Borderlands 2 Claptrap Interview

The latest Borderlands 2 interview comes to us via Venture Beat, that fired up some questions to Gearbox Software’s co-founder and CEO Randy Pitchford, executive vice-president and chief creative officer Brian Martel and writer Anthony Burch, all revolving around the series’ iconic robot Claptrap. Here’s a snip:

GamesBeat: Is it hard to write for the sequel, knowing how high expectations are for Claptrap to be funny and interesting?

Anthony Burch: It’s a bit more difficult. In earlier drafts of the script, I wrote Claptrap much closer to how he behaves in the web shorts: arrogant, insulting, profane, etcetera. It took a bit of internal discussion, and a couple of rewrites, to put Claptrap in a place where fans who hadn’t seen the shorts wouldn’t be shocked at Claptrap’s sudden doucheitude in BL2, while also making sure that he wasn’t just the exact same guy from the first game. It’s been five years, and Claptrap’s had some hairy stuff happen to him he’s gotta be a bit worse for wear.

GamesBeat: Who does Claptrap see as his primary competition? Is there any internal aim to have Claptrap be more beloved by fans than GlaDOS or Wheatley, or at the very least, the Companion Cube?

Burch: (Write a character more beloved than the Companion Cube) is number seven on my list of Things That Would Be Awesome and Will Literally Never Happen, right before (play seven minutes in heaven with Tina Fey) and right after (high-five David Hayter while playing seven minutes in heaven with Tina Fey.)

So, no. Speaking personally, that’s never been an aim of mine.