Saints Row mod tools stem from a 'grassroots effort' within Volition, studio director says

The recently announced modification tools headed to Saints Row 2 and Saints Row: The Third are the result of a "grassroots effort" from the developers at Volition, the developer's studio director of programmers Jeff Thompson told the Penny Arcade Report.

The tools will be provided to a group of modders with a history of creating unofficial mods for Volition's open-world series. As the developers finalize the upcoming Saints Row 4, they'll also be working with the modders to create official Saints Row mod tools.

"We are just at the beginning of things, and this is a grassroots effort within Volition," Thompson said. "By that I mean, right now, it's entirely fueled by people within Volition who want to do this. These are people like Mike Wilson and Mike Flavin who are working full-time helping finish the PC version of Saint's Row 4 and working on our next-gen tech. Even with that load they and others are on IM talking with IdolNinja and Minimaul, getting tools modified to work for modders, developing an early modding [software development kit] for release, and answering questions on the saintsrowmods.com forum."

For more on the series' upcoming installment, for which these mod tools will serve as a "test run," be sure to check out Polygon's hands-on impression of Saints Row 4 from E3 2013.