Saints Row: The Third due holiday 2011

The most recent entry in the series, Saints Row 2

Though we've known for years that Volition, Inc. is working on a third Saints Row, it's only now been formally announced by publisher THQ. Saints Row: The Third, as it's called, is headed to PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this holiday season.

"Saints Row: The Third puts you on top of the world, right at the beginning of the game, with all the perks that go along with being the head of an elite criminal organization," THQ core games executive VP Danny Bilson said in the announcement. "There's no delivering pizza, no shuttling family members about in a long series of taxi missions. Instead, you take all the power of the Third Street Saints and you take the world by storm."

After seizing control of the city of Stilwater in Saints Row 2, the gang have become celebrities, "with Saints sneakers, Saints energy drinks and Johnny Gat bobble head dolls all available at a store near you." A crime syndicate named, inventively, The Syndicate doesn't take too kindly to this and so off go the Saints to the new city of Steelport to cause trouble.

THQ says we can expect "the most outlandish gameplay scenarios ever seen." Considering that Saints Row 2 included sewage-spraying missions and allowed players to go through the game, committing dreadful acts of brutality, dressed as a hotdog, that'd be a sight to behold.

Further details are due in the April issue of Game Informer magazine.

A tie-in game named Saints Row: Drive By is also on the way, due to be released on Nintendo 3DS, Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. Drive By will unlock rewards in Saints Row 3, and vice versa. The 3DS edition of Drive By was once billed as a launch title for the handheld, though it's absent from both Nintendo's launch day and launch window games lineups.