Borderlands 2 Announced

The moment all Borderlands fans have been waiting for has arrived – and out-of-the-blue. It’s been rumored that Gearbox originally wanted to announce Borderlands 2 later this month, but due to a couple of leaks, its hands were forced, and fans of the series couldn’t be happier. In conjunction with an official announcement, Gearbox has also launched an official site for the game, although it’s currently media-deprived as we’d expect.

The announcement promises a return to Pandora, along with “all new characters, skills, environments, enemies, weapons and equipment, which come together in an ambitiously crafted story“. According to GameInformer, who have an exclusive on the game in their current issue, Borderlands 2 will feature an improved mission system that will improve the story delivery. I’m hoping this doesn’t add any linearity to the game as a result, however, and I’m confident most fans would share the same concern.

There’s simply not much known about the game at this point, but with more classes being introduced, I’m beginning to wonder if the number of co-op players will be increased as well (four players can be a bit limiting when you have a group of friends that all want to play). Even in the original, the game would reliably be able to support more than 4 players, so it could very-well happen in the sequel.

I know there are a lot of Borderlands fans among you, and there’s no better time than the present to start talking about what you want to see in Borderlands 2, carried over from the original or otherwise, and what you could go without. I have very little bad to say about the original, but I plan on coming up with a small list shortly myself.

The game is set to launch during the 2013 fiscal year for 2K, which means the game could be released anytime after April 2012, but early 2013 at the latest. This is going to be a hard one to wait for!