Borderlands 2 Interview

Coverage about Gearbox Software’s Borderlands sequel has been a little slow so far, with the latest piece we’ve managed to find out being an interview with various members of the team including Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford at DigitalTrends. Here’s a sampling:

How has the AI design changed from the original game to the sequel?

[AB] Like pretty much everything else in the game, the AI has undergone a massive improvement since the first game. Enemies now have much more complex interactions with one another. Our robotic enemies will heal one another, players can trick our bandit enemies into fighting amongst themselves, and our elemental creatures are off the chizzo, for rizzo.

Like, say you’re fighting a Fire Skag. He’s immune to fire damage, shoots fire at you, the whole deal. But midway during your fight, some non-elemental Skag Pups come in to help him. Suddenly, the Fire Skag roars, sending out a fiery AoE blast that transforms all of the Skag Pups into Fire Skag Pups, with the same elemental strengths he had.

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What are the things you are most excited for people to see and experience when they play Borderlands 2?

[AB] In short: the guns. With the entire gun system rebuilt from the ground up, I’m really interested to see which guns the fans respond to will they prefer the bullet hose Vladofs? The precise, sci-fi Hyperion weapons? The Tediore guns, which you throw like grenades instead of reloading? Personally, I can’t wait to see someone kill the endboss just by throwing Tediore reloads at it.

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How do you see the health of the gaming industry in general?

[Randy Pitchford] In sum, the game industry is stronger than ever. The best of the premium game makers are reaching more people than ever before and entirely new markets have opened up with casual games, digital distribution and mobile gaming over the last few years and all of this adds up to a very exciting climate for creators.