At some undisclosed time, the Saints (of Saints Row) will again come marching in.
In a financial report released today, THQ Nordic revealed that a new entry in the series is in development.
“Volition is deep in development of a brand-new Saints Row game, the first full entry in this much loved series since Saints Row IV was released in 2013,” the publisher wrote.
The news comes as THQ Nordic continues to experience financial growth. Seemingly unaffected by the bad press that followed the publisher’s decision to hold an AMA on 8chan — an Internet hive of scum, villainy, Nazism and pedophilia —THQ Nordic reported an operational ebit increase of 193 percent since Q1 of last year.
The Saints Row games are a series of open world titles that are similar in design to Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto games. Beginning with the third entry, the series embraced a heightened cartoonishness. The fourth made the player a literal superhero.
Since IV, Volition has developed two games. In 2015, they released Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell. In 2017, Volition took a break from the Saints to debut a new IP, Agents of Mayhem.
After Agents of Mayhem underperformed critically and commercially, a return to the Saints seems like a safer bet. It will be interesting to see if Volition continues with the excess of recent titles or opts for a reboot, returning to the more grounded tone of earlier entries.
A lot has changed since 2015. Time will tell if the Saints change, too.
