Borderlands (series)

Borderlands
Genres	Action role-playing, first-person shooter
Developers	Gearbox Software 2K Australia Telltale Games
Publishers	2K Games Telltale Games
Platforms	PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360, OS X, PlayStation Vita, iOS, Linux, Android, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
First release	Borderlands October 20, 2009
Latest release	Borderlands: The Handsome Collection March, 2015

Borderlands is a series of action role-playing first-person shooter video games in a space western/science fantasy setting, developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games for multiple platforms.

The series consists of three games, each with multiple downloadable content packs: Borderlands (2009), Borderlands 2 (2012) and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! (by 2K Australia, 2014). A future Borderlands game was announced in January 2015 with no published release date. Several spin-offs have also been released, including Tales from the Borderlands, an episodic adventure game by Telltale Games.

The series has received critical acclaim and commercial success for its loot-driven multiplayer co-op gameplay and its sense of humor. As of August 2015, more than 26 million copies of Borderlands games had been sold, 13 million of which are of Borderlands 2.^[1] A film adaptation of the series is in development by Lionsgate.

Gameplay

The three main games in Borderlands are first-person shooters with some role-playing game elements. Players select one of the available characters, each of which has a different skill tree and one or more unique abilities. Players then work on completing quests and exploring Pandora while dealing with the violent wildlife, crazed scavengers that have been stranded on the planet, and various military groups that attempt to stop them. Completing quests and defeating foes earns in-game money and experience, which is used for expanding the player's skill tree. If the player loses their health or falls into bottomless chasms, they respawn at the most recent checkpoint and lose some of their money. The games are divided into several maps, and once players have reached a waypoint station on the map, they can teleport to any other previously visited map. Otherwise, players must reach certain points on the edges of the map to move into a different area. Some maps allow the player to spawn an armed vehicle to help traverse large maps or to deal with more powerful enemies.

A core feature of Borderlands is the loot system, which generates a variety of guns (such as pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers), shield generators, grenade modifications, and class modifications. This equipment is randomly dropped by foes, found in containers around Pandora, or obtained as rewards for completing quests. The statistics of the equipment, such as the amount of damage and accuracy for a gun and special elemental attacks, are procedurally generated, and use a loot color-coding system similar to games like World of Warcraft to indicate rarity, ranging from white (most common), to purple and orange (most rare and powerful). The first Borderlands is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records to have over 17 million different possible guns that could be generated, while the latter games expand further on this.^[2] Other facets of the game use a similar procedural system: foes may have unique attributes and more powerful variants, such as creatures that can spit corrosive acid or flame, or scavengers with higher amounts of health and armor. Weapons and other equipment can be sold and bought at various vending machines scattered about the maps; nearly all vending machines include a rare piece of loot that is only available for a limited amount of in-game time, after which the machine's inventory is rotated for a new set of equipment. Both Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel! include the use of "SHIFT codes", which the player can obtain through social media or other promotions, and give players "golden keys" that can be used once to obtain an item of exceptional quality appropriate for the player's level.

As the player levels, the loot drops will become more powerful; at the same time, the enemies that the player faces on the map will increase in level as well. All three games feature a New Game Plus-type replay mode, where they can start with the same character at the same level they completed the game with, and continue to level up the character through the replay up through a fixed level, making the game more difficult. All three games support co-operative play for up to four people; the difficulty of the enemies as well as the quality of the loot drops scales with the number of players.

In Borderlands 2 and in the Pre-Sequel, a "Badass Rank" system was added. By completing certain challenges, such as killing a number of enemies with a specific weapon type, the player would be awarded with Badass points; for every 100 points, they can then redeem these for one of several small buffs to the player's attributes such as gun damage or shield capacity. Selecting the same buff repeatedly on redemption while using a given character would provide less beneficial rewards. However, these Badass buffs are shared by all characters that the player has, so that if they player starts a new character, they will retain all the existing buffs, and new buffs when the points are redeemed will be more beneficial.

All the games in the series are rendered using a comic book-like cel-shaded approach.

Setting

The games in Borderlands take place on the planet Pandora in a unknown time period. Tales of a mythical Vault with fabulous wealth and treasure led to the planet becoming central in a power struggle between business, military, and mercenary groups over the years. This has also attracted a number of specialized Vault Hunters, loyal only to themselves, that are lured by the myth of the Vault.

Main series

Borderlands

The original Borderlands, released in 2009, combines traditional first-person shooter gameplay with character-building elements found in role-playing games, leading Gearbox to call the game a "role-playing shooter". Players choose to play as one of four characters; Lilith the Siren, Mordecai the Hunter, Brick the Berserker, and Roland the Soldier, earning experience by killing foes and completing challenges, and skill points to allow character specialization. The character can wield various ranged weapons and utility items, which are procedurally generated to provide a rich variety of loot. The game supports solo play as well as a cooperative mode for up to four players. A New Game Plus mode allows players to replay the game with the same character at a higher difficulty level.

The game is set on the planet Pandora, contested by bandits, mercenaries of interstellar corporations, dangerous wildlife and, eventually, eldritch alien abominations. As a "Vault Hunter", guided by the mysterious "Guardian Angel", the player is searching for a fabled vault full of alien loot, which requires them to kill a lot of all of the above. Borderlands is characterized by its offbeat humor and a comics-like, cel-shaded art style.

About 4.5 million copies of the game had been sold worldwide by 2011, an unexpected success for Gearbox. Borderlands received positive reviews, with an aggregate Metacritic score of 81 to 86, depending on the platform. It was complemented by four DLC packs: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, and Claptrap's New Robot Revolution.

Borderlands 2

The sequel to Borderlands, released in 2012, picked up the setting and gameplay mechanics of its predecessor. Again, players control one of four (or, with DLC, six) Vault Hunters, while the four player characters of the original game re-appear as non-player characters. The story, written by Anthony Burch, focuses on the players' struggle with Handsome Jack, the megalomaniacal CEO of the Hyperion corporation, who seeks control of Pandora's mineral riches and alien artifacts.

Gearbox released four DLC campaigns that continue the main game's story (Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty, Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage, Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt and Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep). In addition, several DLC packs introducing two new player characters, more character development possibilities and quests have been released.

Even more so than the first game, Borderlands 2 was an unexpected critical and commercial success. It was one of the best-selling games of 2012, and has become the best-selling game in the history of its publisher 2K Games, with 8.5 million copies sold by February 2014.^[3] The game received aggregate Metacritic scores of 89 to 91, depending on the platform.

A port of Borderlands 2 for the PlayStation Vita handheld was released in 2014, offering the full game and some of its DLC,^[4] but limited to two-person multiplayer.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!

Announced in April 2014, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! was developed by 2K Australia and released for PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC in October 2013, as well as for Mac OS later in 2013. It is set on Elpis, the moon of Pandora, and its story – occurring between the events of the first two games – covers the rise of Handsome Jack to power. The game features four of Jack's henchmen as playable characters: Athena the Gladiator, Wilhelm the Enforcer, Nisha the Lawbringer and the robot Claptrap, "the Fragtrap". Jack's body double and Sir Hammerlock's sister Aurelia were added later as DLC player characters. New game mechanics include the lack of gravity and the use of oxygen tanks.

The game was re-released in 2015 as part of Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, a compilation and port of Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel! for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.^[5]

Future Borderlands game

In February 2014, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford stated that the studio was not yet working on a third installment in the franchise, stating that it would have to be "massive", but "we don't know what that is yet. We can imagine what it must achieve, but we don't know what it is yet."^[6] However, at a panel during PAX South in January 2015, Pitchford announced that the studio was preparing to begin work on a new Borderlands game—which he described as "the big one", and began to offer a number of new staff openings related to the game. The game will be developed specifically for eighth-generation consoles such as Xbox One and PlayStation 4.^[7][8]

In April 2015, the creator and franchise director of the Borderlands series, Matt Armstrong, left Gearbox Software.^[9]

Spin-off games

Borderlands Legends

To coincide with the release of Borderlands 2, the iOS spin-off game Borderlands Legends was released on 31 October 2012 for iOS devices. It is more of a strategy game than a RPG and is played from a top-down perspective with players controlling all four Vault hunters from Borderlands.^[10] The game received mixed reviews and an aggregate Metacritic score of 52 out of 100. IGN gave the game a review score of 6.5/10 saying that the game was "a good idea dragged down by its inconsistent execution and lack of content."^[11]

Tales from the Borderlands

Tales from the Borderlands is a more narrative- and character-driven,^[12] episodic game developed by Telltale Games with collaboration from Gearbox Software, featuring returning and new characters from the Borderlands games. Its five episodes were published between November 2014^[13] to October 2015 for multiple platforms.

The game follows two protagonists, the con artist Fiona and the Hyperion company man Rhys, as they somewhat questionably recount the plot of the game. Telltale Games aimed to incorporate two characteristics of the Borderlands series, gunplay and offbeat humor, into Tales from the Borderlands.^[14]

Borderlands Online

Borderlands Online was to have been a China-exclusive online shooter game for PC and mobile devices, developed by 2K China and Gearbox Software, and published and operated by Shanda Games. It was slated to be released in 2015,^[15][16] but was cancelled in November 2015 when 2K China was closed because of profitability concerns.^[17]

Characters

Several characters appear in multiple Borderlands games. The little yellow robot Claptrap (voiced by David Eddings), the de facto mascot for the franchise, has appeared in all games as a non-player character (NPC) and in the Pre-Sequel as a playable character. The megalomaniacal CEO of the Hyperion Corporation, Handsome Jack (Dameon Clarke) is first encountered as the principal antagonist of Borderlands 2, while the Pre-Sequel features him as a NPC whose rise to power is assisted by the player. Even after his death at the end of Borderlands 2, Jack reappears in Tales from the Borderlands as an AI personality. The enigmatic "Angel" who guides the players through Borderlands (voiced by Jennifer Green, portrayed in video by Brittani Johnson) is in the sequel revealed to be Jack's daughter.

Also appearing across multiple games are several NPCs who act as vendors and quest-givers. They include the erratic researcher Patricia Tannis (Colleen Clinkenbeard), the garage owner and mechanic Scooter (Michael Neumann), the buxom bartender and entrepreneur Mad Moxxi (Brina Palencia), the 13-year-old demolitions expert Tiny Tina (Ashly Burch), the gun company founder Mr. Torgue High-Five Flexington (Chris Rager), the gentleman hunter Sir Alistair Hammerlock (J. Michael Tatum), the junk dealer Janey Springs (Catherine Moore), the shady surgeon Dr. Zed (Ric Spiegel) and the gun merchant Marcus Kincaid (Bruce DuBose), who also narrates the opening cinematics.

In each of the three main games, the player chooses one of several player characters – "Vault Hunters" drawn to Pandora by the prospect of alien riches – but as the games support up to four-player co-op gameplay, their continuity presents these characters as having witnessed the events of each game together. The player characters of the first Borderlands appear as NPCs in the later games. They are Roland, a stoic soldier (voiced by Oliver Tull in Borderlands and Markus Lloyd in Borderlands 2), Lilith, a "Siren" with psychic powers (Colleen Clinkenbeard), Mordecai, a hunter and sniper with a pet bird-of-prey (Julio Cedillo / Jason Liebrecht), and Brick, a strongman brawler (Marcus Mauldlin).

The player characters of Borderlands 2 are Axton, a renegade soldier (Robert McCollum), Maya, another Siren (Martha Harms), Salvador (John Swasey), a short-statured and short-tempered "gunzerker", and Zer0, an enigmatic masked assassin (Michael Turner). Through DLC, two additional characters were added: Gaige, the "Mechromancer" (Cherami Leigh), a young girl with a flying killer robot, and Krieg (Jason Douglas), a deranged berserker with a split personality.

All but two of the player characters of the Pre-Sequel appeared in earlier games as NPCs. Athena is a renegade assassin formerly employed by Atlas, and was encountered in a DLC campaign in Borderlands. Nisha Kadam (Stephanie Young), a bounty hunter and eventually Jack's girlfriend, goes on to be killed by the players in Borderlands 2 – as does Wilhelm (Bryan Massey), a cyborg mercenary obsessed with transhumanism. The other two player characters of the Pre-Sequel, available through DLC, are Timothy (Dameon Clarke), a body double of Handsome Jack, and Lady Aurelia Hammerlock (Kenneisha Thompson), Alistair's sister and skilled big game hunter.

Tales from the Borderlands, set at the latest point in the games' continuity, introduces two protagonists: the Hyperion company man Rhys (Troy Baker), and the con artist Fiona (Laura Bailey).

Other media

Soundtracks

The soundtrack for Borderlands, written by Jesper Kyd, Raison Varner, Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan (Sonic Mayhem), was published as Borderlands: Original Soundtrack in 2009, featuring 27 tracks.

The soundtrack for the sequel, by the same composers, was published as Borderlands 2: Original Soundtrack in 2012, featuring 23 tracks. Soundtrack albums for several DLC campaigns were released separately.

Comic series

Four issues of a comic miniseries, Borderlands: Origins, were published in print and digitally in November 2012. The series was written by Mikey Neumann and published by IDW. It tells the story of how the original four Vault Hunters came to be together at the beginning of Borderlands, filling in their backstory and setting up the events of both games.^[18]

A second series, Borderlands: Fall of Fyrestone, also by Neumann, was published in eight issues between July 2014 and April 2015. It followed the events of the first Borderlands game.

Novels

Pocket Books published three Borderlands novels by John Shirley, covering Roland and Mordecai's origins and their adventures after the events of Borderlands:^[19]

• Borderlands: The Fallen (22 November 2011), ISBN 978-1439198476
• Borderlands: Unconquered (25 September 2012), ISBN 978-1439198483
• Borderlands: Gunsight (1 October 2013), ISBN 978-1439198490

Film

A film adaptation of Borderlands is being developed as a tentpole movie by Lionsgate as of August 2015, with Avi and Ari Arad producing.^[20] A May 2015 media report named Leigh Whannell, the writer of the first three Saw horror films, as being in talks with the studio, and summarized the premise of the film as follows: "When a nearby star’s gravitational pull unearths horrifying alien creatures hidden deep below the surface, the surviving colonists retreat to a vault rumored to contain advanced alien technology".^[21]

References