With the release of Saints Row IV just around the corner, it seems that publisher Deep Silver wants to set a charitable tone with a Humble Bundle consisting of its more delinquent titles. After all, crime’s perfectly legal if it’s done in the name of sick children.

The Humble Deep Silver Bundle base package consists of Saints Row: The Third, Saints Row 2, Risen 2: Dark Waters, and the Gold Edition of Sacred 2, along with the soundtrack for each game. Chipping in at least $4.70 will get you Dead Island GOTY edition, along with a DLC-laden version of Saints Row: The Third. And finally, if you chip in a whopping $25, you’ll nab yourself a copy of Dead Island: Riptide, though you might want to hold off on that one.

We should also mention that the PC version of Saints Row 2 was a poorly-optimized mess when it first came out, so keep that in mind if you’re nabbing the bundle for that title alone. There’s a chance things have gotten a bit better since we last visited the city of Stilwater, but we still recommend you proceed with caution.

The Saints Row games do not officially support modding - although that's hardly stopped fans from cracking them open and making them the hard way. Well, things are about to get a whole lot easier thanks to developer Volition, who are giving their support to the modding community by proving a package containing "documentation, file formats, tools, and more", which will go towards creating "what is essentially a full sdk" for Saints Row: The Third. Even more exciting is the suggestion that this is a "test run" for a similar set of tools for the upcoming Saints Row IV.

Given how few developers throw their weight behind mod tools these days, this is an excellent turn of events, even if Volition aren't putting together something official. Here's idolninja explaining the situation:

"Jeff Thompson, the Studio Director of Programming at Volition, is putting together a package for us containing documentation, file formats, tools, and more on the Saints Row: The Third engine. Myself, Minimaul, and gibbed will be working closely with Jeff over the coming months to use this information to create a robust set of modding tools to supplement our existing ones and creating what is essentially a full sdk for the game! But, that’s not all! Saints Row: The Third is only the beginning! Jeff has confirmed that he will also be digging up all the Saints Row 2 info that he can so we can do the same for it as well, and that this undertaking is actually a “test run” for Saints Row IV.

"So, what does this actually mean to the average Saints Row player? In simple terms, the modding community will finally be able to create and offer new clothing, new vehicles, new guns, new npcs, new missions, and even new world geometry which will greatly extend the life of the series and enhance the Saints Row games in ways we never even dared to dream of."

It's hard to imagine what mods could possibly add to Saints Row 4, given that it already features superpowers, Inflate-O-Rays and a dubstep gun. But I'm looking forward to finding out.

Thanks, Blues News!

Aliens, superpowers, inflation lasers, a dubstep gun - judging from its short teaser trailer, Saints Row IV looks to be the most ridiculous game in the series yet. Speaking to OXM, Volition senior producer Jim Boon responded to comments made by Cliff Bleszinski - who suggested the game should tone down its more juvenile elements - saying, "I think our tone is an element of our success."

"Ultimately I don't think that SR's tone gets in the way of bigger sales. If anything, I think our tone is an element of our success. SR is quite unlike anything else out there, and I think gamers crave unique experiences - I know I do. We have a lot of passionate fans that love SR, so I think we are striking the right chord."

Despite this, Boon says the team doesn't feel pressure to outdo the ridiculousness of previous games - even though they clearly have. "If anything it is liberating to be able to come up with any idea we think gamers will enjoy with no restrictions. Ultimately the pressure comes from trying to keep things fun in SR4. We have a very creative team that comes up with some fairly crazy ideas - that is almost the easy part for the team.

"The challenge is to make sure these ideas have a purpose and are fun," Boon continues. "We don't want to do crazy just for the sake of being over the top, so it is important that our crazy ideas actually add to the game. The pressure comes from having the time to really hone our idea into something that feels awesome for the player. We have had to cut any number of ideas if we thought we couldn't get the fun factor where it needs to be."

All fine and well, but would fans really miss the giant purple dildos? Boon thinks yes. "I think our fans would miss what might considered juvenile elements of previous SR games. Based on the overall reception and sales of SR3, I strongly suspect many people enjoy this aspect of SR, even if some may not want to admit feeling that way. Thinking of a movie series like The Hangover - people love the humor but you might not want to discuss some of the finer moments of those movies with your mom, for example.

"I think the same might be true for SR. We do get an awful lot of feedback from fans telling us much they love our juvenile tone - with some asking us to go even further! Ultimately SR4 doesn't try to take itself too seriously and we even have a lot of fun at our own expense."

Read the full interview to learn how superpowers have been integrated into the game, and how the team coped during THQ's bankruptcy.

Saints Row 4 is due out August 23rd.

Saints Row 4 debuted last week with all the subtlety one might expect from a game with dubstep guns and rocket-launching guitars, and it's eyeballing an August 20 release. That sets up a scant month-long gap between it and Grand Theft Auto 5's planned September launch, and Rockstar's titan has both years of success and a heavy fanbase to bring to bear. Speaking to Eurogamer, Volition Producer Jim Boone says the team isn't worried in the slightest and feels Saints Row is unique enough to stack up to its giant competitor.

"Obviously, when announced its date and it was so close to us, that was an interesting phenomenon," Boone says. "But the thing we feel good about in general is that we're such a different game to what they are. If we were stylistically similar to the first Saints Row, I'd be horrified right now. Saints Row: The Third came out the same time as Assassin's Creed, but the games are so different in terms of what they do."

Saints Row 4 certainly departs heavily from its original predecessor (remember when you were fighting gangs?), adopting a chaotic grab-bag of wacky antics such as superpowers, alien invasions, and pedestrian-firing cat cannons. Grand Theft Auto 5 is much more narrative-focused by comparison, weaving a more serious tale of crime and redemption connected across multiple main characters.

For Boone, open world games have come along far enough for both styles to co-exist peacefully. "The genre's matured enough where you can have all these different styles and still be an open world game and be different," he states. "So I look at GTA 5 and think there's this massive game coming out, but I don't think that with our superpowers and alien invasions, no one will compare us to them."

It isn't often we see the words "Origin" and "sale" next to each other, but this week is the exception: EA is running a week-long Player Appreciation Sale which discounts some pretty hefty games in the publisher's lineup—titans such as Mass Effect 3, Crysis 3, and Battlefield 3.

Here's the full list of games on sale and their prices:

Battlefield 3 Premium—$25
Battlefield 3—$12
Battlefield 3 Premium Edition—$30
Crysis 3—$30
Crysis 3 Digital Deluxe Edition—$40
Crysis 3 Digital Deluxe Upgrade—$10
The Sims 3 Seasons—$20
The Sims 3 University Life—$28
The Sims 3 Supernatural—$15
Dead Space—$6
Dead Space 2—$6
Dead Space 3—$30
Resident Evil 5—$10
Mass Effect 3—$10
The Walking Dead—$10
Batman: Arkham City GOTY Edition—$12
FIFA Soccer 13—$20
Command & Conquer Ultimate Collection—$15
Hitman: Absolution—$15
Saints Row: The Third Full Package—$25
Assassin's Creed 3—$35
Assassin's Creed 3 Deluxe Edition—$56
Darksiders 2—$18
Dead Island GOTY Edition—$10
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City—$25


Normal and special editions on sale? And they're big games? I don't want to spoil this rare opportunity to enjoy a good Origin sale with cynicism, but it's hard not to chortle lightly at the convenient devaluing of nearly half the games EA offered SimCity players for free earlier this week.