Game Review: Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell (Xbox One)

Saints Row IV seemed to have taken things as far as the games could possible go…having the player imbued with super-powers & planet Earth being destroyed kind of makes it hard to see where they go from here.

Well, with Gat Out of Hell we have our answer…

Aboard the Saints ship in space the gang are celebrating Kenzie’s birthday & decide to play with an Ouija board. Naturally this doesn’t go well when the board takes on a life of its own (previously owned by Allister Crowley) & declares The Boss of the Saints will marry Satan’s daughter, Jezebel. The Boss is then dragged through a portal into Hell.

Johnny Gat decides to go after him alongside Kenzie, as it is her birthday. So far, so good, clever & fairly amusing…

Arriving in Hell, initially it is easy to be impressed by the land in front of you. It looks like Hell…known as New Hades & split into 5 islands (surrounded by fiery pits of lava) it is an exciting prospect to explore.

Johnny & Kenzie discover that Ultor Corporation is operating in Hell as well. Led by Dane Vogel, he has been taking advantage of Hell’s economy & agrees to help the duo save The Boss.

To do that Johnny & Kenzie have to gain Satan’s attention by gaining allies & causing trouble. This basically equates to doing missions for Kiki & Viola DeWynter, Blackbeard the Pirate, Vlad the Impaler & William Shakespeare.

Story progression is done by completing these missions & completing ‘activities’ to fill a bar (Satan’s Wrath). It allows much more freedom to progress the main story as you wish however it will quickly become apparent just how little story there actually is.

New Hades is very disappointing once you really get around, it’s exactly like Steelport but with a Hellish skin…you see Johnny or Kenzie (either are playable) end up with super-powers just like the 4th game with only one real difference. Wings…yep, this time you can fly! This is one of the only improvements made & once you get to grips with it you can get around the map superfast.

Most of the game is made up of activities that were in previous Saints Row games albeit with some tweaking. Hellblazing is races but in the air this time, Torment Fraud is Fraud but in the body of a Hell minion, Mayhem is….exactly the same & Salvation sees you flying around to save lost souls.

None of it is particularly exciting or that much fun & with a story lasting less than 2 hours. So to drag the game out more there are Diversions that see you taking over areas of the map, picking up collectibles, doing survival missions etc.

With additional weapons, including some clever takes on the 7 deadly sins, there are over 100 challenges as well to take on. To complete all of these will take some serious time & most aren’t much fun either.

All of this equates to upwards of 20 hours of gameplay if you consider killing 500 enemies with one weapon before doing the same with another…gameplay.

It’s hard to complain too much about Gat Out of Hell as it is a DLC released as a stand-alone game. It’s cheap but for what you get it needs to be a lot cheaper. The bare-bones story is unforgivable though…