The critically acclaimed Saints Row IV, the first in the series released by Deep Silver, has hit a commercial milestone with over one million units sold in its first week.
The PC version of Saints Row IV more than tripled the first week sales over Saints Row: The Third and has also hit the top of the sales charts in the UK, Germany and the Benelux region. Saints Row IV’s online community at saw registrations increase by a million in the first week alone, amounting to more than 1.3 million user accounts for the game in total, which brought with it almost 1 million pieces of user-generated content.
“We are incredibly happy of the reception for Saints Row IV as a critical and now a commercial success,” said Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of parent company Koch Media (Owners of Deep Silver). “The development team at Volition is second-to-none as a driving creative force in the entertainment industry and we are very proud to have them as part of the Deep Silver family.”
“A global commercial success such as this within the first week since launch of Saints Row IV proves the strength of this brand.”, comments Menno van der Bil, International Commercial Director, Deep Silver. “The over the top nature of Saints Row IV underlines the Deep Silver brand strategy perfectly and we are also ecstatic about the critical praise the game has received.”
Saints Row IV has also been met with very positive reviews. The Metacritic average (for all three platforms) is 82, with many reviewers giving it 9 or higher praising the new mobility and use of superpowers and the overall fun nature of the game. However, some reviewers criticised the console versions for their sometimes poor framerate.
Saints Row IV continues the story of the Third Street saints by giving them the presidency of the USA. Before the boss can implement any filibuster reform aliens invade and transport the Saints to a “bizarro-Steelport”. Using only the superpowers on their back, the head of the Saints/President has to fight the alien invaders and free humanity.
Saints Row has moved away from being a “gangsta” clone of GTA to being almost an antidote/parody of the grandfather of sanbox crime games. Saints Row: The Third was over the top, silly and just downright fun. Saints Row has taken that particular ball, given it crazy superpowers, written a lot of silly jokes and ran, giggling, into a sandbox.
