Some of Jane Austen's finest work.

For being a self-admitted standalone expansion, Gat Out of Hell does a surprising amount of experimentation with the formulae set up by the Saints Row franchise. Not all of it works, but - contrary to my initial fears about the series being put on autopilot - Volition's willingness to mix things up here is encouraging for the future of Saints Row.

Gat Out of Hell starts with some cutscene-driven storytelling, which feels alternately over-ambitious and under-developed. The story is pretty simple: the leader of the Saints gets kidnapped by The Devil, and Gat and Kinzie go after him, teaming up with a few big names in Hell along the way. But the introductory setup is overwrought and dull, with way, way too much spoken narration; and, due to what I can only assume was a mismanaged content budget, the aforementioned "big names in Hell" are hardly more than footnotes. Optional collectibles reveal some compelling backstory for these characters, almost all of which is absent from the core story sequences. Whatever the cause, the end result is that Gat Out of Hell assembles a fine cast of characters, then ignores them in a distressingly large amount of its exposition.

Relatedly, one of the game's grand experiments is tossing the customizable protagonist and replacing it with the pre-designed Gat and Kinzie characters. Previous Saints Row games built some charming personalities for Gat and Kinzie (along with the rest of the Saints), and when cutscenes allow them to, these two lovable sociopaths shine just as well here as they ever have. But during normal gameplay, there aren't enough opportunities - whether narrative or mechanical - for them to differentiate themselves from a customized avatar, or even from each other. What is the point of "playing as" these characters, when it's not meaningfully different from a player-customized character that could just as easily look or act like them? It's not as if The Boss is lacking in personality, since that character, too, was very well-scripted in SR3 and SR4. Discarding body- and voice- and clothing- and etc-customization options just feels like a loss, with no real gain for subbing in these other characters instead.

The game's biggest gambit, independent of its story, is how that story is revealed. Whereas previous Saints Rows just slightly meddled with the straightforward approach of story missions - mixing some side activities into said missions' objectives - Gat Out of Hell has invented a story meter. A bar in the upper-left shows Gat's and Kinzie's progress through the game's main storyline, with the inevitable Satan Showdown at the end, and a couple of major story beats inbetween. The bar is pushed forward by essentially playing the game: doing activities, collecting pickups, or even just causing open-world mayhem will gradually fill the bar to completion. This seems like a really clever and admirable innovation -- allowing any kind of gameplay, devoid of all linearity, to move the story along.

However, there are a couple of execution issues that keep the story meter from working to its full potential. For one thing, it moves too fast; I'd barely scratched the game's surface by the time it opened up the final mission, somewhere around two or three hours in. And for another thing, there are still narrative missions - keeping up with allies in Hell - that aren't linked to the meter, which results in them being easily missed and disposable. If the meter were longer, and had more than just two beats between its beginning and end, I think that it could drive a full-length game very effectively.

As for the rest of Gat Out of Hell's content, it's mostly in line with the framework set up by Saints Row IV. Matrix powers and magic get replaced by demon powers and ... demon magic. Cyberspace orbs are replaced with soul orbs. Flying is wing-based, rather than just gliding, now; it takes a bit to get used to, but the ability to climb upward makes it much more satisfying. There is a new Salvation activity, wherein our heroes fly around a map to save souls -- the rest of the activites are slight riffs on previous ones (Hellblazing is Blazing with wings; Torment Fraud is Insurance Fraud with more fire; Mayhem is, uh, Mayhem). And as always, the Saints bring some incredible weaponry with them, from shotguns and crossbows to fire swords and frog launchers.

Far from "playing it safe" in the way that Volition tends to do DLC, Gat Out of Hell tries enough new things to allay concerns about Saints Row growing stale. It's a shame that they don't work better than they do, and I think it's a fair bet that Gat Out of Hell's overall potential was limited most by its relatively-small production scope.

But the silver lining is that, even despite its brevity and shortcomings, it nails the silly, over-the-top fun that "Saints Row" has become defined by. Plus, the game map is still chock-full of diversions and collectibles. Just as I did with The Third and IV, I'll certainly be spending plenty more time checking off the arbitrary, stupid, and awesome challenges in this game.

Better than: Saints Row IV: How the Saints Save Christmas, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare
Not as good as: Saints Row: The Third, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony
Not the biggest deal, but: the radio is gone, replaced by an ambient soundtrack that's low-key or silent most of the time. Where my EDM at, Volition?

Progress: 97%