Saints Row: The Third

The Saints have turned their gang name into a celebrity brand, but a botched encounter with the Syndicate sends them to Steelport and back into a fight for control. Choose missions from the phone, take territory through activities and gang operations, build hourly income and spend cash on upgrades, weapons, properties and a customised crew.

At the start of Saints Row: The Third, the Third Street Saints are famous beyond their original street-gang identity. Their name appears on merchandise and television, but an encounter with the Syndicate pulls them back into criminal conflict. The Saints travel to Steelport, a city under Syndicate control, and set out to dismantle the organisation’s hold. The setup pairs a campaign of missions with a free-roaming city where the player can switch between story assignments and optional work. The campaign is framed around the Saints’ return to gang warfare, while the phone, map and contacts make Steelport’s objectives available as the player moves around it.

Steelport is both the campaign’s setting and a space to claim. City Takeover advances block by block through a combination of Activities, Gang Operations and purchases of stores and properties. These approaches connect the map to the game’s economy: each additional part of the city contributes Hourly City Income, which accumulates in a bank account and can be transferred through the phone’s Cash menu. Activities can be discovered while travelling or introduced by contacts, and completing them unlocks further challenges and rewards. Taking territory therefore involves more than clearing one district in a fixed sequence; the player can alternate between scripted missions, local gang encounters and city jobs while gradually adding income sources.

The phone distinguishes Saints Row: The Third’s campaign flow from the earlier Respect gate. Available story missions can be selected and activated from the Missions menu; the player does not have to spend Respect to start them. Respect still matters, but it accumulates toward a rank that unlocks access to purchasable upgrades. Cash is then spent on those upgrades, on equipment and on the properties that support city control. This creates two linked progression tracks: the player builds rank by fighting, completing missions and taking part in other actions, then uses money to choose improvements. The Saintsbook provides additional work, including assassination targets, Chop Shop vehicle requests and Challenges, so the phone acts as a hub for both campaign direction and optional objectives.

Combat mixes firearms, melee attacks, grenades and vehicles, with the phone’s upgrade menu letting the player shape how the Boss and crew handle later encounters. Available upgrades include health, falling damage, notoriety reduction and follower abilities. Respect rank unlocks the option to buy a tier, while cash pays for it, so a newly available upgrade may still compete with purchases elsewhere. The player can call Saints for assistance and build a crew of up to three followers who fight on foot and ride along in vehicles. Separate follower upgrades can raise homie health or add weapons for gang members, while vehicle delivery and helicopter backup provide further support options. Companions draw enemy attention and add firepower, while the player chooses weapons, movement and when to use the phone’s services.

Activities give the city’s side content a role in both rewards and territorial progress: they award cash and Respect and contribute to taking Steelport from the Syndicate. Diversions reward actions that occur during ordinary play, including drifting, headshots and base jumping. The Saintsbook also tracks activities and challenges, while individual contacts can introduce new events as the campaign advances. Insurance Fraud, Trail Blazing, Mayhem, Escort and Professor Genki’s S.E.R.C. ask for different combinations of driving, combat and timed objectives. Rather than treating every city block as a story mission, the game uses these repeatable formats to let the player earn resources and push the takeover map forward between major campaign beats.

Cash and Respect also support personal expression. The character creator and clothing shops let the player change the Boss’s appearance, while vehicle customisation gives cars a chosen look. Purchases can contribute Respect as well as changing the character or vehicle, so shopping intersects with progression rather than sitting outside it. Properties and stores have an economic role too: taking ownership adds to the hourly income that can later be transferred into the player’s wallet. The resulting loop is easy to follow even when the city offers many distractions: complete a mission, activity or gang operation; gain money, rank or territory; then decide whether to buy an upgrade, claim a property or return to the next available mission.

The Co-op Campaign lets another player join the story through LAN or online play and drop in or out during the campaign. Whored Mode shifts to wave survival: players face successive groups of gang members while each round changes the conditions. The player may be drunk, face giant enemies or have to battle zombies; these rules change the shape of each fight while the objective remains to survive the incoming wave. These built-in modes give the game’s combat systems structures outside the Steelport campaign, with one extending the story to a second player and the other setting repeated fights against incoming groups.