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Borderlands is a game I always come back to. Sadly, it’s been a while since developer Gearbox made a peep about some new off-the-wall DLC or at the very least, a sequel somewhere off in the distance.
Having mined all but 16 achievements in Borderlands (including all four expansions), I can’t help but wonder…what’s next? That curiosity quickly became day dreaming, which even more quickly turned to foaming at the mouth for a newly refined Borderlands experience. Thus, I decided to throw together the "Turn it up to 11: Borderlands sequel wish list" to help me through the wait.
Keep in my mind this is just a quirky wish list to help me deal with my own Borderlands 2 anxiety. Some of the things on this list would be extremely complicated to execute and are a little unrealistic. Don’t worry, though. I've got some winners, too (I hope).
After you're done reading, go ahead and add some of your own ideas to the list!
BREAD CRUMB TRAIL 2.0!
The map in Borderlands looks great and works well at showing objective locations. Unfortunately, it’s not so great at helping you figure out how to get to those objectives.
Countless times I found myself trapped at the bottom of a canyon, separated from my friends by elevation, and (worst of all) feeling close to my objective only to realize that I couldn’t be farther away, thanks to a large chunk of cliff or invisible wall.
My solution? The Bread Crumb Trail 2.0. Hold down the back/select button and instead of zipping over to your map, a "bread crumb" trail tells you exactly how to get to your objective without trapping you in the wrong canyon!
Maybe a superfast, holographic Claptrap guides the way with his steady glow, or perhaps a whole mess of trash-talking Claptraps could act as virtual trail markers and mock you for having to use a breadcrumb trail?
PEEPING TOM!
One of my favorite things about Borderlands is its drop-in and drop-out co-op. I love questing and looting with my friends. However, sometimes when I'm playing alone I find gear that I can’t use but would be perfect for a friend. I hold onto said gear for a week until I can finally meet up with my friends and dish out all the cool stuff I found. Unfortunately, the gear they're packing usually turns out to be the same quality or better.
In short, I would like a way to view my friends' gear in game. Even if I could only look at friends' gear when they are playing with me it would still help out with inventory management. Yes, I know the game has a bank now, but it would still be a sweet feature.
SECONDARY ACTIVE POWERS!
The simplicity of the character classes in Borderlands really helps to define each character. I certainly wouldn’t want to do away with that, but wouldn’t it be rad if you could dump skill points into a secondary special ability? It could work like this: After activating your special ability, you could trigger another skill that would augment or modify that ability.
For example, Brick and Lilith can’t use grenades while in Berserk or Phase mode so make that button do something awesome. Brick could smash the ground, sending out a shockwave, or bear hug somebody. Maybe Lilith gets some type of Force push that lets her jettison mobs out into the far reaches of space! Allow Roland to hit the interaction button behind his turret and now he can drive remote-control bombs into unsuspecting baddies. Give Mordecai a second bird…a robot bird, and in bird's-eye view he can drop grenades and deliver fiery or acidic death from above! OK, it doesn't have to be a robot bird necessarily, but you get the idea.
NEW CHARACTERS!
Sequels often bring a change to the character roster, either by addition, subtraction, or both. This is probably an area where I could use the most help. What classes are missing from the Borderlands universe? What type of characters would you like to see in the game?
NEW GUN TYPES!
Remember when Gearbox first started showing Borderlands and the big thing was that the game had more guns than any other? Then that "87 Bazillion Guns!" trailer came out…then the actual game came out, and it really did have tons and tons of guns. Well, let me be the first to stand up and declare, "I want more guns."
Add more guns, more types of guns, and bullet effects to tweak the guns in a fun way. Sure, we've got the strange Eridian weapons, but what if new alien races brought their own types of weaponry to the table?
For example, why aren’t there any laser beams in Borderlands? How about a gun that can paint a location or enemy and then send a hail of bullets to that point, just like in The Fifth Element?
Why can’t my guns have guns on them? Give me a double-sided gun that's a sniper rifle on one side and a shotgun on the other…. OK, maybe that’s kind of lame, but how about a grenade launcher with tear gas/napalm/acid gas? What about guns that can set traps?
I do really like the way the weapons work in Borderlands, and while my ideas are a little over the top I'm pretty sure the folks at Gearbox will come up with some good stuff.
MELEE WEAPONS!
The first time I vanquished Sledge was with my brothers in a local co-op session I exclaimed, "Sweet! I got his shotgun!" My brother replied, "I want his hammer."
Which brings me to melee weapons. Taking down foes with the Gravity Hammer or Plasma Sword in Halo is just so gratifying. Of course, once Borderlands-ified, melee weapons would have completely randomized statistics and elemental effects, just like all the other gear in the game.
Perhaps they could do some more interesting stuff, though, like increase your movement speed so you could reach enemies faster, increase attack speed, or even buff your health so you can take more hits.
NEW SHIELD TYPES!
So maybe you think my ideas for new guns weren't super hot, but hear me out on some new shield mod concepts. How about a shield for co-op that has an area-of-effect heal, or a shield mod that just makes your shield really big so other players could stand inside it, stacking their defense with yours. Lastly and my personal favorite — a loot shield that absorbs ammo and money like a giant magnet! Full disclosure: I have been watching my girlfriend play Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time and that is a seriously gratifying mechanic.
NEW MISSION TYPES!
One of Borderlands' failings is the lack of mission types in the game. It's got some cool implementations of "travel to this location and shoot stuff," but that's pretty much it.
Instead of simply clearing Skags out of a particular area, imagine rolling a car-sized ball of Skag bait down the road into a bandit base of operations? Perhaps instead of powering up an elevator to ride to the top of a bosses lair you have to build a homemade human catapult? And I'd like to see the inverse of the dreaded escort mission — I call it the interception mission. You find any means possible to prevent an escort or caravan from progressing. Maybe that means clogging a narrow canyon by crashing cars into it or blowing up a building to block the road.
PERSONAL TRANSPORTATION!
One thing about Borderlands was never fun: walking to your destination because you were stranded without a fast travel or vehicle spawn in sight.
You're just cruising along in one of those sweet Borderlands buggies and then suddenly you run over some very explosive Spiderants just chilling in the middle of nowhere. Your ride explodes and now you have to walk the rest of the way to your objective. Well, the explosion part is kind of fun but….
What if each character had their own means of personal transportation? Hoverboards, jetpacks…how about an all-terrain hamster ball of death for Brick, ideal for pancaking those pesky Skags and midget enemies while covering some serious ground. The perfect balance of comfort, functionality, and flattening.
CUSTOMIZABLE WEAPONS!
Ending on a more serious note, I think gunsmithing is something a lot of people would love to see in the next Borderlands installment.
Can you imagine tearing apart your favorite guns to mix and match the pieces? Adding customizability could make looting even more fun than it already is — usually you come across a gun and it’s either worthless or better than what you have. But what if that crappy gun has a sweet scope that you could grap, or you find a gun that does serious damage but has no elemental capabilities? Find a compatible elemental module on a less-powerful gun and you're in business. Now imagine customizable melee weapons. Of everything on this wish list, this is what I wish for most!
Readers! If you feel this wish list failed to "turn it up to 11," then by all means add some more things to the list in the comments below!
