A problematic, unfunny trailblazer – What it’s like to play Borderlands 2 after Destiny
Borderlands 2 is a time capsule, from the time immediately before loot-shooters took over the world. The margins of its script are filled with memes from 2012.
Borderlands 2
The Ultimate Vault Hunter’s Upgrade lets you get the most out of the Borderlands 2 experience.
Borderlands 2 sales have jumped another 2 million since May
In Take-Two's latest earnings call, the publisher told investors that it had beaten expectations and was rolling in dough like a feral hog in mud, despite the absence of big game launches so far this year. GTA 5 continues to be a big earner, with GTA Online seeing a significant spike thanks to the casino update—that means more microtransaction cash for Take-Two. But it's not the only older game that continues to sell well. Borderlands 2, which launched seven years ago, a whole year before GTA 5, has also sprung back to life. body .hawk-widget{--trd-blue:#2f6e91;width:100%;letter-spacing:normal;}._hawk.subtitle~.hawk-widget[data-widget-type=price]{margin:16px 0;}@media (min-width:600px){._hawk.subtitle~.hawk-widget[data-widget-type=price]{margin:0;min-height:128px;float:right;clear:none;width:50%;}.fancy_box_body ._hawk.subtitle~.hawk-widget[data-widget-type=price]{float:none;width:100%;}}.icon~.hawk-widget{clear:both;}@media (min-width:400px){body .buyingguide .product .hawk-widget.bg-price{float:right;width:40%;}}To bridge the gap between Borderlands 2 and 3, Gearbox released the Commander Lilith DLC for free. Rather than being a throwaway piece of exposition, it's a solid adventure with some new villains, monsters and the return of the still uncomfortably ripped Vaughn. And it didn't just bring back old players—sales of Borderlands 2 are up 2 million since May 2019.That's a big jump for a game that came out in 2012, even with the recent big discount. It's been pretty cheap for years. The Borderlands GOTY Edition also gave it a shot in the arm in April. This has resulted in Take-Two selling more than 6 million copies of Borderlands games, and more 4 million players have downloaded the Commander Lilith DLC. Last month, Take-Two studio Rockstar North was accused of receiving millions in UK tax relief while not paying UK corporation tax for nearly a decade, despite the huge profits Take-Two enjoys. Most of the profits generated by games like GTA 5, much of it designed by a British studio, are reported by the US side, while Take-Two's UK studios claim comparatively little, making them eligible for tax breaks. Cheers, GamesIndustry.biz
Borderlands 2 dev explains why there's mysterious boxes hidden under every level
The latest video in YouTuber Shesez's excellent Boundary Break series—which takes the viewer outside the boundaries in popular games—is all about Borderlands 2, and it reveals plenty of secrets about the way the world is designed.My favorite revelation is that the flashy intros for major characters and bosses actually happen directly inside the game world, rather than being made separately. Those intro have splash backgrounds: if you zoom out, you'll find that those backgrounds just appear as textures in the world for the intro, linger behind the character, and then vanish when the intro is over. Skip to 9:30 in the video to see what I mean. body .hawk-widget{--trd-blue:#2f6e91;width:100%;letter-spacing:normal;}._hawk.subtitle~.hawk-widget[data-widget-type=price]{margin:16px 0;}@media (min-width:600px){._hawk.subtitle~.hawk-widget[data-widget-type=price]{margin:0;min-height:128px;float:right;clear:none;width:50%;}.fancy_box_body ._hawk.subtitle~.hawk-widget[data-widget-type=price]{float:none;width:100%;}}.icon~.hawk-widget{clear:both;}@media (min-width:400px){body .buyingguide .product .hawk-widget.bg-price{float:right;width:40%;}}Shesez also finds weird, empty rectangles hidden far below each level, each one segmented into smaller boxes (see 7:00). What's their purpose? Gearbox senior programmer Kyle Pittman jumped on the line to explain: they're called global loaders, and they're used to transition players and their vehicles between levels. "If you travel from one map to another, and then also if you die and respawn...we take your player character and move them down to these regions. Basically this is just a way that we can get the player character out of the game world and into a safe space," he says.It started as a solution to bugs in the first Borderlands, which Pittman also worked on. Sometimes, when players were moving between levels their vehicle would fall through the world—having an area for players to go first fixed the issue.Shesez also finds a random model of Claptrap in a T-pose hidden underneath a mountain near the start of the game. Pittman explains that the model would've been used to scale the level around it, but that the level was redesigned to add a new hill, effectively burying poor Claptrap. The designer just never went back and deleted it, he said. The video also reveals rainbow-colored boxes dotted around, which are used to replace assets that were removed from the world, presumably so the team could keep track of them. We also see cubes underneath the platform where the player meets Angel: these cubes are basically hidden stands for shock field generators that pop up during the Angel boss fight.There are lots more secrets revealed in the video, which is worth a watch in full. And if you're curious, the entire Boundary Break series is here, all 147 videos of it.Thanks, Kotaku.
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