Borderlands 2: Meet the Assassin and the Commando

After dedicating an article to Maya, the Siren, the folks at IGN are offering two new preview features, one dedicated to “the Assassin”, Zer0, and the other to “the Commando”, and both equally graced by quotes from the title’s developers. Here’s a snip from the write-up on the Assassin class:

Though Zer0 uses a sword often in the trailer, the blade isn’t an equippable item. You won’t swap out swords the same way you swap out guns. Instead, the sword is his basic melee attack, but its effectiveness in combat can be enhanced. There’s actually reason for the lack of sword customization built into the fiction of Borderlands 2, called ‘digistruction’. “Digistruct is our term in the Borderlands universe for this ability of having like a digital blueprint that can then be built, you know, on demand,” said Hellquist. “That’s how our cars appear in the world and a lot of things in the game are constructed in this way.when you pull your guns out they digistructed out of their holster. Hopefully people will finally get to really realize all this kind of cool technology we invented. In fact even Claptrap has a digistruct module. If you’ve ever seen his little tray pop out of his chest, he’s got a digistruct module in there.”

In terms of Zer0’s sword, “The blade actually digistructs,” said Cooke, “It’s somewhat like a lightsaber. The handle exists on his hilt and when he pulls it out the blade digistructs for the attack.”

It’s especially easy for Zer0 to close in on enemies thanks to his action skill, Deception. “He can deploy a holographic decoy of himself onto the battlefield,” explained Hellquist, “then he goes into a predator stealth kind of mode where he can move around on the battlefield while the enemies think that he’s where his decoy is. This allows him to maneuver around the battlefield and do tons of critical strikes.” While in stealth mode Zer0 isn’t invulnerable grenades and other form of splash damage will still injure him further distinguishing it from the phasewalking ability of the original Borderlands’ Siren.