14 DAY TRIAL // Borderlands 2 might be just a few months away and developer Gearbox is currently offering more and more information about it, but the first game in the series was a big risk that could have led to the demise of the company.
Randy Pitchford, the leader of the Gearbox development team, tells the audience at Rezzed that, “It’s a miracle we did what we did with Borderlands 1 – it’s a big risk to build a new IP.”
“We spent every dollar we had on that game, and while we had a nice budget, it still had us confined to being rational and responsible of what is expected to happen,” he confesses.
“Fortunately BL1 was a tremendous success, millions and millions of units sold. We’re at 6 million units sold right now, and that is exciting for a new IP -its unprecedented really. That means, we were able to put the budget into BL2 that it deserves – a budget I wish we’d had for the first game – and as such we can up some of our priorities,” Pitchford further mentions.
The first Borderlands has managed to capture the imagination of gamers with the variety of weapons and enemies and with the replayability created by the existence of the four very different character classes.
The company will take the same approach with the second game in the series, introducing a new set of classes, with even more over-the-top abilities.
The plot of the game revolves around a huge corporation that is trying to take over Pandora and its leader, Handsome Jack, who tries to kill the entire native population.
Gearbox plans to offer more options when it comes to cooperative gameplay and a new graphics style.
Borderlands 2 is currently set to arrive on the PC, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in late September.