The final stop to at the 2K Meeting Room was to see Gearbox’s new RPS (as they call it, Role Playing Shooter) known as Borderlands. The first major point to make about Borderlands this year at E3 is that the graphics have changed tremendously, and by far for the better, than previous available coverage of the game. Before, Borderlands was a rather drab and dreary looking title, with tons of browns, blacks, and grays and it didn’t exactly pop off the screen. Now, a new art style has been put into place that makes a lot of the game have that sleek, crisp, and vibrant look to it. The experience looks a lot more colorful too, and honestly I’m not exaggerating when I say that Borderlands was one of the best visually appealing titles at the show.
Now, on to the core game; Borderlands is an FPS, but not in your traditional sense. Gearbox has created what may very well be the first, or at least first to be this robust, RPG that is focused on guns. There is an untold number of weapons in the game, but the figure is literally over a million, but that really isn’t the point. The point is that players will come across a ridiculous amount of different weapons that they can equip, store, sell, and trade as they make their way across the massive expanse that is Borderlands.
Borderlands stars four main characters, which you have probably heard about to this point. For most of the demo, we watched the tank character, Brick, run around in a live co-op session with three other players (the game supports a max of four co-op players). As we watched, a dev from Gearbox assured us that what weapons you find, and what type of enemy you encounter, changes constantly with each play. Vehicles are part of the equation too to help you squash enemies and move about the universe quicker, although I believe the vehicles may be limited to “just” land vehicles.
Player customization is somewhat limited, but not bad — you will of course have a custom name but you can also suit up different kinds of armors and change the color palette that is used on your characters’ textures too. There are also plans for DLC as well that should help players grab up some of the more advanced weapons, although no specifics were made on what the DLC would be, that is just my guess.
As far as multiplayer difficulty goes, the devs are still working on tweaking balance and item management and so forth, but from what I gathered the game difficulty will vary depending on how many people are playing and what their ranks are. Players also level up as they go, giving them upgrade points to spend on leveling up various characteristics.
This ambitious and interesting title is set to release in October of this year, with a demo possible beforehand.
