Saints Row: Doc Ketchum's Murder Circus

I went into Murder Circus hoping Volition had found a clever use for the Saints Row reboot's most serviceable element, its third-person shooting, and stripped away the open world that kept getting in the way. The premise is right there: a dark carnival game show run by the unhinged Doc Ketchum, set in a neon-soaked, corpse-littered version of the Boot Hill district called New Birmingham Island. On paper, a focused roguelite combat mode sounds like a smart pivot. In practice, it reveals exactly why the base game divided people so sharply. The structure is straightforward. You pick one of four preset contestants, each with a distinct perk set: Consuela, Chief Justice, Daniel Li, and Artemis. You start a run with a single weapon, scavenge chests for additional firepower (the Darkshot rifle, the Harlech LMG, and the Bulldog dual shotguns are all in the pool), trigger Caskets of Chaos to spawn enemy waves, and fight until they are all dead. Die, and you are back at the menu spending coins on unlocks that carry into the next attempt. Between that light roguelite loop and the character leveling, there is a skeleton of something genuinely replayable here. The Molotov skill adds a satisfying layer when the arena gets crowded, and reaching a character's level 8 finale run does give a small sense of progression payoff. The problems stack up fast, though. The biggest one is that you are not playing as your custom Boss. The whole framing is that your character is watching these four strangers compete on a livestream, which cuts you off from any attachment to who you are controlling. The four contestants are functional but forgettable, and leveling all of them to unlock their individual finales means running the same environment repeatedly with characters you never chose. Some late-game enemy types lean hard on a tedious wait-for-the-weak-spot mechanic that kills momentum right when runs should be building tension. The DLC has no story worth mentioning beyond Doc Ketchum's brief intro cutscene, and the 39 cosmetics and collectibles tucked into the mode are fine as a side reward but are not going to justify repeated runs on their own. At roughly 39 percent positive from the reviews that exist, the verdict from players mirrors what critics observed: this is a DLC for people already committed to the Saints Row reboot's combat feel, not a gateway for skeptics. If the base game's gunplay felt satisfying to you, the circus delivers a few solid hours of that in a tighter setting. If the shooting felt clunky or repetitive before, a horde arena with nothing else surrounding it is not going to fix your opinion.

Alex · Scout Team

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