Borderlands

Overview

Borderlands is a 2009 action role-playing first-person shooter developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K. It is the first game in the Borderlands series. It came out for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows in October 2009, with a Mac version following in December 2010.

The story follows four Vault Hunters who travel to the planet Pandora in search of the Vault, which is rumoured to hold advanced alien technology and riches. They piece together clues while fighting the wildlife, the local bandits and the Atlas Corporation, which wants the Vault too. You pick one of four characters, each with a special skill, then take missions from characters and bounty boards for experience, money and gear.

The hook is the loot. Weapons and items are generated by a procedural system that changes firepower, rate of fire and accuracy and adds elemental effects like fire and acid, with a colour scale showing how rare each one is. Gearbox said the system could produce around 16 to 17 million weapon variations. You can play alone, in two player split-screen on consoles, or with up to four players online. The game uses a cartoon look that was inspired by action role-playing games like Ultima and Diablo.

Randy Pitchford of Gearbox said the idea came from loving both role-playing games and shooters, and the pitch inside the studio was 'Halo meets Diablo'. Development started around 2005. The art was more realistic at first, then moved to the final comic style. The story was not settled at the start, and casting the player as a Vault Hunter was a way to make looting feel rewarding.

It had three retail versions. The standard edition has the disc and manual. A pack with the first two downloadable episodes came out on February 23, 2010 in North America. The Game of the Year Edition followed on October 12, 2010 in North America, and the later Game of the Year disc puts all four add-ons on the same PS3 disc. Four add-ons came out in total: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx and Claptrap's New Robot Revolution.

Reviews were positive, with the PS3 version at 83 out of 100. The game sold over two million copies by the end of 2009, three million by February 2010 and 4.5 million by August 2011. It has since been called one of the most influential games of its time, and it led to Borderlands 2 in 2012. A remaster, Borderlands Game of the Year Enhanced, came out for PS4, Xbox One and Windows in April 2019.

Screenshots

Game details

Genres

Action role-playing, First-person shooter

Developer

Gearbox Software

Publisher

2K

Series

Borderlands

Engine

Unreal Engine 3

Composers

Sascha Dikiciyan, Cris Velasco, Jesper Kyd, Raison Varner

Designers

Matthew Armstrong

Writers

Allison Berryman, Mikey Neumann, Randy Pitchford, Simon Hurley

Producers

Simon Hurley, Stephen Palmer

Modes

Single player

Yes

Local multiplayer

2 players, split-screen

Online multiplayer

4 players

Release dates

Editions

Buy this game

Subscription history

Trophies

Trophies81

Platinum possibleYes

Platinum

1

Gold

4

Silver

17

Bronze

59

Total

81

Points

2055

• Borderland Defender You have defeated all bosses and are a powerful force to be reckoned with Platinum 15.31% of players
• Paid in Fyrestone Completed 5 missions in the Arid Badlands Bronze 88.63% of players
• Made in Fyrestone Completed all missions in the Arid Badlands Bronze 44.44% of players
• Paid in New Haven Completed 5 missions in the Rust Commons Bronze 52.93% of players
• Made in New Haven Completed all missions in the Rust Commons Bronze 30.96% of players
• My Brother is an Italian Plumber Killed an enemy plumber-style Bronze 32.98% of players
• 12 Days of Pandora Mastered the technology of Pandora Bronze 51.08% of players
• Wanted: Sledge Killed Sledge Silver 59.4% of players
• Wanted: Krom Killed Krom Silver 46.98% of players
• Wanted: Flynt Killed Flynt Silver 41.89% of players
• Destroyed the Hive Killed the Rakk Hive Silver 43.66% of players
• Destroyed the Destroyer Killed the Vault Boss Gold 40.88% of players
• Speedy McSpeederton Raced around the Ludicrous Speedway in record time Bronze 21.48% of players
• You call this archaeology? Applied an elemental artifact Bronze 58.45% of players
• Ding! Newbie Earned level 5 Bronze 83.98% of players
• Ding! Novice Earned level 10 Bronze 73.49% of players
• Ding! Expert Earned level 20 Bronze 58.38% of players
• Ding! Hardcore Earned level 30 Bronze 46.18% of players
• Ding! Sleepless Earned level 40 Bronze 33.07% of players
• Discovered Skag Gully Discovered Skag Gully Bronze 83.46% of players
• Discovered Sledge's Safe House Discovered Sledge's Safe House Bronze 66.7% of players
• Discovered Headstone Mine Discovered Headstone Mine Bronze 62.16% of players
• Discovered Trash Coast Discovered Trash Coast Bronze 44.45% of players
• Discovered The Scrapyard Discovered The Scrapyard Bronze 52.74% of players
• Discovered Krom's Canyon Discovered Krom's Canyon Bronze 48.9% of players
• Discovered Crimson Lance Enclave Discovered Crimson Lance Enclave Bronze 42.25% of players
• Discovered Eridian Promontory Discovered Eridian Promontory Bronze 42.32% of players
• Ding! Champion Earned level 50 Bronze 24.35% of players
• Get A Little Blood on the Tires Killed 25 enemies by ramming them with any vehicle Bronze 63.31% of players
• Rootinest, Tootinest, Shootinest Killed 5 Rakk in under 10 seconds Bronze 64.77% of players
• Pandora-dog Millionaire Earned $1,000,000 Silver 45.43% of players
• Fence Sold 50 guns to a shop Bronze 56.56% of players
• Can't We Get BEYOND Thunderdome? Emerged victorious from an arena match Bronze 27.53% of players
• Duel-icious Won a duel against another player Bronze Needs online 45.49% of players
• Group LF Healer Rescued a groupmate from death in a co-op game Bronze 57.27% of players
• There's No "I" In "Team" Completed 15 missions in co-op Bronze 49.52% of players
• United We Stand Defeated the Rakk Hive, the Vault Boss, Sledge, Krom, or Flynt in a co-op game Gold 43.11% of players
• And They'll Tell Two Friends Played in a co-op game with either an employee of Gearbox or someone who had this trophy Silver Needs online 51.18% of players
• Weapon Aficionado Reached proficiency level 10 with any weapon type Bronze 50.32% of players
• You're on a boat! I bet you never thought you'd be here Bronze 24.12% of players
• Duelinator Won a duel without taking damage Silver Needs online 42.16% of players
• Facemelter Killed 25 enemies with corrosive weapons Bronze 46.96% of players
• 1.21 Gigawatts Killed 25 enemies with shock weapons Bronze 53.96% of players
• Pyro Killed 25 enemies with incendiary weapons Bronze 67.15% of players
• Master Exploder Killed 25 enemies with explosive weapons Bronze 63.55% of players
• There are some who call me...Tim Equipped a class mod for your character Bronze 59.83% of players
• Fully Loaded Rescued enough Claptraps to earn 42 inventory slots Bronze 23.44% of players
• Truly Outrageous Killed an enemy with the Siren's action skill Bronze 38.66% of players
• Careful, He Bites Killed 15 enemies with the Hunter's action skill Bronze 39.21% of players
• Reckless Abandon Killed 15 enemies with the Berserker's action skill Bronze 30.38% of players
• Down in Front! Killed 15 enemies with the Soldier's action skill Bronze 45.05% of players
• House of the Ned Completed the "House of the Ned" mission Bronze 49.7% of players
• Jakobs Fodder Completed the "Jakobs Fodder" mission Bronze 43.86% of players
• Night of the Living Ned Killed Ned...sort of Silver 42.3% of players
• Ned's Undead, Baby, Ned's Undead Killed Ned. Again. Gold 42.84% of players
• Braaaaaaaaaaaaains! Completed the "Braaaaaaaaaaaaains!" mission Silver 23.78% of players
• Small Tournament Completed the lesser challenge in all 3 coliseums Bronze 32.41% of players
• Hell-Burbia Completed the larger challenge in the Hell-Burbia coliseum Silver 12.84% of players
• The Angelic Ruins Completed the larger challenge in The Angelic Ruins coliseum Silver 12.3% of players
• The Gully Completed the larger challenge in The Gully coliseum Silver 14.51% of players
• Big Tournament Completed each of the larger challenges in all 3 coliseums Gold 10.61% of players
• Making a Monster Built the New Car: Monster Bronze 45.3% of players
• Athena, Out Rescued Athena Bronze 35.85% of players
• Depot Demolition Destroyed Lance Depot Bronze 28.26% of players
• Vincible Killed Crawmerax the Invincible Silver 22.35% of players
• Sneaky Little Buggers Killed each of the loot midgets Bronze 14.05% of players
• Speed Kills Destroyed a Lancer while in a Racer Bronze 32.03% of players
• Ding! Overleveled Reached Level 51 Bronze 35.67% of players
• Ding! Overleveled to 11 Reached Level 61 Silver 24.19% of players
• Completionist Completed all missions in Secret Armory Bronze 7.88% of players
• Sucker born every minute Paid for a worthless tour of the world's largest bullet Bronze 15.84% of players
• Tourist Found all 6 Claptrap statues Bronze 16.46% of players
• Knoxx-Trap Killed General Knoxx-trap Bronze 35% of players
• Steele-Trap Killed Commandant Steele-trap Bronze 34.96% of players
• Ned-Trap Killed Dr. Ned-trap Bronze 34.98% of players
• Muerte la robo-lución Killed the Interplanatary Ninja Assassin Claptrap Silver 34.44% of players
• The Collector Completed a crazy request for Tannis Silver 24.55% of players
• The Lubricator Found 25 oil cans Bronze 8.37% of players
• Bobble-trap Collected 15 Claptrap bobbleheads Bronze 8.35% of players
• It's so realistic! Collected 5 3D glasses Bronze 26.85% of players
• What a party! Collected 3 panties, 5 fish in a bag, and 15 pizzas Silver 8.39% of players

Space and patches

Space neededAbout 3.3 GB

Update patch01.07

These are the patches Sony still hosts for this disc ID. The game's real history can be longer.

DLC

Four add-on packs came out in 2009 and 2010, and the Game of the Year release puts all of them on the disc.

Items

Name	Date	Adds
The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned	2009-11-24	New quests, items and enemies in Jakobs Cove, including zombies and WereSkags.
Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot	2010-01-07	Three arenas (Hellburbia, the Gully, the Angelic Ruins), new game modes and item storage.
The Secret Armory of General Knoxx	2010-02-25	A big new area with new missions, weapons and enemies, and the level cap raised to 61.
Claptrap's New Robot Revolution	2010-09-28	A story about a rogue army of Claptraps, with Claptrap-styled enemies. A free patch raised the level cap by 8.

Playable today

Reception

Aggregates

Outlet	Platform	Score	Scale
Metacritic	PS3	83	100
Metacritic	Xbox 360	84	100
Metacritic	PC	81	100

Critics

Outlet	Score	Scale
IGN	8.8	10
Game Informer	9.25	10
GameSpot	8	10
GameTrailers	8.4	10
GamePro	4.5	5
GameSpy	4	5
Giant Bomb	4	5

Staff and cast

Staff

Role	Name
Producer	Simon Hurley
Producer	Stephen Palmer
Designer	Matthew Armstrong
Programmer	Steven Jones
Programmer	Patrick Deupree
Programmer	Jimmy Sieben
Artist	Brian Martel
Artist	Jennifer Wildes
Artist	Jim Sanders
Writer	Allison Berryman
Writer	Mikey Neumann
Writer	Randy Pitchford
Writer	Simon Hurley
Composer	Sascha Dikiciyan
Composer	Cris Velasco
Composer	Jesper Kyd
Composer	Raison Varner

Notes for collectors

• The PS3 trophy list covers all four add-ons, so a full platinum needs the Game of the Year content or the downloads.
• The later Game of the Year Edition puts the base game and all four add-ons on one PS3 disc. On Xbox 360 the add-ons are on a second disc.
• The first Game of the Year Edition shipped with one-time use vouchers for the four add-ons instead of the content on the disc.
• The Secret Armory of General Knoxx raised the level cap to 61, and a later free patch raised it by 8 more for everyone.
• Two player split-screen is on the disc. Four player split-screen only arrived with the 2019 remaster.
• Three trophies need another player: And They'll Tell Two Friends, Duel-icious and Duelinator.

Credits

Region

US

Time to beat

about 22 hours