Saints Row (2022) is a lively, customization-heavy reboot built around a crew trying to turn crime into a business in the fictional Southwestern city of Santo Ileso. Its comic frustration with financial pressure and hustle culture gives the game a sharper hook than its familiar open-world activities—but that “Gen Z rage” is a reviewer’s interpretation, not an official claim or a proven generational consensus. The result is an appealing reboot with a compelling premise, alongside uneven pacing, repetitive combat and reported technical hiccups.
What is Saints Row (2022) about?
Rather than continue the series’ increasingly fantastical trajectory, this reboot centers on a new crew building a criminal empire. The official Steam description calls Santo Ileso “a vibrant fictional city in the American Southwest” and frames the story as one about a start-up company whose business is crime. The city and crew give the game a street-crime foundation, while its humor takes aim at money worries, precarious work and the pressure to hustle.
Calling that outlook “Gen Z rage” captures one way to read the game’s satire: the characters meet economic insecurity with ambition, irreverence and criminal enterprise. It should not be mistaken for a confirmed statement of developer intent, or for evidence that a generation shares one political or economic outlook.
How the reboot plays
Steam lists single-player and online co-op, character customization, criminal ventures, combat, vehicles and a wingsuit among the game’s features. The central loop combines story missions with activities that grow the crew’s criminal operation across Santo Ileso. Customizing characters, weapons and vehicles gives players room to shape their version of the Saints, while the open city provides diversions between missions.
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The official listing describes the city as having nine districts surrounded by Southwest desert, and notes that it now includes two additional districts. Those two districts should not be treated as launch content: the available listing does not establish when they were added.
Co-op and customization
Steam describes co-op as “fully untethered drop-in / drop out co-op,” and lists it alongside the single-player mode. That makes playing with a friend a supported part of the game’s design rather than an incidental extra. The listing also highlights customizable weapons and vehicles, complementing the broader character customization.
Does the “Gen Z rage” humor land?
The game’s pitch is strongest when its criminal start-up premise connects the crew’s personal ambitions to satire about modern work culture. The tone is knowingly contemporary, and the reboot leans on character chemistry and irreverence rather than the escalating sci-fi excess associated with later entries in the series. Whether the slang and jokes feel sharp or forced is a matter of taste; the positive review behind this article’s framing finds the new crew appealing, but that judgment is subjective.
This is also a different kind of return to the series’ roots than a simple rewind. The reboot draws on street-level crime and building a crew, but presents those ideas through its own contemporary setting and comic voice. Players who want the older games’ grounded criminal-empires premise may find familiar ingredients, while those expecting the later entries’ most extravagant spectacle may find the shift conspicuous.
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Strengths
- A fresh crew and premise: The start-up framing gives the criminal-empire story a clear identity.
- Room to personalize: Character, weapon and vehicle customization support a more individual sandbox experience.
- A substantial activity framework: Criminal ventures and the city’s districts give players goals beyond simply moving from mission to mission.
- Co-op support: The official listing includes drop-in/drop-out online co-op as well as single-player.
Trade-offs
- Repetition: The review describes combat as repetitive, which can wear on players who spend long stretches in similar encounters.
- Uneven pacing: The story and activities do not maintain the same momentum throughout.
- Technical hiccups: The review reports bugs, but there is no platform-by-platform performance evidence here to establish how frequent or severe they are.
- Humor that may divide players: Contemporary slang and satire are central to the tone, so the same approach that feels lively to some may not work for others.
Is it worth playing, including in co-op?
If you want a comic open-world crime game with extensive customization, a new crew and a supported co-op option, Saints Row (2022) has a strong case. Its appeal depends on whether its humor and character writing work for you; the repetitive combat and reported bugs are meaningful reservations, not reasons to dismiss the game outright. For co-op specifically, Steam confirms online play, but the available evidence does not establish a separate co-op campaign length or how every mission behaves with a partner.
Steam displays the game’s ESRB Mature (17+) rating, with descriptors including violence, blood, sexual themes, nudity, strong language and use of drugs. That content information is useful for deciding whether the game suits a particular player.
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How has the game been received?
At the time of the Steam listing snapshot used for this article, English-language user reviews were marked Mixed, with 59% positive from 3,148 reviews. This is a changeable platform snapshot, not a critic score or a permanent measure of reception. It provides a useful counterpoint to the strongly positive review framing the reboot as excellent, but should not be treated as a complete critical consensus.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Verdict
Saints Row (2022) is an enjoyable reboot when its new crew, customization and comic crime-business premise click. Its satire about hustle culture gives the game a distinctive reading, though “Gen Z rage” is best understood as an interpretive label rather than a verified generational thesis. Uneven pacing, repetitive combat and reported technical issues keep it from being an unqualified success, but players looking for a customizable open-world crime sandbox with online co-op have good reason to consider it.
Quick Recap
Best Value
- Discover the Weird, Wild, West - Dive in to Santo Ileso, the biggest and best Saints Row playground ever, spread across nine unique districts surrounded by the vast, majestic beauty of the Southwest Desert
- Build Your Criminal Empire - Take over the city block by block, wage war against enemy factions and tighten your grip on the streets with ingenious criminal ventures
- Fire Guns. LOTS of Guns - Shoot revolvers from the hip, fire and forget with a rocket launcher, or obliterate up close using melee heavyweights, complete with brutal takedowns
- Take to the Streets and the Skies - Blast through urban and desert environments in any one of the cars, bikes, planes, helicopters, VTOLs, hoverbikes, hoverboards, go-karts or equip your wingsuit to swoop around
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