“Saints Row IV” Announcement Trailer Is Here!

In 2011, Volition shocked fans of the "Saints Row" video game series with a serious change in tone for their new game, "Saints Row The Third".  Instead of being a serious, Grand Theft Auto-esque game with occasional quirky moments, Saints Row had now become completely batsh*t insane, including streaking, monstrous clones, superheroes, vampires, S&M, zombies, sex toy weapons, an auto-tuned pimp with a tracheotomy, and movie references galore.  While some die hard fans were disappointed in the change of tone, many praised the major risk for Volition to go off the deep end, myself included.

As with any major video game release, downloadable content was designed for later release.  Extended missions for the game included more levels for the brutal game show "Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax", the difficult filming of the "Saints Row" movie, and having to gain superpowers to deal with the monster clone of a fallen friend.  However, one DLC was so impressive to the game designers that they decided to scrap it as DLC and use it for the sequel.  As DLC, "Enter the Dominatrix" was set to take place a year after the conclusion of "Saints Row The Third" and deal with the Third Street Saints fighting off an alien invasion.  But a follow-up game was feared to be a pipe dream after THQ shut down a few months ago.  But much like Twinkies for Hostess, the Saints Row brand was considered a high-value target for other game distributors, finally being picked up and released by Deep Silver.

Now we have the trailer for "Saints Row IV", and its quite obvious that the insane tone is back for more.  The trailer is a little fast paced, so its going to take a few times watching it to catch everything, but if you noticed a Presidential tone in a scene or two, you're pretty spot on.  According to the brief description on Youtube,

Saints Row IV™ - From the Crack House to the White House The ball-busting next chapter in the Saints Row franchise, is starting a party in your pants this August.

I'm excited, but I'm still waiting to see more.  My early fear is that this will just be the previous game all over again with a few new levels, given that the design and look is nearly identical.  Yes, I loved the last game, but I do know that Volition can come up with something very unique here and that's what I want to see.