The Saints Row series has come a long way from its humble beginnings back in 2006. It began as a “GTA clone”, mirroring the style and gameplay of the much-loved series, but Saints Row now exists as a successful franchise in its own right, with three sequels and now an expansion: Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell. This is, apparently, the next step along the series’ path, featuring fan-favourites Johnny Gat and Kinzie Washington, as they journey to Hell to take on Satan in an attempt to rescue the President. It’s a promising premise, and it likely captured the interest of many die-hard fans of the series when it was first announced last year. Entertainingly strange, it takes you to the hellish city of New Hades, a distinctly different location when compared to Stillwater or Steelport. Lava and jagged rocks dominate the landscape, with scarcely populated areas filling in the spaces between, giving the city a distinctly barren feeling that, despite being a great realisation of Hell, still doesn’t offer up as much as the settings featured in previous games.
Gat Out of Hell really is Johnny Gat’s moment in the limelight, as you can switch between controlling Johnny or Kinzie by returning to the Ultor lobby (Yep, the evil corporation from Saints Row 2 is back). The only real differences between controlling the two characters, however, are the dialogue you’ll hear during gameplay, as well as some of the audio files available to find on the map. Both characters function almost identically, aside from Johnny having some gory knife-executions that Kinzie lacks. It’s down to personal choice, in all honesty.
The city of New Hades is, quite frankly, very pretty despite still resembling from last last-gen. Roughly half the size of Steelport, it’s more imaginative and distinctive in design in comparison, and the change in scenery is a bonus, as Steelport was starting to feel a little stale after two games and a remastered re-release. It’s a change that is achieved really well, as the setting is one of the strongest points of Gat Out of Hell. There’s also no need to worry about the expansion losing any of the main series’ charm; the humour is still persistent throughout, and there’s even a few nice moments between Kinzie and Viola, a returning character from Saints Row The Third after not being featured in IV. One of the major additions featured in Gat Out of Hell is the ability of flight, which is an upgrade from the glide featured in IV. The city of New Hades feels as if it was built to accommodate the winged protagonists. Flying just feels more natural in Gat Out of Hell than the gliding ability did in IV, where it just felt like a hastily tacked-on addition in a city that wasn’t built for it.
Speaking of additions, Gat Out of Hell adds a selection of new weaponry to the Saints’ arsenal, as every single weapon available (except maybe the Fletcher .45) has been created especially for the expansion. Newcomers include the Ark of the Covenant (a Biblical reference that, of course, also references the first Indiana Jones film) and the Armchair-A-Geddon, an armchair that alternates between firing rockets and a pair of mini-guns. The majority of the new weapons have zany special abilities, and almost all of these abilities are fun whilst still retaining the weapon’s usefulness. Originality oozes from each new weapon, particularly those based upon the 7 Deadly Sins, which feature the deadliest weapons ever seen in a Saints Row game.
Alongside the new weaponry comes the return of the superpowers you may remember from Saints Row IV, albeit with some new features and modifications. Stomp now has a vacuum element that sucks in surrounding enemies and items, Blast can now turn things into stone (setting fire to things in Hell must have seemed counterproductive), Aura can drain health from enemies, and Telekinesis is gone entirely, replaced by the new Summon power that allows you to spawn allies, such as Imps or Titans, from thin air. These new superpowers seem more powerful than those found in Saints Row IV, and have a greater effect on gameplay as they make combat more riotous than ever before.
Unfortunately, Gat Out of Hell isn’t all Hellish sunshine and demonic roses, as there are numerous problems with it. The most prominent issue is the lack of traditional missions and story structure, which causes the expansion to be strangely paced. Remember the activities that have been long-time features of the series? They replace traditional story missions, largely detracting from what could have been an interesting story. Saying that, however, it does do a great job of introducing the new activities to players, who might not otherwise have had a chance during the expansion’s short 3-4 hour length. There’s also a bug that is, apparently, quite common with players; upon loading up the game, the entire screen is black other than mission checkpoints with the compass in the lower left-hand corner still present, where you can tell that your character is still moving around in the otherwise blank world. Other than that, I did not experience any other bugs during my playthrough, which is a positive novelty considering the amount of buggy games that have been released over the last 12 months.
Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell is an interesting addition to the series, despite being let down by unfortunate gameplay choices. It’s a shame that the expansion didn’t contain much of a story, but it’s nice to see so many returning characters, particularly Dane Vogel and the DeWynter twins from Saints Row 2 and Saints Row The Third respectively. Given a bit more length and a wider variety of missions, Gat Out of Hell could have been great, but unfortunately it just falls short despite its enjoyable gameplay and interesting array of historical characters. Maybe next time, we’ll get a main entry in the Saints Row franchise, instead of a disappointingly short expansion.