Gearbox: Why Borderlands 2's Story Won't Suck

Gearbox Software knows where the first Borderlands fell short, and in working on Borderlands 2, Lead Writer Anthony Burch can pinpoint precisely why. 2009’s role-playing shooter “feels comparatively lonely because you just don’t have a lot of dialogue pushing you forward and explaining why you’re doing what you’re doing,” Burch says. “Every time an objective changes in Borderlands 2, somebody’s there saying a line of dialogue, explaining why you should care, telling you what you should do next.”

Consequently, the script for Borderlands 2 is five times larger than the first. Burch is positive about the original Borderlands – a game he had no creative involvement in – but says “there were lots of cool stories that could have been told.” Players responded well to a lot of the side characters, like T.K. Baha, but without reading each piece of mission text they’d never get a full understanding for the substance or subtle humor surrounding them. “There was a lot of good stuff there, but maybe it wasn’t delivered to the player as obviously as it could have been,” says Burch. With a laugh, he continues. “Plus, the ending sucked, and we’ve admitted that a bunch.”

So what’s in that gigantic new script that makes Borderlands 2 so much better?

“Pretty much every new character we have,” he says, giving nods to Tiny Tina and Ellie. “We gave them three to five sidequests to say what their backstory is, what their personality is.” This is especially true of the returning characters – in particular, the Vault Hunters from the first game. “You spend a significant amount of the main plot getting to know who they are now,” says Burch. The Borderlands heroes were about their class, not their character, and most players remember their skill trees more than their personal qualities.

“We have this scary opportunity to give them personalities and have them play off one another,” he continues. Burch and Gearbox spent “a great deal of time” considering “what are their relationships like with each other? How do they treat each other? What have they been up to since the first game ended?”

Communicating with the player using these character interactions, audio logs, radio transmissions, and environmental storytelling is crucial to strengthening Borderlands 2. “It makes you feel like you’re part of a story rather than checking off a bunch of things on a shopping list that are free of context,” Burch explains. Ultimately, though, Burch would be totally content if you ignored the story and just enjoyed the game. “There's sort of two types of audience member that I have in mind, that I want to satisfy in different ways,” he explains. One of course, is someone who has an emotional response to Borderlands 2. Ideally, that’s awe during an epic scene or laughter at the lighthearted and comedic bits. Burch mentions the recent run of Doctor Who as the touchstone for what he wants to accomplish.

The other audience member “doesn't give a s—t about the story, never gave a s—t about the story in the first game, still continues to not give a s—t about the story. I hope he can go through the entire game, ignore every single line of dialogue I've written, come out at the end of this thing and say, ‘Wow, that game was awesome.’

As long as they don’t “come out saying, ‘Wow, that story ruined the game and I was doing stupid things because the story was taking precedence over the game,’” Burch says, “Then I'm happy.”