Saints Row 4 denied release in Australia, again
Alien anal probe removed, drug references now the problem.
Cheeky open-world adventure Saints Row 4 has been slapped with a fresh ban after being resubmitted to Aussie censors.
Saints Row 4 season pass detailed
Contains exclusive “Rectifier” anal probe and Enter the Dominatrix DLC.
Saints Row 4's Season Pass has will grant access to two pieces of DLC along with exclusive access to the too-offensive-for-Australia "Rectifier" anal probe, publisher Deep Silver has announced.
Saints Row: The Third's Dominatrix DLC now headed to SR4
Add-on turned expandalone back to being DLC.
Delayed Saints Row: The Third DLC pack Enter the Dominatrix will be released for Saints Row 4 this October.
Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Dorn star in Saints Row 4 voice cast
And Nolan North. Obvs.
Saints Row 4's voice talent includes ridge-headed Worf from Star Trek and Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother: aka Michael Dorn and Neil Patrick Harris.
Saints Row 4's E3 dev walkthrough shows 10 minutes of mayhem
Hail to the chief, baby!
Volition has released a nearly 10 minute developer walkthrough of Saints Row 4, narrated by senior producer Jim Boone.
Saints Row 4 banned in Australia for including alien anal probe
UPDATE: Deep Silver "reworking code" down under to ensure release.
UPDATE: Saints Row developer Volition is making changes to the game's Australian version - namely, removing the "Alien Anal Probe" weapon which last month saw its release banned by the country's censors.
Danny Bilson: inside the rise and fall of THQ
The outspoken former chief of Saints Row, Homefront and Darksiders finally breaks his silence.
The week before Danny Bilson left THQ in May 2012, he still had hope. He had a plan: Darksiders 2 from Vigil. Metro: Last Light from 4AGames. Company of Heroes 2 from Relic Entertainment. Enter the Dominatrix, the standalone expansion for Saints Row the Third, from Volition. South Park: The Stick of Truth, in production at Obsidian Entertainment. Homefront 2 at Crytek UK. And then there was the unannounced stuff: the next-gen game from Turtle Rock we now know is called Evolve. Patrice Désilets' 1666 at THQ Montreal. The portfolio is long and impressive.
Saint's Row 4 dev walkthrough shows off six minutes of gameplay
Dubstep gun, mechs, aliens and super powers.
A six minutes developer walkthrough of Saint's Row 4 has emerged, showing off the loads of new content in Volition's bats*** insane sequel.
Volition senior producer Jim Boone takes us through several of Saint's Row 4's new additions including an electricity gun that plays dubstep and shoots in sync to the tune, a ray that inflates characters' body parts until they pop, a mech you can hop into, and new weapon upgrades and skins. Oh, and there are aliens, too.
Additionally, your character, the gang leader-cum-president of the United States, has super powers like super speed, leaping over buildings in a single bound, gliding, telekinesis and freezing objects.
Saint's Row devs not concerned by proximity to GTA 5
"When they announced their date and it was so close to us - that was an interesting phenomenon."
Saints Row developer Volition is not concerned about releasing the fourth installment in its over-the-top open world series mere weeks before the launch of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 5 - and believes the genre's now broad enough to support multiple games.
Dubstep guns, superpowers and a playable President: Welcome to Saints Row 4
Volition's open world sequel is even more ridiculous than what's gone before.
You can't keep a lid on a series as noisy as Saints Row, so the fourth instalment's first reveal proper last week came as no real shock. What is surprising, perhaps, is that the energy and boisterousness of the series remains with developer Volition, despite what must have been a turbulent few months.
Enter the Dominatrix will return to Saints Row 4 as DLC
Axed expansion pack to resurface post-release.
Enter the Dominatrix, the standalone expansion for Saints Row: The Third that never saw the light of day, will be released as DLC for this year's Saints Row 4.
Saints Row 4 launches on 20th August 2013 in the US and 23rd August 2013 everywhere else, a just-published trailer reveals.
Saints Row 4 is planned for release on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and is made by series developer Volition.
It's published by Deep Silver, which bought the Saints Row intellectual property and Volition after previous owner THQ went bust.