Borderlands 4 is the first featured game on Game Informer since the relaunch. The site sits down with some devs talking about the origin of the weapon systems and new features Gearbox Software is bringing to the table with the newest game in the franchise.
Developers
- Andrew Reiner – Global creative executive officer
- Randy Pitchford – President of Gearbox Entertainment
- Graeme Timmins – Creative Director, Borderlands 4
- Grant Kao – Associate Creative Director, Borderlands 4
Notes
A Gearbox representative reached out to Game Informer with a clarification regarding Daedalus weapon perks, stating, “Where Graeme is talking about Daedalus from 6:59 to 7:30, he says that item bonuses stack. In reality, you don’t get stat bonuses for both weapon types on the Daedalus bullet swaps.”
Breakdown
- Funny that Andrew Reiner is now on the other end of the interview.
- Randy talks about how they built the tech behind the weapon system and that the procedurally generated stuff they did in 2008 would now be called AI.
- Note: Yeah, games have been AI for a long time. AI is currently a trending term and is used for way different things these days.
- Creators got to experience the loot spawning P-button during the Borderlands 3 reveal event. It was a last 5 minutes hype train to see some unique loot, but without a lot of time to test them all.
- Funny that with all the exclusive footage GameInformer got for this interview, they used Joltzdude’s gameplay for the GunGun.
- There is a sign that says that Claptrap is not allowed in Moxxi’s Bar.
- Moxxi’s bar is bigger and therefore looks emptier than previous bars. Fewer NPCs stood out to me, but that memory resource is likely used for other cool stuff in the game.
- Also didn’t see slot machines in Moxxi’s bar; however, those could be in the back.
- The desertless wasteland shown in this footage has that Borderlands 1 Pandora vibe with a lot of brown and grey colors.
- They use the Armor Shield type in the gameplay footage
- The enemy AI isn’t engaging. You can see one enemy that is agro-ed and trying to shoot back, while another one is unaware of the whole combat and simply walking by.
- Great filtering tools in the gear menu.
My Perspective
It’s great to see Gearbox Software is leveling up the Weapons in Borderlands 4. I’m curious to see how they are making weapons feel special, because if every weapon can fire sticky gyrojets, ricochet the projectiles, throw reload, and switch elements, then what separates them from the rest? It is kinda what the bad guy from the Pixar movie, The Incredibles, said: “If everyone is super, no one is”.
Getting that godroll is probably going to be a grind, and when you have it, it will be fun Borderlands Mayhem! Layer the perks from your Enhancement on top of that, and you have even more chaos.
Gameplay and VFX look great. Enemy AI can use some tweaks, that said, AI is hard. Unrelated to this video but players at the Borderlands Fan Fest seemed to have had an awesome time with the game.
