Written by Game Rant guest contributor Randy Frank.
Gearbox seems to be console happy and all too glad to spread the love of the upcoming mega RPG shooter, Borderlands 2. As we previously reported, the Texas-based developer is considering taking the game on the road with a PS Vita version. Now we learn that they'd also like to bring gamers a Wii U version if they had their druthers.
Brian Martel, co-founder of Gearbox Software, spoke to Dealspwn of his excitement for the Nintendo Wii U and its potential since their upcoming Aliens: Colonial Marines is one of the key third-party launch window titles for the console. Will Borderlands 2 come to the Wii U as well?
"We really like the Wii U, I think it's a really cool platform. I like what they're doing - obviously with the touchscreen - and it will be interesting to see what Microsoft do with their approach to that idea. It's one of those problems of the Wii: the only people who have ever made a lot of money on the Wii is Nintendo.
So we're really excited to bring Aliens: Colonial Marines to it. And we're going to do a wait and see approach, our publisher 2K is going to see whether they're going to go with that. But if Borderlands 2 was on the Wii U, the thing I would be most excited about is inventory management: it would be amazing on that, it would just be fantastic. And I think the artwork would look really good, with the way they can deal with the resolutions and textures, I think it's a really good console."
We have to agree about the in-game inventory management. Just imagine your eleventy million guns on the Wii U tablet for your perusal. While in a perfect world every awesome game would have an equally awesome release on every platform, the real world just gives us a maybe sometimes. Aliens: Colonial Marines will serve as a useful test to see if non-Nintendo, third-party titles can succeed on the platform.
In other Borderlands 2 news, new information about game mechanics was revealed this week and this one’s a doozy. Player character stats are going to be linked to your online profile and get this, progression is infinite. That’s right folks, as in there's no limit in leveling up characters. It sounds a little scary, right? How many games do you know that will let you level up ad infinitum? Not many, we'd guess. But the head of Gearbox, Randy Pitchford, is behind it. What’s it called? "Badass."
In speaking with Eurogamer, Pitchford briefly chatted about the Badass progression system, comparing it to the competition.
"I don't know of any examples. There are a couple of games that have done profile levelling. Even Call of Duty multiplayer, your growth is profile related, not character related, but they don't have character choices. You're not growing characters... And I haven't seen one that's comfortable with infini-growth. Everything puts a cap onto it."
The idea behind this is one that we can all get behind: Replayability (for years) -A huge measure of many games and certainly a buying decision factor. Gearbox analyzed the long-term play of dedicated Borderlands 1 players to come up with a way to keep players feeling rewarded and attempting to evolve their character(s) for years after launch. At the same time, this will keep the fanbase interested for larger amounts of DLC content.
There’s been a lot of buzz around the sophomore title to one of Gearbox’s most popular games and our experience with it at E3 was more than good enough to justify its place on our list of most anticipated games of 2012, while also leaving us wanting more. Check out the latest Borderlands 2 trailer to see why.
Borderlands 2 will be available on September 18, 2012 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.