Borderlands

The original Borderlands looks like it will get a new lease of life for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One via a new Game of the Year Edition.

Gearbox has officially confirmed at a PAX East panel attended by Eurogamer that it will be developing its third Borderlands game (the Pre-Sequel was created by 2K Australia) after it wraps up production on Battleborn and its DLC.

"It's no secret, obviously there's going to be another Borderlands," Gearbox CEO and president Randy Pitchford said.

Battleborn art director Scott Kester said he will be the art director on Borderlands 3.

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Borderlands developer Gearbox Software has opened a new studio in Quebec City.

Clearly the hip thing to do these days as Bethesda likewise opened a new studio in the Montreal-based city, this Canadian branch of Gearbox is currently hiring for "its inaugural title growing to full AAA production capability through 2016."

The Borderlands developer also recently built and expanded HQ in its homeland of Frisco, Texas.

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Borderlands and all its downloadable content will be supported on Xbox One Backward Compatibility, Microsoft has announced.

[Note: This article contains major spoilers for Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 4: Escape Plan Bravo. Only read if you're caught up on the series or simply don't mind knowing what happens. You've been warned.]

At Gearbox's PAX Prime panel attended by Eurogamer, studio head Randy Pitchford honoured a very unusual fan request: a couple of Borderlands players wanted to get married at the conclusion of the developer's presentation.

It's official: there's a Borderlands movie in the works.

Borderlands creator and franchise director Matt Armstrong has parted ways with Gearbox Software.

2K Games is offering huge discounts on several of its biggest hits on the Humble Store, with some titles up to 83 per cent off.

Multiplayer has returned to the PlayStation 3 version of Borderlands 1.

Something called "Borderlands: Remastered Edition" has appeared on the Australian Classification Board (thanks, Player Attack).

It's listed as a multiplatform affair, but ostensibly it refers to a PS4, Xbox One and PC version with spruced up visuals.

The Classification Board lists this Remastered Edition as MA15+, the same as the original Borderlands.

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The PC version of co-op focused first-person shooter Borderlands has been updated with Steamworks multiplayer.

Borderlands' multiplayer was a casualty of GameSpy's mass server shutdown, which ended the online components of hundreds of titles back in May.

Publisher 2K Games stated in April that it was "investigating the technical feasibility" of transitioning Borderlands. Meanwhile, countless other titles were shuttered for good.

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The PC version of Borderlands will soon once again support online multiplayer thanks to an upcoming update that will move the game's servers onto Steam.

Why isn't there a Borderlands game for the Wii U? Developer Gearbox Software has answered this question before, but this time there's a new answer.

Gearbox Studios may be hard at work making Borderlands 2 and Aliens: Colonial Marines, but that hasn't stopped the developer from creating an official browser-based 16-bit demake of its open-world shooter Borderlands.

Sony has announced that both Just Cause 2 and Borderlands are free for PlayStation Plus subscribers until 7th November, while all DLC for both titles is half off for the remainder of the month.

Borderlands 2 will honour the memory of a 22-year-old fan who recently succumbed to cancer.

An upscaled version of Resident Evil: Code Veronica headlines this week's PSN Store update. It's available for £15.99.

FIFA 12 arrives to download on Friday - for the privilege of saving yourself a walk to the shops you'll pay £54.99 on PlayStation 3 and £31.99 on PSP.

Battlefield 3's open beta rolls out on Thursday, while gamers can help themselves to PSN-exclusive shooter Rochard, freemium role-player Free Realms and new Dead Nation DLC from today.

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Grand Theft Auto 4 has now shipped a gargantuan 22 million copies worldwide since its April 2008 release.

Borderlands 2 is in development at Gearbox Software, Eurogamer understands.

We've heard an announcement from publisher 2K Games will be made soon.

A source close to the game told Eurogamer the Gearbox-developed shooter will release on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next year.

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Borderlands maker Gearbox owned the Blade Runner IP but passed up the opportunity to make a game with it.

Randy Pitchford has revealed that Duke Nukem nearly ended up with a "gay robot" sidekick – which could still make an appearance in a future title.

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford has poured water on speculation that a Borderlands 2 reveal is imminent.

Borderlands 2 has been spotted on a game developer's online CV – sparking speculation that the sequel will be announced at E3 in June.

GTAIV is the second best-selling Grand Theft Auto game ever, Take-Two has announced.

Mac gamers miffed at being left out of last month's multi-platform Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition release can quit sulking. Publisher 2K Games has announced a release date: 3rd December.

The level cap for the PC version of Borderlands has been topped up with a new update going live today, developer Gearbox has announced.

Those who buy or have bought Borderlands through Valve's digital distribution service Steam will get a demo key for Gearbox's upcoming shooter Duke Nukem Forever.

The Game of the Year Edition of Gearbox Software's excellent shooter Borderlands will be released in the UK on Friday, 15th October, 2K Games has confirmed.

It's fair to say that Borderlands caught a lot of us off guard. From curiosity to cult hit, it was one of those rare games that comes out of nowhere and establishes an exciting new franchise without being pushed along by a freight train of industrial-strength hype. It succeeded on its merits, a wickedly funny blend of post-apocalyptic shooter and loot-drop RPG, and was all the better for it.

The warm feelings continued when it became one of the best-supported shooters for DLC. A steady stream of new content, each episode with its own flavour and style, kept fans busy on multiple play-throughs, always looking for that next random weapon combination that would kick those all-important stats up a few notches.

Borderlands has thrived because it has made a habit out of surprising us. Perhaps that's why Claptrap's New Robot Revolution feels like a let down. This is the first DLC chapter that has felt like it's treading water, going through the motions, making do.

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Gearbox has promised gamers that its plans for Borderlands downloadable content and sequels to other franchises remain intact despite the recent purchase of the Duke Nukem franchise.

The Borderlands level-cap raise - a feature of the Claptrap's New Robot Revolution DLC - will now arrive as a free update for all game owners.

Gearbox Software has announced that a Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition will be released on 12th October in the US.

The next downloadable add-on pack for Gearbox's shooter Borderlands is now official.

Contents of the fourth downloadable Borderlands add-on have been leaked, and Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford doesn't seem to mind.

US mega-retailer GameStop has listed a strategy guide for a Game of the Year Edition of Borderlands.

Take Two has said to expect more Borderlands downloadable content.

Update: Since we posted this story, 2K Games has been in touch to let us know that the information we were orginally supplied with was incorrect. The disc release will only collect the first two episodes of Borderlands DLC: The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned and Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot. The Secret Armory of General Knoxx will not be included. We're very sorry to have misinformed you.

Following yesterday's minor delay, The Secret of Armory of General Knoxx for Borderlands has gone up on Xbox Live.

Update: Xbox 360 owners will have to wait until tomorrow to play Borderlands add-on The Secret Armory of General Knoxx.

2K and Gearbox have officially announced the new batch of downloadable content for Borderlands.

The next batch of Borderlands DLC will increase the level limit over 50 and star Scooter, the potty-mouthed mechanic from New Haven.

This week's PlayStation Store refresher offers a demo version of Dark Void, due out for the Sony console and Xbox 360 on 22nd January, among other treats.

A couple of nights ago I hit the jackpot. Borderlands had been quietly chucking the odd new gun my way for the past few weeks, of course, but suddenly, wandering around Crazy Earl's Scrapyard, it started lobbing them at me with dangerous abandon.

This wasn't the cheap stuff either: after months of dusty repeaters and initially-alluring SMGs let down by duff scopes, Gearbox was now tripping over itself to give me the arsenal I'd always wanted. I found myself knee-deep in massive crit boosts, elemental powers, roomy clips and speedy reloads - all with a nice blade whacked on the front to increase melee damage.

It was delightful, obviously, but it was also a little worrying. If you ever suspected that beneath the hillbillies and crosshatching Borderlands buries you alive in experience points and new weaponry to distract from the ceaseless grind, it would be easy to perceive a freakish spell of generosity as a confirmation of your fears. Beneath the wit and character of the delivery, could Borderlands really just be the game that bribes you to keep playing?

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Take-Two's financial results for fiscal 2009 are out and numbers are down, despite a sterling performance by Gearbox's new IP Borderlands, which passed 2m sales worldwide.

The next batch of Borderlands DLC is based on the Thunderdome arena in Mad Max, so much so that it's called Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot.

Gearbox has finally released the PC version of Borderlands DLC The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, and you can buyorise it from the developer's site for $9.99.

That's if you've got a boxed copy of the game, anyway. If you bought it from Steam or elsewhere, you will need to buy the add-on through them.

According to the Gearbox site, Ned's island will allow for five concurrent installations and uses SecuROM DRM.

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Gearbox apparently has beefy plans for Borderlands downloadable content as a leaked list of PS3 Trophies lifts the lid on a new, coliseum-based update.

Gearbox has trademarked the name Borderworlds, suggesting that Borderlands will expand into a series - as if you ever believed otherwise.

Gearbox Software's Paul Helquist has said the studio is aware some Borderlands players were disappointed with the game's ending.

Gearbox has revealed that The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned will be roughly the same size as a small exisiting Borderlands zone and provide around six hours of new gameplay.

Gearbox creative director Mike Neumann believes the likelihood of a Borderlands sequel is so strong it's a "no-brainer".

Gearbox and 2K Games have announced that The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, the first downloadable expansion for Borderlands, will be released on 24th November.

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With its fine fusion of stylised visuals, accomplished shooting gameplay, superb co-op elements and MMO-style character building, Borderlands should deliver developer Gearbox plenty of success. Gifted with an impressive 8/10 review score on Eurogamer, it's clearly a highly desirable game, but out of the three SKUs available, which is the most worthy of your investment?

Back in days of yore, cross-platform projects from PC-centric developers like Gearbox would follow a predictable pattern: the computer version could be seen as the "master game", from which the console versions would be derived, with varying levels of compromise attached to each of the latter. However, there has been a fundamental shift in recent times to developers concentrating mostly on the console renditions, with only minor technical improvements made on the PC side of things. This is perhaps most noteworthy in terms of texture quality; art assets that target 720p look a little lacklustre at 1080p, as the additional texture definition required to really make an impression simply isn't there.

This new approach also "works" in that the baseline enthusiast PC is likely to contain more processing muscle and, crucially, memory than the Xbox 360 and PS3. The consoles have defined the baseline, and even a relatively modest entry-spec PC with an £80 graphics card can easily surpass that general performance level, hence we see fairly basic ports with frightening regularity.

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1up reports that Borderlands players are encountering a rather serious bug that resets their character's skills to zero when they try the game online.

Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 has overturned a rampant FIFA 10 to take the UK all-formats top 40 crown. The PS3 had the lion's share (66 per cent) of the sales.

The shooter genre needed this. Elements of role-playing games have been creeping in all over FPS games in the past few years, but in Borderlands it's a wholesale hybridisation. Not, I should point out, in terms of choices, story and consequences - that remains with the likes of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - but with loot, levels, stats, skills and fiddling about in your inventory to max out your character. Gearbox says it's created a role-playing shooter, an RPS (which sounds strangely familiar to my ears), and that means you'll be playing a shooter that feels a lot like, well, like an MMO.

The common touchstone for talking about Borderlands' RPG influence has been Diablo, but I think until the third Diablo game comes out it's probably just as - if not more - valid to mention that Borderlands exhibits a large number of MMO-like characteristics. This feeling is at its strongest in the opening areas of the game, where you're picking up missions, running back and forth across small areas of the map, collecting loot and killing low-level punks and mutant dog-lizard things. Just like most mainstream MMOs, Borderlands takes time to hit its stride, and you're hours in before you really start to appreciate the approach Gearbox has taken. That's not to say it's not an entertaining game from the outset - because it is - just that it really does take time to unload all its tricks and have you revel in them.

There are a couple of reasons for this slow build. One is that you're probably going to play the first bit of the game on your own. And that's fine: single-player in Borderlands is entirely valid, and fun. But the sense remains that there's something missing. This is filled when you start playing co-op, because one of the most obvious mechanisms in the game suddenly makes sense.

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Microsoft is handing out permanent Xbox Live bans for "pre-release title play" of Borderlands or Forza Motorsport 3 - both due out this Friday.

Halfway into Borderlands' development, Gearbox Software changed everything. A game that started out a dour shower of browns, greys and post-apocalyptic shadows was fed through the Crackdown filter and came out a blaze of SEGA blues, Mario shine yellows and Jet Set cel-shading. The visual rewrite has done more than merely distinguish the game from its nearest rival, Fallout 3. It also accentuates the Mad Max humour of planet Pandora's inhabitants and scenarios, turning grisly headshots into party-popper exclamations while, to be frank, making the world a far more pleasant place to be. Any tourist of a science-fiction planet overrun by rag-wearing sand-bandits acknowledges the risk of having one's balls torn off by a pet rabid mutant hyena. So why not balance the dark risks with some bright, happy vistas?

2K Games has revealed the first batch of Borderlands DLC called The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned.

It'll cost $10 or 800 Microsoft Points (£6.80/€9.60) and will be available on all three formats (PC, PS3, 360) "later this year" - around Halloween may be a good estimation.

Dr. Ned appears to be a meaty addition; there are new quests, enemies, locations, and loot drops. The story involves helping the aforementioned doctor cure the inhabitants of Jakobs Cove, trouncing Ned's out-of-control abominations and zombies along the way.

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2K Games has apparently slipped Borderlands for PC to 30th October, a week later than its console cousins.

Gearbox president Randy Pitchford reckons "people are going to be surprised when they find out how quickly we're coming, and with what content we're coming", when it comes to Borderlands DLC.

More hot Expo facts fresh from the presses for you this morning: 2K Games has announced that concept shooter Borderlands will be playable at the October Expo.

Is Gearbox working on a major new instalment of Halo for Microsoft? That's been the hot rumour since Randy Pitchford revealed his studio had a "huge" secret game in the works. And questioned by EGTV earlier this month, Pitchford skirted around the issue, falling short of a denial.

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford is a bit on the nervy side about releasing first-person shooter/RPG hybrid Borderlands later this year. In fact, as he revealed to Eurogamer TV he's "totally terrified" about going up against gaming's big guns in the run up to Christmas.

But while acknowledging the Texas studio was "taking a big risk here", he reckons it's one worth taking both for Gearbox and the industry as a whole since, "if we always do the same stuff we don't push ourselves forward anymore."

An overcrowded release schedule is a regular feature of the Christmas run-in, with EA's Mirror's Edge a high-profile casualty last year, failing to hit targets despite wide attention in the specialist press.

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Role-playing shooter, anyone?

Gearbox Studios celebrated its 10th birthday earlier this year. It's a major milestone in the life of any game maker, and one the Texan developer no doubt celebrated heartily. So how is studio head Randy Pitchford, the man who has steered Gearbox from its origins as work-for-hire Half-Life expander to today's multi-tasking operation, feeling?

2K president Christoph Hartmann reckons this Christmas season could see fewer amazing games released than last year's.

Cel-shaded shooter Borderlands has been confirmed for an October release date on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

According to Gamespot the game will arrive in Europe on the 23rd. The US will get it a little bit earlier on 20th October.

Borderlands is billed as a "role-playing shooter" featuring vehicle combat, online co-op and a unique visual style. You can read all about it over on the gamepage, which is packed with screenshots, videos and previews.

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Gearbox has said that openworld RPG shooter Borderlands is unlikely to get a demo before, or even after, its planned October launch.

At the end of our E3 Borderlands preview, Gearbox's Randy Pitchford, who's been talking for the last 20 minutes at an insane rate of knots without, apparently, ever needing to take a breath, asks if anyone has a question. Someone does, as it happens, right down at the front of the group. It's Cliff Bleszinski. And he wants to know what engine the game's using.

Gearbox Software plans to release action RPG Borderlands this October on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Gearbox Software has shown the very first image of the redesigned Borderlands.

Gearbox chief Randy Pitchford says the visuals in Borderlands will not be cel-shaded.

This week we've already guided you through the coming year's hot picks for Indie and Esoterica and Sports and Music games. Still to come are Fighting, Strategy, Action, Adventure, Shooters and Racing. But today we're looking at two sectors with the same dice-rolling roots that are heading in more than two different directions in 2009 - role-playing games (RPGs), and massively multiplayer online games (MMOs).

In light of every developer ever's recent decision to set their game in the aftermath of a fictional apocalypse, it's easy to assume Borderlands is much the same. It's got barren, desolate plains, the locals are dressed up in rags and desert goggles, and all the jibber-jabber's about settlements and bandits.

Mad Max-style RPG from Gearbox.

Gearbox has defended its recent in-game advertising deal by asking critics not to rubbish it "based on fears that may not turn out to be true".

Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick has said MMOGs based on Civilization and BioShock are "potential opportunities".

Gearbox chief Randy Pitchford has worked himself into an excitable mess over a mysterious new project.

Borderlands (PC/PS3/360) preview

2K Games was very pleased with itself this morning for signing up Borderlands, which will be available next Christmas on PC, 360 and PS3.

It's the new game from Brothers in Arms developer Gearbox Software that had us all excited earlier in the week, when it was described as a cross between Diablo and Mad Max.

Predominantly it's a first-person shooter set in a science fiction desert wasteland, where you can ride around in customisable vehicles and shoot things.

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Brothers in Arms developer Gearbox Software has unveiled its new first-person shooter Borderlands.

The wraps were taken off in US magazine Game Informer, which describes the game as a science-fiction shooter with role-playing elements, or "Diablo meets Mad Max".

Little else is known about the game, other than it will support four player online co-operative play.

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