
In an element new to the series, the player can now purchase and upgrade "powers" that offer superhuman abilities akin to those seen in the Prototype video game series, which allow the player to leap up the sides of buildings, glide through the air, and fire several different paranormal projectiles, as examples. The player can steal, drive, and customize vehicles, and purchase weapons and clothing. Saints Row IV shares most of its gameplay aspects with the previous installment, being primarily played as a third-person shooter in an open world map scattered with campaign quests, secondary objectives, and various collectibles. Each hack is set up as a grid and your goal is to place the nodes available to you to complete the circuit. Objectives are often based around hacking the simulation in order to work towards escaping it. Store Hacking is one of the diversions in the game and is more like a mini-game than anything else, first shown to you during the Hack the Planet story mission.

The simulation has Steelport constantly cloaked in the darkness of night, with largely computer-themed twists on classic Saints Row elements. The game's plot sees invading aliens place the player into a computer-simulated version of Steelport early on, and the bulk of the game takes place within this simulation.
