Despite developing games such as Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines, Gearbox has cultivated a prized place in gamer hearts through its Borderlands games. Borderlands 2 was one of 2012’s most popular games and has been featured in numerous bundles and deals throughout the past two years. Most recently the game is set to appear on Sony’s PS Vita.
This week 2K Games and Gearbox officially announced the next game in the Borderlands series. Titled Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, the title will give players a bit more back story into just what was going on in Borderlands 2.
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel will be released this fall for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. No PlayStation 4 or Xbox One releases have yet been announced and 2K.
The Pre-Sequel is set in the time between Borderlands and Borderlands 2. Players will explore the moon, named Elpis, orbiting the planet Pandora (the setting of the other two Borderlands games) and fill in multiple story gaps.
Players will step into the shoes of one of four new playable characters recognizable from the previous Borderlands games. There’s Athena (“The Gladiator”), Wilhelm (“The Enforcer”), Nisha (“The Lawbringer”), and Claptrap. Yes, the Claptrap will be a playable character in The Pre-Sequel.
The game’s story revolves around Handsome Jack, the villain of Borderlands 2. As players fight with and for Handsome Jack they will witness the character transform into the hilarious, evil egomaniac that he is known as in the previous game.
Being a Borderlands game, The Pre-Sequel will feature all the co-op shooting action seen in the previous games. New enemies and new weapons will, of course, be part of the game. Entirely new weapons types and elemental damage types have been announced. Laser-based weapons and freezing “Cryo” weapons are just two of those.
In addition to the expansion elements from previous games, The Pre-Sequel will feature a nifty new play mechanic. Being set on a moon, players will experience a lesser gravitational pull. This means greater mobility and even huge double-jumps enabled by oxygen-powered jetpacks.