Saints Row: The Third will be remastered for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC next month — nine years after the cult classic was originally released.
Saints Row: The Third Remastered will feature enhanced graphics and improved visual effects, as players return to Steelport with the Third Street Saints for another round against The Syndicate.
“Every weapon has been remodeled, every car has been redesigned and a vast proportion of the city has been retextured; Saints Row: The Third has received a full makeover,” said publisher Deep Silver in its announcement of the remaster.
Saints Row: The Third Remastered will also come with the original game’s three expansion mission packs and more than 30 pieces of DLC.
Volition, the game’s developer, and Sperasoft, the studio behind the port, revealed to IGN that the decision to remaster the third game in the series was because Saints Row: The Third has maintained its popularity through the years.
“We think of Saints Row: The Third as a masterpiece, and from our point of view, it’s where the series really found itself,” Deep Silver’s lead art director Nikolay Stoyanov told IGN.
Volition art director Frank Marquart, meanwhile, said that the remastered version enhances a lot of what made the original game so memorable.
“On the art side, we call that art style in the game ‘exagereal,’ and it was designed to evoke that exaggerated, over-the-top expression with just enough of reality to keep it grounded,” said Marquart. “So that real part of ‘exagereal’ is certainly much, much stronger in the Remastered edition.”
Unfortunately, not everything about the original game will return in Saints Row: The Third Remastered.
While it will keep online co-op, split-screen co-op has be removed. The remaster will also be capped at 30 frames per second on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but it will run at 60 frames per second on the PC.
Digital Trends reviewed 2011’s Saints Row: The Third as “a white-knuckle affair that will keep you smiling throughout its mayhem-filled campaign.” Players should expect more of the same, with a host of upgrades, when Saints Row: The Third Remastered launches on May 22.
