Saints Row: The Third Remastered is getting some improvements on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series next week, with a free upgrade that will bring these console versions to the same standard as the "PC edition at high settings".

Arriving on 25th May, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S upgrade will allow the game's engine to "run at a much higher performance, bringing improvements to lighting, texture resolution, and other visual effects thanks to the powerful hardware." The press release from Deep Silver explains this will bring framerates up to 60fps with dynamic 4k resolution.

Xbox Series S users will be able to choose between two modes depending on how they want the game to run. There's Performance Mode, in which gameplay is locked at 60fps with 1080p resolution, or Beauty Mode, which provides an upscaled 4k resolution but a framerate of 30fps. PlayStation 5 users, meanwhile, get Activities support and a "subtle signature Saints purple glow on the DualSense controller". I guess you'd have to get the new black DualSense controller if you wanted the full Saints Row colour scheme.

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Saints Row The Third Remastered hits Steam on 22nd May.

Confirmation comes from the official Saints Row Twitter account.

The Saints Row The Third remaster came out in May 2020 on console and PC via the Epic Games Store. Now Epic's standard one year of PC exclusivity is up, Volition's game can hit Steam.

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Five of the Best is a weekly series about the parts of games we overlook. We've discussed a diverse bunch: crowds, hubs, potions, mountains, hands... They're the things we take for granted while we play but then, years later, find lodged in our brains. It's only then we begin to appreciate how important they were. So let's celebrate them.

Today...

Character creators! How long do you spend in them? Do you pick a premade face and just breeze through? Do you pick a template, tinker a bit and then settle? Or do you adjust absolutely everything, take all evening and it still doesn't look right? I feel your pain.

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There are two different ways to look at the Switch port of Saints Row: The Third'. From a glass half full perspective, what you're getting an exceptionally close conversion of the PS3 original, closer still if you play in handheld mode. But viewed in a glass half empty way, all of the failings of the last-gen console versions remain in full effect on this new release: let's make no bones about it, performance is poor and the controls have severe input lag issues.

Let's focus initially on the positives. Playing Saints Row: The Third in Switch's handheld mode is definitely the best way to experience the game. It renders at a full 720p - making it a pin-sharp native experience on Switch's six-inch screen, while performance seems to be more consistent than the docked mode. As usual, the smaller screen does a good job of hiding some of the cut-backs and compromises and to all intents and purposes, it is indeed the PS3 version in the palm of your hand. And to be clear, this game has always been hilarious fun - and this was the main reason why we were so looking forward to the Switch port, and most likely why we've had so many requests to look at it.

Much of the charm wears off when playing docked, as despite migrating Saints Row: The Third to full 1080p resolution, it feels like a step too far for the Switch's mobile hardware. Blown up on a big living room display, the extra resolution is welcome, but just about any major use of alpha transparency effects clearly reveals ugly sawtooth edges - a sign of lower resolution buffers in play. These were already cut back on the last-gen consoles versions, but the compromise is even more pronounced on Switch with even lower resolution artefacts. There's also an impact to performance: the frame-rate lows feel worse than they do in handheld mode - making the experience feel even more uneven.

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