It’s a game about zombie survival. So, what can Borderlands developer Gearbox learn from Dead Island? 

Sometimes the small things can make a gaming experience that much better. While Borderlands was one of the better experiences I’ve had in recent years, the sequel can be a chance to take it to the next level.

The bare bones of these two titles are the same. Adventure, explore, pillage and kill. While the latter is an obvious difference, the way CPU enemies are presented takes co-op gaming to a new level. For anyone who’s played Borderlands you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say the enemies are pretty easy. And not Lindsey Lohan easy either.

While it’s normal to see the difficulty remain low in early parts of any game, Dead Island takes a different approach. The concept is rather simple, as you level-up so do the zombies. It’s such a simplistic idea, but it works and works well. The reasoning behind this method is due in part to where you quest. Up until act four, zombies remain generally the same. If the difficulty didn’t change it would be too easy for players.

Now the way this is determined depends on the host. In order for the game to progress properly hosting duties normally rely on the lowest progressed player. This is because players can only play with others their own level or lower. So, with the lower player comes an easier difficulty. Generally speaking, I found difficulty levels for enemies ranged between four levels of your own.

A nice touch to Dead Island was the Achievement/ Trophy meter. Now I know, not everyone is into collecting these points, but that might because of previous tracking systems. This in most cases is none existent. Once again the idea is simple, as you progress through Achievements or even challenges a meter tracks the progress and depicts notable milestones. Something like this could be incorporated into any game and may give incentive to those who would normally not care about those points.

While these two changes aren’t drastic, they can improve on a great game. While Gearbox remains in the developmental stage of Borderlands 2 a progressive outlook is a must.

With gaming conferences still on the agenda for 2011, it wouldn’t be surprising if more details surface in the months to come.