You’ve got to give credit where it’s due – against all expectations, the new remaster of Saints Row The Third isn’t just good, it’s very special indeed. After the disappointment of the Switch conversion, PlayStation 4, PC and Xbox One users get the deluxe treatment: there’s carefully updated, more detail-rich artwork, a totally revamped lighting model, a switch to physically-based rendering, temporal anti-aliasing/upscaling and a profound improvement in performance. If you’re gaming on Xbox One X, much of the game can even play out at 60 frames per second. Short of a full-on Bluepoint-style remake, you aren’t going to get much better than this.
Let’s get the basics of out of the way first. All of the new features delivered by California-based Sperasoft for this new release are present and correct on all console platforms, with the only notable differences coming from rendering resolution.The vanilla Xbox One and PlayStation 4 operate at native 1080p, while their enhanced equivalents bump the pixel count to 1440p. Out of the box, the game runs at a capped 30 frames per second, with correct frame-pacing, backed by a nice motion blur implementation that gives the impression of a very smooth level of performance overall. All versions are typically locked, with only Xbox One S occasionally dipping beneath the target.
However, curiously, the options menu gives users the choice to remove the frame-rate cap, allowing the game to run as fast as it can. For the base machines in particular, it’s not something we can recommend as the variance in frame-rate adds too much inconsistency to the presentation. Similarly, for PS4 Pro, the game typically lurks in mid-40fps territory. However, Xbox One X makes a pretty good fist of hitting the top-end 60fps – and can stay like that for prolonged bouts of play, with only a clutch of dropped frames. Push the game really hard in traversal – especially during the night – and it can dip beneath 50fps, but overall, this is a compelling way to play (and it’s not difficult to imagine a full, locked 60fps on Xbox Series X back-compat).
Source: Eurogamer We're not kidding – the Saints Row The Third remaster is exceptional