Halo + Diablo = Borderlands

I never was that great at math, but this is one equation that makes sense to me. The real question is does it make sense to you? Randy Pitchford and Gearbox Software certainly hope so.

My first glimpse of Borderlands was in the September 2007 issue of Game Informer. The game was touted as “Diablo meets Mad Max,” due to the post-apocalyptic universe that the game was set in. If you don’t get that reference it is likely that you’re 13 years old and only remember Mel Gibson from South Park episodes. If so, please stop reading and go rent Road Warrior. Back then the game had realistic visuals and was said to blend the FPS and RPG genres much like Fallout 3 did last year. One big change as of late has been the visuals; they have been changed to more of a Prince of Persia esque cell shaded style. In my opinion these new graphics really make the game stand out and differentiate it from the games it’s going up against this fall.
So we know the game is going to be a FPS but where does the Diablo factor come in? One word…LOOT! Not just a little loot either. According to Mr. Pitchford the game will feature hundreds if not thousands of weapons and items. Where do you get this “loot”? Well that comes from the various NPC’s and creatures roaming this open world. The bigger the baddie, the better the loot you receive. Now what fun is collecting loot if you can’t share it with your friends? Once again, Randy has the answer, in the form of drop in-drop out co-op where you can bring your own character from your single player game into any of your friends’ experiences. That means all your loot, skills, and weapons will transfer over as well. In order to balance the game the enemies will scale to you and your friends’  levels. Oops, I totally forgot to mention the leveling syste. In typical RPG fashion you will level up by vanquishing your foes. There are also no limitations when you can and can’t join a co-op session; if I’m level 1 and you’re 45, we can join up and the game will scale accordingly.
Borderlands will also allow you to choose your class based on how you want to play the game. This quote from Randy pretty much sums it up, “If you take Halo and how it feels to move your character around, and aim and pull the trigger and the way the gun feels in your hands and the way it fires, it’s just like that. But now imagine when you’ve done that a little bit, wow I just leveled up and I’ve got more health and I’ve gotten skill points. Now I can choose to be a really good armsman and reload faster or I can choose to be a medic, depending on which character class I’ve chosen each of them has multiple builds, and I’ll build my character out with the skills I develop throughout the course of the game.”

So far I haven’t seen anything about Borderlands that turns me off. This is definitely my type of game and I look forward to hearing more about it as we near its October 2009 release. One worry I do have is that Borderlands might get lost in the shuffle, going up as it must against the Assassin’s Creeds, Modern Warfares, God of Wars, and Uncharteds of the world isn’t going to be easy.

Check out these screenshots below!

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