We’re so excited for you all to get your hands on what we’ve been working on over these past several months. With all the excitement surrounding The Heist and The Hazardous campaign DLC launch, we wanted to take some time to explain all the work that underpins this - our biggest update to Saints Row yet!

Yes, the free Sunshine Springs update is also out today, and because the update notes are absolutely massive, we wanted to give you a shorter breakdown of what you can expect. Not only have we added a whole new district that’s free for all players, we have also developed new features such as the Selfie Mode and Emote Wheel, and delivered major quality of life improvements including a chunky update to combat throughout the game. Plus, of course, this wouldn’t be an update without a raft of fixes for things that weren’t quite working as intended (yes – challenges are one of those things!).

Once again we want to take the time to thank you, our passionate community for all the feedback, reports and suggestions. We are incredibly proud of this update and the changes we have made to improve the Saints Row experience across the board. There has never been a better time to visit our stunning, crime-ridden city. So without further ado – let’s dive in.

Sunshine Springs

Yes – Santo Ileso is now even bigger, there’s even more for you to explore with the addition of Sunshine Springs, a sprawling oasis in the Rojas Desert. A resort area that is home to the real elite of Santo Ileso – movie stars. Featuring new threats, photo hunt, @tcha and Riding Shotgun activities plus stores for all players to enjoy we are giving you extra fun for free.  Sunshine Springs will be the setting for the Expansion Pass content – The Heist and the Hazardous too.

Combat Changes

We have heard your feedback on the game’s combat feel, including the flow, the “bullet sponginess” of enemies and the overall challenge.

We took a long time to look at this closely  and made some significant changes to make you feel like the Boss you are.

Firstly, combat should just feel more dynamic. Not only have aiming, crouching and takedowns been improved, but we’ve tweaked the health and dodging of enemies to make them fairer to fight

It should also feel more balanced - we have re-timed the enemy reinforcement calls, so its more like “open phone, password, dial number and call” rather than “instant speed dial” giving Bosses more opportunity to stop those pesky snitches in their tracks!

And then there is a raft of important nips and tucks. We have improved reaction animations for heavy weapons and takedowns. We have made low-level skills much more useful (get those grenades and proximity mines flying, Saints) and your weapon signature abilities will now be automatically assigned once you have earned them(this will also be true for vehicle special abilities), rather than you having to schlep to Friendly Fire or Jim Robs for your upgrade!

Overall combat feels so much smoother and we can’t wait for you to get your hands on it.

New Features

There are new features included in the update too – some of which you may have seen us talk about on the Saints Row social media channels.

Selfie Mode

First up is Selfie Mode – a new way to show off your Boss in action. In addition to our usual photomode in-game, you can now turn the camera on yourself – pick an expression, pause an emote and make wonderful memories.

Emotes

Speaking of emotes – we have added 12 new ones in this update! Roll around the town as a Tumbleweed, eat a Burrito or puke up a rainbow – you choose! Emotes are “static” or “steerable” which means some are made for a stationary Boss and some are made for your Boss to walk (or roll) with, and you can even combine certain ones to create… a monster, probably. Which is even more fun in co-op play. And you can now toggle on up to 8 emotes for quick fire emoting in the emote wheel.

New Camera Angle

We have also heard your concerns over the camera being too far away when driving vehicles – so we have added a new camera angle to pull this closer, activated by pressing up on the d-pad when in a vehicle on Xbox and PlayStation controllers as well as the “z” key on PC. This can be toggled to your preference on the fly too!

Vehicles

Enemy and vehicle health bars can now be toggled on and off independently of the rest of the UI, a feature we know you have been asking for. Plus we have added the ability to nickname your saved vehicles in the garage so you can find your favorite car faster by naming it “Fred” or “Carlos” or something super mature like “willybum69” – we know what you get up to 😉.

UI and menus

We have also reviewed all of the UI and menus, cleaned it up and made it easier for you to find and amend any setting you like – we have tons of options for players to customise the Saints Row experience – and we hope that this will give more of you an opportunity to use them to fit your needs and preferences.

Voice Lines

Additionally – we looked at some of the voice lines and made some changes in “First F@#$ing Day,” “Morning Commute,” “Making Rent,” “The Great Train Robbery,” “Going Overboard,” and “Severance Package.” To give you a better idea of the characters and story elements.

The big fixes

There are too many fixes in this update for us to list here (but we have – over on our Sunshine Springs Update Notes Page if you really want to dig into every detail of the work we have been doing). But lets talk about the big hitters and the ones that the community have been talking about and wanting the most.

Challenges

This one has been a trickster for us and we believe we have nailed it down. A lot of what was reported we couldn’t replicate but we have done a full pass on challenges and these should be working as intended.

Co-op 

There were a few niggles that remained with co-op after our last update, with players reporting dropping out connections and desyncing – we believe we have solved this now so you can team up with a fellow Saint to your hearts content!

Achievements

There were some issues with achievements not unlocking for some players – these should now all work as intended – if you have completed the task that is 😉

Customization

We have seen some issues with colors or skins on both clothing and weapons sometimes reverting to the original base color – we have worked on this and your colors will now save as intended.

The Playlist App

We have made some feature enhancements to the Playlist App, will play as intended. We have also added the custom playlist to the radio wheel for quicker and easier access when driving, as well as adding a shuffle functionality to both the app and radio station. We have also added a function

Along side all of this we have made changes to animations, stability, enemy approaches, map organization, sound balancing and a whole lot more! Now is a great time to jump in as a first time player or back in as a returning fan.

And loads more...

We can’t wait to see what you all think – plus don’t forget our first Expansion The Heist and The Hazardous is out now too so more missions, events and cosmetic options await! As always If you see anything that doesn’t seem right, head to our customer support page for assistance.

Thank you so much for all of your passion and encouragement since launch – we can’t wait to reveal more about the rest of our content roadmap!

Keep it Strange

Volition & Deep Silver