Gearbox's long-awaited sci-fi action role-playing game finally gets a release date, right at the end of Take-Two Interactive's fiscal year; new trailer inside.
In March 2008, a rude surprise was dropped on gamers looking forward to Borderlands, the ambitious open-world, postapocalyptic driving/shooting game from developer Gearbox Software. As part of a lackluster earnings report, Take-Two Interactive--which is publishing the game under its 2K Games label--announced that the game had been pushed back to sometime during the company's 2009 fiscal year.
Now, GameSpot has confirmed that the game will make its aforementioned launch window--but only just. During a preview session today, Gearbox staff writer Mikey Neumann said that the game will "ship this October." Take-Two's 2009 fiscal year--which Red Dead Redemption and Mafia II were just pushed out of--ends on October 31.
Described as an RPS (role-playing shooter) by Gearbox, Borderlands is a sci-fi action RPG that combines driving and on-foot action. Set on the desolate and hostile world of Pandora, the game sees groups of treasure seekers--known as "Vault Hunters""--who scour the ruins of a collapsed civilization for more than 500,000 unique weapons. Using combat vehicles, the rival bands fight each other in an attempt to secure the ultimate prize: an all-powerful alien artifact.
Check back later today for GameSpot's hands-on preview of Gearbox, straight from the Electronic Entertainment Expo show floor. The brand-new trailer for the game, which shows off its revamped, semi-cel-shaded graphics, is below.
@stziggy. Dude what the hell are you talking about. What news??? Its just been E3 and we have had about 3 months worth of news done in the space of a few days. You should be thaking the gamespot crew for busting the balls to keep the site update during that time. They dont do that for themselves. They do it for us to keep us updated. Look back to the last few E3's you will see that after there is a news dry spell cos games companies have nothing left to say.
@twitchscb Thank you! I don't know how many times I've ranted about how this isn't cel-shaded. I think the art style is awesome and, for me at least, it's lent a certain something to this game which has pushed me from interested to really excited. @A4RDRT I played XIII when it came out. Interesting game if a little rough around the gameplay edges (and Duchovny's voice over was a little lacklustre). That game really pushed the comic book style though. I don't think that demo is really going to give much of a feel as to how Borderlands is going to play. Oh, and XIII actually is Cel-Shaded where this is not.
All they have done color wise with this new version is paint roofs and canopies red. I think they could have easily done that in the original version. I guess no one played xiii back in 2003, check out this video gameplay of xiii, or better yet grab the demo and you can see first hand what playing Borderlands will be like. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/xiii/video/6084121?om_act=convert&om_clk=gsupdates&tag=updates;title;8
@stziggy There's no news to report... E3 just ended and all the big announcements from any developer worth looking at just happened... Gamespot can't just make up stuff to keep the articles flowing, they have to wait for meetings and hands-on work to be able to write anything substantial.... If you're so impatient go to G4 they just write crap to hear themselves talk
@A3RDRT First off, it's not cel-shaded, it's a new form of artwork done by the developer that focuses on bringing in the original concept art into the actual gameplay... and this game has not been ruined the last thing we need is yet another brown/gray color palette for a dark post apocalyptic game... This game has an underlying sense of lightness and humor involved in it (i.e. the names of the bad guys and NPC's) This art style matches this game perfectly and I for one can't wait for this game... Probably my number one pick for this year
What i was afraid of, the game has been Ruined, check this gameplay out using cell shader, the big problem with cell shader is it looks like paper doll cutouts floating around on a comic book back ground. Cell shader works great for games like Scooby Doo, Ben 10, you know cartoon games. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHJ8VudWF1o or search tube for: E3 09 Borderlands Gameplay!!!!!
has this got character customization, i'm sure i've seen that it hasnt, its not a big deal but it'd be nice to see it. any info?
It's June 8th and there's no new news on Gamespot's news section. How lazy is that? Imagine of CNN did that? How do you expect we the readers to take you guys seriously when you can't even cover the news 24/7? Gamespot is pathetic. Way to slack off guys!
@joe_ender Look up Borderlands gameplay on YouTube, they have like a 10 minute clip of gameplay but it's before they changed the art style, so its not celshaded.
@CobaltJewel1 Um they showed a gameplay video before they changed the art style and spawned a ton of guns showing how they do it. The reason there is that many is because the game proceduraly generates them by putting different body pieces together, so for example you can have a 6-shooter with a sniper scope etc.
this game reminds me an awful lot of s.t.a.l.k.e.r., which i wish they would port to next gen consoles
Nah.... Definatly a Mature game. (I saw a guy's head explode like a cherry in a gameplay video...
"CobaltJewel1 Posted Jun 8, 2009 6:43 pm GMT 500,000 weapons? I'll believe it when I see it." Its not as impressive as it sounds, its basically guns with loads of different attachments.
even if the game is rated M the graphics are fine. It's nice to see a studio break away from the hulking Gears models for something unique.
Still looks interesting. And if the game isn't M-rated then graphics are perfectly fine.
The graphic styIe looks fine. I'm sure a little blood and gore would even it out. :D Definitely a maybe.
I remember when this title was first announced, Gearbox said they were going for a "T" rating. Does anybody know anything about that? I haven't really payed much attention too this game lately...
Possibly, God of Big Macs. Possibly. Who knows in what capacity but it will likely be a hybrid then. At any rate, the thing that interests me is the hundreds of unique guns. I'm sure there isn't a huge difference but just walking into a room with guns and more guns is kind of exciting.
This game looks really interesting... But GS said it was a role playing game, but the screens and trailer shows it as an FPS... another Fallout?
I remembered playing a FPS Cell Shader game before (XIII), i didn't like it all that much as the cartoon style left much to be desired. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/xiii/index.html Here's hoping Gearbox has made the right choice.
i agree nemesi609, i applaud gearbox for trying to go for a different visual style to the other similar games such as fallout 3. I think this game could really work if the world is anything like as good as the one in fallout 3 and a lot will also depend on how the RPG elements are implimented, but if all goes well then this will be a definite purchase for me
besides, if it was too gritty and realistic looking, it would look too much like fallout 3.
if you watch the video and see the game in motion, the "cel-shading" is not as apparant, its really only characters that have an out line, everything else, the land scapes and buildings, look really good. im really excited for the thousands of combinations of weapons and armor, i love fpsrpg's. bash my favorite game types together and im game.
Neosword i hope you're right. I haven't written the game off, (personally) i don't think it's a good direction for a game with this sort of setting. I went back and looked at old screenshots, and there is now doubt i prefer what i was previously visualizing the game was going to be like. I'm not sure what everyone is inferring to as "they are trying something new" there are plenty of games that have used this technique before such as Scooby Doo, Family Guy game, Looney Toones, Pokemon, Tony Hawk, Team Fortress, Billy and Mandy, Ape Escape, Futurama, and the list of Cartoon Style games goes on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cel-shaded_video_games
I like it, its god style, which most shooters don't have these days. All of them are going to the realistic-gritty style. If you wanna stand out in that market, you gotta do something different, which is the case here. And since im a loot whore, i'll be buying this for sure. Count me in.
A3RDRT, I don't think they were going for super realism anyway. I wouldn't really call them "cartoon" graphics either, they're more just "stylized". I'm kind of indifferent to the graphics. I don't think the switch will hurt anything, especially not the immersion level. It's not like you're in a real place anyway. You're just getting immersed into a different world. It'll be fine, trust me.
OUCH! This decision to go cell has left me really disappointed. No i'm not a graphic whore at all, i still play Anarchy Online, graphics don't make a game. However the decision to use cartoon graphics in a post apocalyptic environment will probably go down as one of the worse decisions in gaming history. What is the reason for this decision? I was really looking forward to an immersion level only the world of Borederlands could deliver, now i'm not sure that will be possible, i will feel like I'm playing some silly cartoon. Imagine playing Fallout 3 in cartoon mode, ya as i thought, wouldn't be the same.
After seeing the new gameplay video the graphics don't look that bad to me now. They're doing something different, it might be cool. The features of the game always looked good, I can't wait for the release.
the only i thing i dont like is the style of graphics bring back the older good style not this new comic/cartoony style. (i wonder if infamous's cutscenes had any affect on this? well they did it comic with good graphics this is just poor a little bit like team fortress) i hope they bring back old graphics and dont make any more stupid choices as this doesn't seem like a game for 10 yr olds so dont make it look like 1
i cross my fingers for the co-op! which is kinda the only thing i'm really looking forward to in this game.
Well I really really hate how it looks but I'm still hoping the features that gearbox formally spoke about in the gameinformer mag still stands. Cell shaded is just not my taste but I can still get over it if they still have the thousands of different weapon combinations, not to mention the skill tree thing looks very interesting as well hopefully take two doesn't do anything else to screw up the production of this game...
The gameplay looks great. The Co-Op is promising. And the comic book-esque graphics are pretty to look at.
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