Borderlands is a first-person shooter with RPG elements developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games. The game was released in October 2009 for PC, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360.

Story and Setting

Borderlands is set in the distant future on a planet called Pandora. Rumors of rich natural resource deposits lured thousands of colonists to the desolate planet but they were disappointed about the. Those too poor to leave struggle to survive on the alien world with no rule of law.

There is a legend on Pandora, of a great vault, full of powerful alien technology. When the Atlas Corporation discovered tiny shards of material from this alien tech, they became the most powerful corporation on the planet. The vault is rumored to contain pristine artifacts, which Atlas wants for itself.

Players take on the role of a vault hunter, searching for the legendary cache.

The movie franchise Mad Max has been frequently cited as an influence on the settings and aesthetics of Borderlands. (See: "Mad Max and Borderlands")

Gameplay

"We're coming from a first person shooter angle and adding RPG," - Marc Tardif, Borderlands Producer

Borderlands of has been described as "Diablo with guns." The basic framework of gameplay is a first person shooter with role playing game elements.

The rpg aspects come mainly from character advancement, item progression, and questing.

A player can improve his character stats like health max, ammo capacity, and accuracy as he gains levels. At level 5, characters recieve their class defining skill. (ex. Lilith's phasewalk, Rolands shield turret)

From level 6 on, leveling up rewards players with points that they can use to aquire additional skills, boost existing skills, or further enhance their stats. Each character class has 3 unique skill lines they can advance in.

Characters are further advanced and customized through loot. Players gain new items from slain opponents and chests. Loot ranges from guns, grenades, and ammo, to shields. Players can also find items which modify their character stats, and rare artifacts which modify their skills, or give powerful effects. 

Throughout the world, players will find vending machines to buy and sell their loot, and other terminals to access their storage, upgrade their skill loadouts, and generate vehicles. 

Settlements will often contain npc's that will give the players side-quests, or help progress the main story arc.

Arenas can be located near the major settlements, and will offer many types of competitve play.

Player Death

When a player takes too much damage, they fall into the Fight for Your Life state, which immobilizes them. While in this state, a countdown will start, simulating bleeding to death. Players can still attack, and if they can successfully kill an enemy in the alloted time they will be revived, but in a weakend state (low hitpoints).

Players in co-op games can revive immobilized teamates by using med kits.

If a player is unable to kill an enemy in time, they are sent to the nearest respawn chamber.

Respawn chambers allow players to customize their avatar, by changing their outfit and color.

Characters

There are four announced playable characters in Borderlands. Each has a unique story and special abilities. These characters are:

Roland - Soldier

Soldier and former Crimson Lance mercenary, able to deploy a Scorpio Turret, a weapon that attacks automatically while shielding Roland. Rifles and shotguns are his standard-issue weapons.

Lilith - Siren

Siren Phasewalker who can fight invisibly with extreme speed. She prefers guns firing incendiary, shock and corrosive rounds.

Mordecai - Hunter

Hunter whose bird of prey Bloodwind, follows him into battle. Mordecai is a sniper rifle favoring the revolver as a sidearm.

Brick - Berserker

Berserker who annihilates adversaries with his fists while in an almost indestructable rage state. When not pulverizing enemies by hand, Brick fights using explosive weaponry. 

Multiplayer

"We designed Borderlands as a 4-player co-op game from the ground up," -  says Simon Hurley Borderlands Producer.

A much-adverstised featured of Borderlands is co-operative (co-op) play. Players can play together with up to three friends.  Players have the option of opening their own game, so anyone can join, or only friends. Or, players can use the matching system, to search for an existing game to join. Players will be able to filter for things such as level range of characters, which classes are in the group, what the group is doing, etc. 

Borderlands characters are 'persistant'.

This allows characters to move freely from single player mode, to co-op mode. Existing characters bring their experience, gear, and loot into the co-op game. Anything gained stays with the character.

There are also some player-versus-player options like 1v1 duels, and arena battles. Gearbox stated that it might offer downloadable content post-release that would expand PvP, if the community requested it.

Guns

The latest estimate puts the number of guns in Borderlands by time of release is over 17 million. Each has a unique appearance and effect. Gearbox is using a process called procedural generation to create all the guns. In this practice, developers write procedures into code which dictate the generation of content.

Vehicles

According to Borderlands producers, each vehicle holds at least 2 players and has a gun the driver can operate and shoot. Gearbox has specifically announced two vehicles so far.

Players will be able to swap positions on the fly, while moving. Trying to switch to an occupied position will give the occupant do a message indicating your desire to switch, which they can then accept or ignore.

Outrunner

It has been described as a "futuristic dune buggy.' It has been confirmed to have at least three variations in its method of locomotion: hover,  wheels, and tracks.