Borderlands 3 Previews

Gearbox has been showing off their next Borderlands installment to various gaming outlets, and that has led to a couple of preliminary previews this weekend. First up is PC Gamer with your standard editorial on how the game plays and pushes the series to the next level:

Beyond the pure feel of the gunplay, more work has been put into creating exciting combat arenas. "We definitely want players to interact with the environment a little more," says Powell. "And so you notice if you shot a pipe, there was some oil that came out, and if you shot an explosive barrel or had a fire elemental weapon, you can light that puddle on fire. Various elemental things can interact with things in the world in different ways, and so we really wanted to push that concept ... There's a lot of destructibility throughout the game. Of course, we have ridiculous weapons that explode everywhere so it's cool to kind of see things fly everywhere and stuff like that."

The main attraction, though, is still the guns, and the procedural generation system that ensures no two players will be wielding the same arsenal. Guns are an important part of the Borderlands universe, to the point that each different manufacturer, as well as being an entity within the story, also has its own design philosophy and weapon parts. "Our gun team has done an amazing job of pushing that concept of these are the guns and they do ridiculous crazy shit," says Powell. "I believe in the previous Borderlands there were around 300 or so weapon parts, and then in this one we have over a thousand. If you can imagine, there's a lot more variation that can happen when you generate those weapons."


And then we stop by IGN for a list of "99 details" that cover everything they know about the looter shooter so far:

1) Borderlands 3’s drop-in co-op features loot-instancing and level scaling. With loot-instancing, each player receives their own unique loot.

2) Loot-instancing and level scaling can be turned off for those who prefer the classic Borderlands co-op experience.

3) Players use their ship, the Sanctuary III, to travel to planets for the first time.

4) Sanctuary III acts as a customizable hub world and home base that houses characters like Mad Moxxi.

5) From Sanctuary III, players can collect lost loot from previous encounters, open gold key chests, buy storage deck upgrades, gamble, interact with characters, purchase wares and travel to new planets.