Volition have announced the Saints Row reboot has been delayed, but not to make changes to the game’s story or characters.

Saints Row now launches August 23rd, 2022 on Windows PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

As previously reported; players form their own criminal empire from scratch in Santo Ileso, taking on other gangs to become self-made. Take down Los Panteros, The Idols, and Marshall in their quest to take over the city.

Since the game’s reveal fans have expressed widespread concerns and backlash over the direction the reboot was taking the series; though dislikes on trailers have now been hidden thanks to the mass removal of dislikes on YouTube.

The games official Twitter account replied to one fan that they were “not backing down on this;” while other interviews with developers had them stating the tone of past games was “not something that we feel like we want to do today.”

Now Volition have stated the game will be delayed from its February 25th release date, as the game would not have been able to meet “the standards we’ve set ourselves, and that you’re expecting and deserve.” The noted changes are “fine tuning,” and notably “there won’t be much change in the game outside of overall quality and polish.”

The COVID-19 pandemic was also blamed, as Volition state their underestimated the impact it would have on their schedule despite staff adapting very quickly to working from home.

“As mentioned when we announced Saints Row in August, this will be the biggest and best Saints Row game ever and, in order to achieve our goal, we’ve settled upon a generous, yet essential amount of time to realise our ambitions.

Rest assured, there will not be any changes to the story or the characters or anything that we’ve lovingly imagined over the last few years and already shared with you.”