Saints Row IV: Re-Elected (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.8.0 Update

Saints Row 4: Re-Elected, As the President of the United States, you face the monumental task of saving the entire Earth. However, there is a new challenge: The Boss of the Saints, who has just been elected President, is just getting started. The situation becomes dire when the evil Overlord Zinyak leads a catastrophic alien invasion of our planet, and the Saints are trapped in a bizarre simulation of Steelport.

GAMEPLAY

Similar to previous Saints Row games, Saints Row IV is an open-world action game with third-person shooter elements wherein the player is free to explore the environment and, at their leisure, play story or side missions. As the leader of the Saints, a street gang that has become the world’s most “powerful and popular” organization, the player is elected President of the United States, receives superpowers, and fends off an alien invasion. Most often the player will engage in shooting and racing activities, though other activities vary from fighting crowds of zombies, shoot-outs in tanks, side-scrolling brawlers, fights against supersized, dai kaiju energy drink cans, and using a dubstep gun to interrupt 1950s Americana.

The player-character receives elemental powers and superpowers that greatly increase their jump height and running speed, such that the player can hop over buildings and outrun vehicles. The elemental powers include abilities to shoot fire and ice projectiles, telekinetically toss things, and create shockwaves upon landing jumps. As the player progresses through the game, they can optionally upgrade their abilities and weapons skill tree by using collectible “data clusters” scattered around town. If the player becomes too rowdy, the alien race’s police analog will intervene. As in previous games, the player-character’s look and feel are entirely customizable via a robust character editor feature.

The game is set in a nearly identical simulation of Steelport, the fictional city setting from Saints Row: The Third, though individual story missions have new, custom-designed levels. Saints Row IV’s story parodies science fiction video games, mostly Mass Effect 2, as well as films like The Matrix and Zero Dark Thirty, and other “nerd culture”. Some story missions are propelled by individual characters’ existential crises, as each Saint character is stuck in a personal simulation of their hell, and must be rescued by the player. Other elements borrowed from video game culture include BioWare-style character romances and a Metal Gear-style mission with an unhelpful partner.

City districts are “liberated” from alien occupation as the player completes side missions in occupied districts. Liberated districts increase the player’s hourly income, which can be spent on weapons, skills, and perks. Side missions include Insurance Fraud (where the player jumps into traffic to collect insurance money), demolition derby-style Mayhem, and superpowered foot races. Saints Row IV has a two-player cooperative mode.

PLOT

A few months after the events of Saints Row: The Third, the 3rd Street Saints are called to assist MI6 agent Asha Odekar (Rebecca Riedy) and former Deckers leader Matt Miller (Yuri Lowenthal) in foiling a terrorist plot by former S.T.A.G. leader Cyrus Temple (Richard Epcar). The Boss (Troy Baker, Kenn Michael, Robin Atkin Downes, Laura Bailey, Diane Michelle, Sumalee Montano, or Nolan North) and their top lieutenants, Shaundi (Danielle Nicolet) and Pierce Washington (Arif S. Kinchen), breach Cyrus’ base with Asha, killing him and preventing a nuclear missile from hitting Washington D.C. Five years later, the Boss has been elected President of the United States for their heroism, receiving actor Keith David (himself) as their Vice President, while assigning their Cabinet roles to their fellow Saints, Asha, Matt, and former Vice Kings leader Benjamin King (Terry Crews).

Moments into a press conference, Earth is hit by an invasion from an alien empire known as the Zin, led by the ruthless Zinyak (JB Blanc), who destroys the White House and abducts the Boss, Keith, and most of the Cabinet. After the Boss escapes from a computer simulation based on a 1950s sitcom environment with the help of the Saints’ hacker specialist Kinzie Kensington (Natalie Lander), they find themselves brought into a virtual recreation of Steelport. Working to manipulate the environment with special powers, they eventually reunite with Kinzie and Keith in a stolen Zin ship. When the group tries to contact other Saints for help, Zinyak stops them by destroying the Earth. Enraged, the Boss re-enters the Steelport simulation to find the others that the Zin abducted, rescuing each from simulations based on their nightmares.

Zinyak responds by having the Steelport simulation flooded with copies of gang members the Boss faced in the past, which causes Kinzie to suspect he is drawing them from the memories of someone else who has fought them. The Boss quickly deduces that the Zin abducted Johnny Gat (Daniel Dae Kim), the only Saint who has been with the gang longer than them, and who was supposedly killed years ago. After rescuing Gat from his simulation, he explains that Zinyak captured him years ahead of Earth’s invasion because he was the only one who could have thwarted it, and officially rejoins the Saints.

The Saints soon rally inside the simulation to confront Zinyak, only for Kinzie to be captured in the real world by Zin forces. Discovering that Keith betrayed them, the Boss confronts him and learns he did so in exchange for the Zin restoring Earth. After pursuing him through his nightmare, the Boss reveals to Keith that he was tricked, and convinces him to rejoin the Saints. Learning where Kinzie was taken, the Boss rescues her from her nightmare. With the group back in operation, Kinzie formulates a plan to board Zinyak’s ship by overloading the Steelport simulation to create an opening. Upon the Saints achieving this, the Boss boards Zinyak’s ship, steals power armor that emulates their powers from the simulation and uses it to kill Zinyak in front of the Zin, seizing control of their empire.

The game’s ending depends on the number of optional “Loyalty” missions completed. If any of them were omitted, the Boss plans for the Saints to conquer a new homeworld, starting the “Saints Empire.” Otherwise, the Saints learn they can restore the Earth using time-travel, after discovering that Zinyak has captured several historical figures and placed them in suspended animation. The Boss decides to awaken one of them from stasis, namely 19th-century writer Jane Austen (Eden Riegel), whom they are a fan of, and who reveals herself as the game’s narrator once she awakens.