“All games should have robot reinforcements from the moon base.”

A very wise piece of advice indeed, delivered by Gearbox Software’s Steve Gibson, who was at gamescom 2011 to demonstrate Borderlands 2 to a room packed with an audience twitching with anticipation. It was a piece of advice thinly veiled as a tongue-in-cheek challenge to other game developers – put more mechanical creatures in your games that are able to be called in from the moon base!

I tend to agree. All games should have robot reinforcements from the moon base, and in Gearbox Software’s Borderlands 2, not only are there lots of creatures and insane enemies to dispatch, there are also lots of robots!

This bit of salient information was only related to us nearer to the end of the demo, however. What first punched us in the eyeballs was the visual style of Borderlands 2, which makes much greater use of the bold, black-outlined cel-shaded graphics of the first game. Everywhere you look in the world of Borderlands 2, you’ll be knocked out by the incredibly strong art direction of the game which makes for a very unique graphical style to stand out from the crowd.

It was for this reason, Gibson explained, that the original Borderlands adopted this approach to its graphics - to stand out from a sea of sequels which dominated the gaming scene back in 2009, and that game’s release. After announcing and debuting Borderlands in 2007, Gearbox president Randy Pitchford and Gibson begged journalists (his words) to talk about Borderlands and show Borderlands to anyone who cared to listen, and it is Gibson’s belief that the success of that original title can be attributed to its showings at gamesom as it was able to attract attention away from other more established franchises.

Gearbox Software has no problem with sequels - Borderlands 2 is itself a follow-up to an original title after all, but Gibson argues that content dumps are definitely problematic for the games industry and certain publisher’s practices of releasing annual updates to games and asking for more money is abhorrent, he says.

When Gearbox released Borderlands in 2009, the team started work on what Gibson calls a “true sequel,” and not just a so-called ‘content dump’ for the original game. Gibson did see the irony in his argument, however, but pressed on with the demonstration of the studio’s Borderlands 2 regardless - he’s quite a character!

Borderlands 2 is set five years after the events of the original game and features the adventures of a new set of characters. While Roland, Mordecai and Lilith from Borderlands will feature in the sequel, these characters will play a major role in the story of this new game. In fact, Roland featured in this very gamescom demonstration… but more on that (and those robots) a little later.

To ensure Gearbox doesn’t simply deliver one of those dreaded ‘content dump’ kinds of sequels, the team had a long hard look at the flaws of the original and have completely overhauled, replaced and improved all of the game’s major systems, including artificial intelligence, quest and gun systems, and more - Gibson is very excited about the work that has gone into the game so far in this regard, and showed a few examples of these systems during the demo.

For one thing, the guns of Borderlands 2 will all have much more distinct appearances as opposed to the ‘millions of guns’ in the original, which were mostly identified by mere changes in colour. Every weapon in Borderlands 2, however, will have been crafted by a set of different manufacturers created for the game’s story, with cheap, throw-away rifles available (that you literally throw away instead of reloading) and more hastily constructed armaments fashioned out of scrap metal, bolts and anything else that may have been in arm distance when the Bandits created them - they may not look like much, but the extended ammo clip more than makes up for their appearance!

Dual-wielding any combination of weapons is also possible, and toting a raucous rapid-fire rifle and a more explosive tool of destruction together makes for some extremely fun-looking firefights as enemies are torn to shreds and sent flying in equal measure.

The arctic tundra of Marrowfield was our first stop in the Borderlands 2 demo, where we met a four-armed behemoth called the Arctic Bullymong, a creature that would remind most of a gigantic sasquatch. New enemies in Borderlands 2 are introduced with a bit of a title card and a focused zoom to properly identify who (or what) you’re about to destroy, which adds a nice personal touch to each foe - by the end of the game, you’ll no doubt know each of your enemies by name.

The extended combat encounter with the Bullymong also demonstrated one of Gearbox’s goals in providing enemies with more points of interaction and more variety in their actions, and in the full game creatures will be able to dynamically pick up and throw objects (such as cars and other things) at players to make for fresh battles, even against the same enemy.

Similarly, the more mobile, human-like enemies will have more actions and reactions, such as the ability to seek cover, hide, retreat and plan co-ordinated attacks - in the demo, a group of gun-toting opponents scattered from sight, flanked the player and re-emerged to the side in a simultaneous attempt to attack. Reactions to player attacks has also been improved, as enemies can now be knocked down, staggered and stunned as they’re hit with your gunfire.

In keeping with this goal of variety, the world of Borderlands 2 will always feel alive, and will be filled with motion and opportunities to interact with this world to avoid the feeling of a static, boring gameplay space. The range of enemies, too, will be increased with much more variety compared to the original Borderlands.

Finally, in order to provide improved freedom of exploration in the land of Borderlands 2, Gearbox is intent on allowing players to visit any part of the game’s available surroundings - if you look out over a vast, stretching vista and see an interesting landmark, you’ll eventually be able to visit that area to discover its secrets.

Oh, and vehicles can also power-slide in Borderlands 2, which Gibson thought important enough to mention. Vehicles (which come in four-player varieties, too) will obviously play an important role in the game as you’ll need to be able to quickly make your way across the massive open world, so maybe a bit of power-sliding fun is important for longer journeys.

As we made our way into a shanty town area built from scrap and detritus, the visuals of Borderlands continued to impress - the lush, detailed and stylised environments complement the look of the enemies perfectly and combine to create a truly distinct and weathered game world.

It was here that we were introduced to the Psychos, who make a return from the first Borderlands. Psycho’s will generally run straight at you and attack, which gave us a better opportunity to see the combat of Borderlands 2 in action. With your mini-map at the top of the screen, three other graphical user interface (GUI) displays are present to indicate health, ammunition and (most likely) armour levels, and as you shoot rounds at enemies numbers representing damage dealt and experience gained will fly off of your target.

Critical attacks, too, are shown in this way, which definitely (continues to) enforce the idea that the Borderlands series is much more than just a first-person shooter and has been infused with the depth of a traditional role-playing game, too, which leads nicely to the improved UI - looking over your available weapons, missions and collected trinkets has been made easier with a brand new inventory system, which looks very clean and intuitive (compared to the confusing and unwieldy system in the first game).

Enriching the RPG systems, skill trees (where you’ll be able to choose and evolve your chosen skills) in Borderlands 2 will have “game changing” ability options which will, according to Gibson, ably keep the game fresh in the later areas of the game, even for higher level players who might become weary of the same encounters and combat scenarios. Related to this, Gearbox will be paying special attention to ‘player syncing,’ that is, allowing lower level players to continue to play (and have fun) with friends who may have more powerful, higher level characters - a big criticism of the original Borderlands.

That signature Gearbox/Borderlands humour makes a return in the sequel, and before long we were introduced to a gigantic boss-like enemy, the Nomad, who carries an even bigger shield that needs to be destroyed or circumvented to reach this mighty foe’s vulnerable bits. As the Nomad was being introduced in his title card, the shield was spun around to reveal one of Borderlands’ ‘midgets,’ who was strapped to the hulking mass with rope.

Our demonstrator shot the rope on the shield, thus freeing the little creature from his bonds, at which time he fell to the ground, performed a little victory dance and started to attack the Nomad for the abuse he had to endure, all the while letting out squeaks and squeals of anger. In our demo, the ‘midget’ was unfortunately killed by the Nomad, but not before amusing the audience with its high-pitched warcries and attempts to slay the looming enemy. He will be fondly remembered.

After a slick loading screen (which took a little long, but is perfectly acceptable for a game only due for release in fiscal 2013, with much more development work to go), we made our way to the Bloodlust Ramparts, which is seemingly infested with robotic enemies: Here’s where the robotic moon base reinforcements come in!

In the scenario shown, one of the characters from Borderlands, Roland, had been captured by mining magnate Handsome Jack, and imprisoned in a roving, robotic prison. During this segment of gameplay, it was up to the player to assault the enclosure, which itself was able to protect itself, fire off rockets and float out of harm’s way as other enemies protected it from the player’s own attacks.

This mission represented another of Gearbox’s aims with Borderlands 2, in that the developer wishes to eliminate the need for players to retread ground in order to complete quests (for example, going to a quest giver, completing the quest, returning to the quest giver and then finding even more missions in one area that need to be completed in this way). The example of the roving prison was a good one, as the player will always be moving forward in order to complete this ‘moving quest,’ which could very well lead to new missions and challenges along the way, with a clear goal always in sight.

The added, unspoken advantage of this method of questing is that the game will get very addictive very quickly - quite devious on the part of Gearbox!

As the assault on the floating prison continued, there was a point where the robotic creature called for ‘reinforcements from the moon base.’ Sure enough, a second later, robot reinforcements crashed down on the ground after having been sent from the constructed, Death Star-looking moon looming large in the sky. Even though these new enemies presented a greater challenge, I still agree that all games should have robot reinforcements from the moon base - it’s a must!

This battle with the prison represented a true boss battle, as smaller enemies appeared to attack the player while attempting to free Roland. During more intense battles like this, it’ll be necessary for you to identify more important threats and switch up your focus to pay attention to more immediate danger, effectively changing your combat priority on the fly with clear indicators of this danger presented to you.

Our Borderlands 2 demo ended as the floating prison ‘scanned’ another powerful enemy into existence, a War Robot, which appeared as though it had been teleported from nothingness. As soon as it materialised, however, it sent out a massive explosion, sending our character flying into the air, over a wall and down into the dam on which the action had been taking place.

At least one rude hand gesture was offered by the character before the screen faded to black, signalling the end of demonstration, which resulted in cheers, claps and whoops from the crowd (I kept my cool, but stifled a few guttural noises of approval).

Borderlands 2 is looking every bit as unique and exciting as when we first saw the original Borderlands (and then subsequently got to grips with that game’s new cel-shaded graphical style a year ahead of release). Even over a year away from release, Gearbox Software’s next full instalment in the Borderlands universe is already unbelievably sharp, both in terms of gameplay and visuals, and with the developer’s promise to overhaul, replace, improve and refine every major system (and other smaller aspects) of Borderlands for the sequel, franchise fans would do well to keep a third eye on Borderlands 2, while those of you who’ve never played Borderlands should definitely keep up with the game’s progress in the coming months (and possibly years).

Thanks to Steve Gibson and the demo team for a fantastic taste of Borderlands 2!

Purchase: