There’s some good news for Volition fans on the PC this week, as an announcement has revealed plans to revive the 2008 classic, Saints Row 2, on the platform. Saints Row 2 is a great game that amps up both the absurdity and the storytelling chops of the franchise to what many consider a high point, before the franchise veered off into complete insanity in the later games. It was still trying to be its own twist on the GTA formula back then, and it worked.
Sadly, came 2008 and the launch of PC port, things kind of fell apart. A long-term lack of support in terms of bug fixes and updates left the game in a rather poor state, with even PC gamers more than a decade ago struggling to get the Steam version running at all even a couple years after launch. The rapid pace of PC hardware development only worsened the problem, as new operating systems left many older games, including Saints Row 2, completely behind in an unplayable state.
But that’s all about to change.
Saints Row 2, Really?
During a stream today on its Twitch channel, Volition revealed it had managed to find the missing code for Saints Row 2 that will provide the basis for making the game properly playable on Steam again. A two-person team has been given the task of using the code to get the game up and running again. Before this patch was formally announced by Volition, PC gamers had to hope that the modders that still supported this older title had a patch that would allow the game to run on newer hardware. This was usually a hit-or-miss proposition though, as there’s a lot of variables in play in terms of compatibility.
This means that the PC version of Saints Row 2 on Steam will finally be playable again as intended. And yes, the company is also planning to fix other problems too, as the game will be updated to use Steamworks for multiplayer. This is a needed change after the closure of server provider GameSpy left this, as well as many games, without server support. In addition, the Ultor Exposed and Corporate Warfare DLC will be available as well.
So with this upcoming patch, it will finally be possible to replay this one game on PC again without resorting to mods. There is one small wrinkle in the plan though. The pair of developers assigned to the project by Volition appear to be a pretty low priority for the development studio, as such, we don’t know when this official patch will appear.
