The 7 Best ‘Saints Row’ Games, Ranked

Serving as an epilogue to the fourth game in the main Saints Row series, Gat Out Of Hell is a standalone expansion pack that doesn’t require Saints Row IV to even be played first. If you’re a fan of the unique premises that are often a part of these games, you’re not going to be disappointed here. You play as Johnny Gat or Kinzie Kensington on a mission to rescue The Boss from Hell after they’ve been kidnapped by…Satan. It’s an entry that the more hardcore Saints Row fans will be pleased to be able to play, but that most casual gamers will agree probably shouldn’t have been a standalone effort to begin with.

Developed by Volition and published by Deep Silver, Agents Of Mayhem is a game that’s set in a parallel universe to the Saints Row series while borrowing from it in spirit, with plot and character crossovers. From afar, it essentially passes for a Saints Row game in every aspect, except for the fanfare and acclaim. Set in a future version of Seoul, you switch between three characters from "Mayhem" to gun down waves of enemies. In that respect, it’s as enjoyable as your average Saints Row game, but the plot just isn’t as engaging with missions that feel repetitive early on.

For what should have been a revitalization of the series that revamped it for old-school fans and brought in new ones, the 2022 Saints Row game is widely considered a flop. The game falls flat in most aspects other than a cool cast of characters and some fun side missions that these games usually nail. Outside of that, the game was a buggy mess when it first dropped and it still suffers from many of these bugs today. Its saving grace is that it does feel like a fully fleshed-out game that could definitely be an introduction point for gamers who haven’t played the previous installments in the series, but not much more than that.

The one that started it all. The Saints Row series has naturally always gotten comparisons to Grand Theft Auto, but this is the game that feels most like a GTA game and however you interpret that is kind of up to you. Some liked the feel of the game better than GTA, but some feel it lacks identity and feels like a copy. Either way, whatever you thought of this game in 2006, it’s safe to say that it hasn’t aged the best. The foundations were set for the game that was to come later though and in hindsight, perhaps that’s what this game did best.

The fourth main series entry in the Saints Row series upped the ante when it came to the madness, owning it fully in every aspect. You find yourself here as the President of the United States and are up against an alien invasion who you are given superpowers to try to defeat. This is the game that many Saints Row fans were waiting for all along and the game that others didn’t know they wanted. One of the main downfalls of this game that many pointed out in the weeks after the release is that it truly doesn’t feel like a challenge, even in boss battles. If that’s something you’re willing to look past for the fun though, you won’t be disappointed.

For a balance of the absurdity that eventually came with Saints Row IV and the rawness of the first two games, Saints Row: The Third is considered by many to be the pinnacle of the series. The game is truly best remembered by its intro sequence which is about as cinematic as any game gets, seeing you robbing a bank and descending into chaos pretty quickly, with Kanye West’s epic "Power" as the theme music. The game is set years after the events of the second game and sees the "3^rd Street Saints" as not only a gang, but a titan in media, with many of its members becoming celebrities. Naturally, this makes them a target of a rival gang called "The Syndicate." It’s a great game that holds up today.

The first Saints Row game has its flaws, but its successor is the game that fixed all of those problems and had everything come together for a game that’s considered a cult classic if not one of the better games from its era. Saints Row 2 can still be considered somewhat of a by-product of the success of the GTA series, but instead of a clone, think of this more as GTA IV’s cool uncle. The game is pure fun and doesn’t really lack in any area, whether it’s the storyline, the characters, the side missions, or the gameplay. This game captures the magic that the series is still trying to replicate to this day.