The Borderlands series is probably the best reason, in the unlikely event that you still need one, to stop listening to videogame analysts. Rather than being "sent to die," as one rent-a-mouth famously predicted in 2009, the first game was a hit that spawned a sequel which went on to become 2K's best-ever seller. An avalanche of DLC later, and we get Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. It's due out this autumn, and as the name suggests it plugs the gap between the previous games. And it's (at least partly) set on Pandora's moon. And you can play as Claptrap. Who wears a beret.
What? You want more? More than a witty robot in a beret? Tough crowd. OK, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is the next project from 2K Australia, who began work immediately after wrapping up on its contribution to BioShock Infinite. Gearbox is overseeing development, but its main team remains focused on some as-yet-unannounced next-generation games.
Note that The Pre-Sequel isn't coming to PS4 or Xbox One, which may be a source of disappointment for our console cousins, who probably hoped for an uptick in resolution and/or framerate, but there are no such worries on PC. The game is being built on the same engine as Borderlands 2, Unreal Engine 3, which as we know runs buttery smooth at high resolutions when powered by a half-decent GFX card.
Watching The Pre-Sequel being played, it's tempting to wonder what the need for much more horsepower would be anyway? A large part of Borderlands' success is surely due to its startlingly cool art style, which remains impressive here. The cel-shaded moonscape is a wash of pink and blue pastels over which your co-op buddy bounds along in low gravity. There are four characters to pick from—all of whom will be familiar to fans of the series but are playable for the first time here, and all of whom have new skill trees.
Claptrap is now dubbed the Fragtrap, and has abilities that Gearbox won't talk about other than to say that he'll have a low-slung camera point of view. Joining him is Athena, an assassin who was once part of the "Crimson Lance" (an elite private military company), and who was first introduced in The Secret Armory Of General Knoxx DLC. Her "Phalanx" skill tree enables you to turn her into a tank, thanks to her Aspis shield which also doubles as an oversized sci-fi discuss.
Then there's Wilhelm the Enforcer, a Wolverine lookalike who was also the cybernetically-enhanced first boss of Borderlands 2, but here has yet to undergo his transformation. As you upgrade him he'll become more machine than man. Ha ha ha, and so on. Last up is Nisha, Handsome Jack's squeeze, who as the Sheriff of Lynchwood represents the Lawbringer class—but that's about all Gearbox is willing to say about her for the time being.
The Pre-Sequel also tells the story of how Jack came to be the villain of Borderlands 2, with you helping his initially well-meaning rise to eventual supervillainy. In the demo, Athena and Wilhelm are trying to storm a Hyperion base in order to stop a giant death-ray that's blasting lumps out of the moon.
The lack of atmosphere has a couple of implications: firstly you need to keep your oxygen meter topped up by collecting O2 canisters, which drop in the same way as other loot. Not fun in itself, but you can also vent these to enable double jumps and to power jetpacks. This offers cool platforming opportunities—one massive jump sees the characters land on a pillar of moon rock, below which lava from a laser strike flows—and adds a pleasing verticality to the shootouts as enemies whiz around. You can also shoot out their helmets to rob them of air. As if being shot in the face wasn't inconvenience enough.
Oxygen-assisted jumps also enable another move: the mid-air ground pound, which is essentially a first-person interpretation of Mario's butt stomp. Pleasingly, you can also give this move an elemental effect—for example unleashing a fiery or electrical aftershock as your rear-end connects with the lunar surface.
Whereas Borderlands 2 only introduced one element type (the enemy-coating, damage-enhancing slag), The Pre-Sequel has two significant additions. The first, Cryo, has a freeze effect that gradually encases enemies in crystal, leaving them open to being smashed apart like a Ming vase by a melee attack. Then there are lasers, a self-explanatory new gun type to add to the already bewildering array of procedurally-generated possibilities. Laser types vary from ‘pew pew' blasters to massive beam weapons, and the effect, when multiple characters are trading fire, is all very Star Wars.
If Star Wars had been made by Australians, that is. Even in this short demo there are some cute nods to the guest developer's homeland, from a boss character called Red Belly who's armored up like the outlaw Ned Kelly, to the impish scavs who all yammer at you in Aussie accents. Gunning them down will be a joy for cricket fans the world over—or anyone who's not a fan of Mel Gibson's output. The demo ends with Athena being blasted out of the moon base and into low orbit by Red Belly, from where she flips the bird with both hands back. It's essentially Gravity remade by a madman.
At first glance, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel looks like a halfway house sort of follow up. It feels faithful to its superpopular predecessor, offering plenty of new content but without attempting to reinvent the formula that made it so successful in the first place. In that sense, the obvious comparison would be with Batman: Arkham Origins, which also stuck to old-generation consoles while serving up a prequel storyline.
In either case it seems churlish to complain about what is likely to be a solid piece of fan service. And ultimately—more Borderlands is more Borderlands. And this time, in a beret.
Tim Clark
DEVELOPER: 2K Australia / Gearbox
PUBLISHER: 2K Games
LINK: 2kaustralia.com
