The recently revealed Saints Row reboot has garnered a great deal of attention, though not all responses to the new take on the legendarily crazy and over-the-top series have been positive. Nonetheless, the developers are going forward with their new vision for the game and in a recent video offered a first glimpse at actual gameplay.
Snippets of in-engine footage have been sprinkled throughout the 'Welcome to Santo Ileso' trailer which introduces the game's setting, and features a lot of developers speaking at the camera. Most AAA games take their sweet time with showing off any gameplay after the initial, pre-rendered reveal, so it is a welcome change to see what the actual game looks like this early on.
Members of the press were privy to a gameplay preview behind closed doors, so we got some written descriptions of what to expect from the reboot, but actually seeing it in motion is a nice bonus. The gameplay carries the key traits of what we've come to expect from Saints Row, but is notably more reserved than the absolutely bonkers last entry.
Saints Row began as a fairly formulaic GTA clone, while the second game dared to swim to weirder shores with a bit more whimsicality and over the top humor. It wasn't until the third entry that the series found its now-iconic purple-clad aesthetic with the nonsense cranked way beyond any previously seen metric. If a game makes GTA look serious and grounded, you know you are in for some trippy stuff.