PAX Prime ’11: More Borderlands 2 Details Revealed at “Inside Gearbox” Panel

When Mikey Neumann urged his Twitter followers to attend the “Inside Gearbox” panel at PAX, promising free pizza and some “killer surprises,” he wasn’t kidding.

Not only was there more pizza on hand than there was in the last Borderlands DLC, all attendees also got a look at the very promising Aliens: Colonial Marines along with Borderlands 2, and a fairly revealing Q&A session at the end of the whole thing.

Oh, by the way, everyone there got a certificate entitling them to a free copy of Borderlands 2 when it’s released. It’s okay to be jealous.

I was an enormous fan of the original Borderlands, so I made sure to pay close attention to anything related to its sequel at this panel. Here are a few things you can expect when the game launches next year:

• The game’s weapons have more statistical parameters now, which means that there are many, many, many more potential weapons to create. One example was a chaingun that fires rockets. A chaingun. That fires. Rockets.
• On the note of weapon customization, scopes will have their own parameters now, and will do different cool things. A beer bottle can act as a scope, for instance.
• In addition to the Gunzerker, Salvador, who was shown prominently during the demos of the game, there was a second character on the field. Named Maya, she is a Siren (like Lilith), though each Siren has a different ability and we haven’t seen Maya’s yet.
• Artifacts, which were only used in the first game to upgrade your character’s special skill, are getting a huge upgrade in Borderlands 2. They’ll now allow you to upgrade your character in various ways, like making them drive faster, jump farther, things like that.
• There will be a lot more vehicle variety this time around.
• There will be a shared bank, where you can store items to be accessed by your different characters.
• The PC version will not use GameSpy for multiplayer.
• Being online will not be a requirement to play Borderlands 2, but if you are online you’ll get benefits, like cloud saves.
• It was hinted that there will be more female character variety, rather than the one female surrounded by men in the first game.
• The sequel will explore what’s happened to the original game’s characters in the few years that have passed.
• The villain in Borderlands 2is “Handsome Jack,” who fully believes that he is the hero of the game, and the player’s characters are basically just bandits who leveled up too high and need to be wiped out.
• There will be more group-based bosses, like the first game’s Crawmerax the Invincible.
• Mac gamers will be happy to know Gearbox are trying to get the Mac launch of Borderlands 2as close as possible to that of the other platforms.
• There will be a collector’s edition of the game, though no details were given.

If there was one overarching theme when the folks from Gearbox were talking about Borderlands 2 at this panel, it was a feeling of sincerity. They are truly dedicated to learning from what did and didn’t work in the first game, and making this one the best it can possibly be.

Hearing Randy Pitchford answer the questions that were asked of him, it was easy to tell that he’s incredibly exited to be making this game, and isn’t just calling this one in after the original’s surprise success.

At this point, I don’t know how Borderlands 2 can possibly end up being anything less than stellar. I was already excited for this game, but the more I hear about it the harder it’s going to be to wait until next year when I finally have a chance to play it.