Borderlands

E3 2008 Preview

Gearbox Software certainly has their hands full, with the development on two different IPs going in full force. The first one is there long-awaited WWII game, Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, but the second is a new IP, Borderlands. What can be best described as a co-op Mad Max game with a little less of a focus on driving, Borderlands puts you in a post-apocalyptic world with literally hundreds of thousands of weapons at your disposal, and compelling cooperative gameplay with action-RPG elements thrown into the mix.

Borderlands is a first-person action-RPG where your character can gain new abilities as they level up, get new armor and weapons, and find all kinds of loot. The demo of the game showed off by 2K and Gearbox showcased an area known as the Barrens and featured co-op between the two-people. They jumped into an armed vehicle and demonstrated the ability to switch seats on the fly without stopping the vehicle, which was a pretty nice touch.

The group showed off a mission that involved the two co-op players fighting through a group of bandits to reclaim a stolen alien artifact. The mission had the players using teamwork tactics to effectively defeat the bandits. Along the way, they would level up and get better weapon skills, including a steadier hand for better aim and accuracy.

As I mentioned earlier, Borderlands will have roughly 650,000 or more generated weapon possibilities. They are procedurally created by the game, each one with unique stats and abilities, like acid bullets and different scopes, and it is doubtful that any one player will be able to see all possible weapon outcomes when they play the game.

Graphically, the game looks pretty solid, even in pre-alpha form. The Unreal Engine 3 has been tweaked to allow for bright colors and wide open areas, as well as dimly lit dungeon settings. All in all, Borderlands should be a good looking and good playing game when it’s released next year.

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