Even as someone who enjoyed the base Saints Row game, I am on the side of the fence that hopes this is the final piece of DLC. What has come so far has been disappointing and repetitive in the form of The Heist & the Hazardous and Doc Ketchum’s Murder Circus respectively.
Saints Row: A Song of Ice and Dust is the last scheduled content drop for the troubled reboot and before playing it, I was quite relieved. After playing it, I am sad it is all over.
A Song of Ice and Dust continues the LARPing side quests from the main game. This was arguably the most traditional part of the latest Saints Row; fun and a little bit silly, harking back to the original games more than most of the other aspects found in the 2022 reboot.
If the name didn’t make it obvious enough, A Song of Ice and Dust loosely riffs on A Song of Ice and Fire, AKA Game of Thrones. Heck, the opening mission is called The Blue Wedding and for those that still haven’t gotten over The Red Wedding in Game of Thrones, you will know exactly what to expect here.
This opening mission not only ‘kills’ most of your friends’ LARPing characters, but introduces a new baddie and faction known only as the Chill Queen and the Frostlanders. Who they are is irrelevant, what matters only is their motive: she wants to take the Dust Crown that you worked so very hard for.
A Song of Ice and Dust is set across five missions in a new area of the map called Vallejo, set to the south west of Santo Ileso. Included here is the Dustfaire, an annual gathering of LARPers, and your location with which to stop the Chill Queen from taking your Dust Crown, and – generally – spoiling everyone’s fun.
The LARPing sections in the main Saints Row were a lot of fun: the kill and death animations, the ye olde English patois, and the back and forth between your hero and Gwen; your former boss turned LARPer. All of this is present in Saints Row: A Song of Ice and Dust, and it is all significantly ramped up. The five missions don’t do anything you wouldn’t have seen already in Saints Row, but this story and humour double down on the fun aspect, which was missing at times from the main game.
As is traditional with the DLCs for Saints Row, completing tasks and missions unlocks new outfits and weapons to use at any point afterwards. Whilst this may seem surplus to requirement after you have fully completed the main game, there was one new weapon I wanted to single out: the Banhammer.
You will unlock this special weapon during the penultimate mission of the DLC, for reasons I will not spoil, and then proceed to use it. Essentially, it is Thor’s Hammer Mjolnir, used as a throwing weapon that will always return to you (some times if you throw it in the air and miss an enemy it can take a few seconds to return. Simply put: don’t miss). But after three kills with it, you unlock a very overpowered area of effect attack that insta-kills anyone in the blast radius.
You will also have access to it amongst your regular arsenal for the final mission, but I didn’t need to swap it out at all during the final onslaught. This final mission acts like an area control mission with you defending three areas in the Dustfaire from the Chill Queen and her Frostlanders. The Banhammer was perfect for the job. As such, it is now in my weapon wheel permanently, should I ever wish to return to Saints Row.
Once again though, this final DLC is a little on the short side. We’re not at the offensively short length of the first DLC, the Heist & the Hazardous, but A Song of Ice and Dust can still be completed within two hours. It is, however, a lot more fun.
Just as an aside, I put the entire length of the Season Pass at around six hours for three pieces of DLC. Individually priced, A Song of Ice and Dust is the most expensive DLC in the Season Pass, and whilst it is easily the most fun, it isn’t the longest. Overall though, the content has been somewhat lacking for those that picked up the Season Pass, with this final drop being the only one I would fully recommend playing.
Whilst A Song of Ice and Dust may be the most fun DLC for Saints Row 2022, there are still question marks over it in terms of length. The five missions can be completed in under two hours and the new location offers little you haven’t seen hundreds of times already. But the Banhammer weapon is a joy to wield, and it is that which makes this lighthearted final outing a lot of fun in those closing missions; earning itself a spot in the main weapon wheel for future usage.
It is that weapon alone which means Saints Row goes out with a bit more of a bang than a whimper.
