Saints Row The Third

Saints Row: The Third is an action-adventure game played from the third-person perspective in an open world, such that players explore an unrestricted environment. Similar to the premise of the previous Saints Row games, the player's goal is to lead the Third Street Saints gang to overtake its rival gangs in a city-wide turf war. While the protagonist is the same, the game introduces a new setting, the city of Steelport, with its own three gangs: the Morningstar, Luchadores, and Deckers, together known as the Syndicate. To further complicate matters, the government's Special Tactical Anti-Gang unit (STAG) is summoned to quell both organizations. Saints Row: The Third is the first in the series to intertwine the narratives of its three-gang structures, and presents the player with story-altering decisions.

The series has been considered a clone of Grand Theft Auto that later positioned itself as more "gleefully silly" in comparison. In combat, players select weapons from a weapon selection wheel, including pistols, submachine guns, shotguns, and rocket launchers alongside special weapons such as UAV drones and a fart-in-a-jar stun grenade. Player melee attacks include running attacks such as DDTs and a purple dildo bat. Players may use vehicles to navigate the city, including a hover jet (known as the F-69 VTOL) and a pixelated retrogame tank that are unlocked through story missions.

Three years after the events of Saints Row 2, the 3rd Street Saints have merged with the Ultor Corporation to become a media and consumer empire with their own brand. While robbing a bank in Stilwater to promote an upcoming film about themselves, the Boss (Troy Baker, Kenn Michael, Robin Atkin Downes, Laura Bailey, Tara Platt, Rebecca Sanabria or Steve Blum) and the Saints' top lieutenants, Shaundi (Danielle Nicolet) and Johnny Gat (Daniel Dae Kim), encounter unanticipated resistance on the job, which ultimately leads to them being arrested. The group is bailed out by Phillipe Loren (Jacques Hennequet), head of an international criminal enterprise called "the Syndicate" that owned the bank they robbed, and held as captives aboard his jumbo jet. After refusing Loren's deal to give him most of their profits in exchange for their lives, the Saints stage a breakout, though Gat is forced to sacrifice himself to allow the Boss and Shaundi to escape. In response to the incident, Loren orders the Syndicate to attack the Saints, and ensure that their empire is destroyed.

Shaundi and the Boss land in the city of Steelport, firmly ruled by the Syndicate's three divisions: the Morningstar, a sophisticated gang led by Loren and his lieutenants, twin sisters Viola (Sasha Grey) and Kiki DeWynter (Megan Hollingshead), who dominate the gun and sex trades; the Deckers, a hacker gang led by Matt Miller (Yuri Lowenthal), who dominate the city's cyber black-market; and the Luchadores, a Mexican wrestler-themed gang led by Eddie "Killbane" Pryor (Rick D. Wasserman), who operate their own casino and deal steroids. After Saints lieutenant Pierce Washington (Arif S. Kinchen) arrives with backup, the Saints secure a hideout and go after Loren's operations, ultimately killing him inside his own skyscraper. In the process, they rescue Oleg Kirrlov (Mark Allen Stuart), a former KGB agent being forcefully cloned to provide super-soldiers for the Syndicate, who helps them track down other allies: ex-FBI agent Kinzie Kensington (Natalie Lander), who seeks to disrupt the Deckers; veteran pimp Zimos (Alex Désert), who lost his business to the Morningstar; and Angel de la Muerte (Hulk Hogan), Killbane's embittered former wrestling partner.

Saints Row 2's design philosophy was to "put everything ... into the game", which made for a disjointed title with varied tone. Design director Scott Phillips said the series' legacy of lightheartedness made the sequel's tone hard to define. The development team withstood a high turnover between the two releases, with only a fifth of the final 100-person team having worked on a title in the series before.

Saints Row: The Third was in development by September 2008 as Saints Row 3. For its first six months of development, the team tested a choice-based adventure concept featuring an undercover agent infiltrating the Saints, which was dropped for not aligning with the spirit of the series. Now without a vision, the team made a "tone video" with film segments and songs that would define the new title. The final version featured bits from Bad Boys II, Shoot 'Em Up, Hot Fuzz, and Mötley Crüe's "Kickstart My Heart".

The game received "generally favorable" reviews, according to video game review score aggregator Metacritic. Some said the game did not try to be more than a good time, and described it as a variant of "ridiculous", "zany", or "absurd". In another way, others called it "juvenile". Critics praised the degree of customization options, and had mixed views of the array of activities, but found Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax a high point.

Some found the game's ironic sexism to verge on misogyny, and that its other humor sometimes fell flat. Several critics referred to the game as the perfection of the Saints Row formula It was a nominee for Best Narrative at the 2012 Game Developers Conference, an IGN Editor's Choice, and a recipient of perfect scores from GamesRadar and G4. During the 15th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Saints Row: The Third for "Action Game of the Year".