Saints Row is a series of action-adventure video games created by Volition and published by THQ and Deep Silver. The series follows the 3rd Street Saints, a fictional street gang originally operating out of the Saint's Row district, hence the series' title.
Gameplay in the Saints Row games focuses on an open world where the player can complete missions to progress an overall story, as well as engage in various side activities. Most of the gameplay revolves around driving and shooting, with occasional role-playing elements. Due to early entries being labeled as Grand Theft Auto clones, the developers sought to create a more distinctive experience from the third game onwards, with a heavy focus on over-the-top gameplay, popular culture homages, parodies, and self-referential humor; these changes have been controversial among fans of the original games. The Saints Row series is set primarily in two fictional locales—Stilwater and Steelport—which are loosely based on real-life American cities. The games center on an initially unnamed player-created character (later nicknamed "the Boss") who joins the 3rd Street Saints by chance and helps them defeat enemy gangs in city-wide turf wars. Later down the line, they become the gang's leader, a celebrity and pop culture icon, and eventually President of the United States, while facing more powerful enemies, such as an anti-gang paramilitary and an alien empire.
Work on the original Saints Row began in 2003, after Volition's completion of Red Faction II. The game was released in 2006 to critical acclaim and commercial success. The sequel, Saints Row 2, was released in 2008 to similar acclaim and greater commercial success. The series' third entry, Saints Row: The Third, was released on 15 November 2011 and was the final Saints Row video game to be published by THQ before Deep Silver acquired the rights to series in 2013. The series' fourth entry, Saints Row IV was released on 20 August 2013, with a standalone expansion called Gat out of Hell released on 20 January 2015 in North America and 23 January 2015 in Europe. As of September 2013, the series has had sales in excess of 13 million, making it one of the best-selling video game franchises of all-time.