In an adorable letter posted on the Borderlands 2 website today, developer Gearbox Software addresses some of the issues that fans complained about in the PC version of the action-role-playing game's predecessor, Borderlands.

Like an abusive boyfriend, Gearbox then promises that it won't happen again.

Here's what will be included in the PC version of Borderlands 2:

• An FOV Slider
• An interface tailored specifically for the PC
• Cloud save support
• Remappable keybindings for your keyboard and mouse
• Lots of other stuff that I don't feel like copying so just read the letter.

Hello My Future Borderlands 2 PC Player [Borderlands 2]

I'll never forget the moment when Borderlands—a game into which I would pour at least 60, probably 80 and maybe 100 hours—utterly hooked me. I peered through my scope at a slow, stupid, posturing Bruiser and blasted him with my newly acquired electrified sniper. I held the scope view, and watched him spasm and jerk until his eyeballs popped out of his head and rolled around in the alkaline dust of the Dahl Headlands.

That feeling of whoa when trying out a new weapon, and the rowdy hilarity that coursed through the dialogue and interactions of the first game, is all that the Gearbox Software development team wishes to imitate or replicate in Borderlands 2, due out in September. In the rest, they're striving for a sequel that isn't an update, a love note that reminds you of your first time, but not the fact there is only one first time.

"My perspective on it is, I'd really love it if this game felt like Firefly," writer Anthony Burch told Kotaku in an interview on Friday, referencing the beloved science-fiction television series starring Nathan Fillion. "Ninety percent of that show is people laughing and joking and doing hilarious things and then, every once in a while, something happens to make you sit up and go, 'Holy shit.' And you end up really connected to the characters because of it."

Borderlands was shot through with unforgettable NPCs, led by foul-mouthed, country-fried Scooter, the high-strung, marginally sane Patricia Tannis; and the obliviously cheerful amputee T.K. Baha. The four playable characters, however, were largely rooted in the silent-protagonist school of games design, with some interstitial dialogue and conversations obliquely describing a backstory common to all of them.

Borderlands 2 will bring back the original playable characters Brick, Roland, Mordecai and Lillith, as NPCs, which should be a treat for those who grew attached to one of them over dozens of hours of gameplay. The four new playable characters will also have more dialogue and will interact more with other NPCs, Burch said.

"The amount of stuff that we've recorded is two, three, four times bigger," he said. "One of the bigger pieces of feedback we got is that these were good stories, but a lot of it came in text before and after the missions (of the first Borderlands> We've made a big effort so that the characters you interact with bring you through the story of Borderlands 2."

The story finds you back on Pandora, the dysfunctional, deadly world whose native species exact a relentless vengeance upon those who have come to exploit its resources. This time, it's five years later, and the Hyperion corporation, from an ugly moon base close on the horizon, keeps watch over Pandora as it mines out iridium uncovered after the Vault was opened in the first game.

Reconstituting Borderlands 2 as a pure treasure hunt, like the first game, was too difficult to pull off within the established canon, Burch said. While the four new characters will be pursuing a new vault, this time they're doing it to thwart the designs of Handsome Jack, who is running Hyperion's operation and, as Burch puts it, is trying to turn Pandora into a "fascist paradise."

But that's how the story will handle the question of loot. The game will still provide loads of it, and the shields, weapons and class modifications will both be familiar and pack new features. Scott Kester, a designer, described "roid," "juggernaut" and "impact" shields, for example, which do everything from drain your health to provide greater shield protection, to deliver a health burst when fully depleted. Guns themselves have gimmicks, too—Hyperion weapons get more accurate the longer the trigger is depressed.

"We really amped up the manufacturer distinction of the weapons," Kester said. "They look very distinctive and also will act that way. There'll be a lot more texturing, so you'll see a gun that's rusted and know immediately what it can or can't do. You're not going to just pick up a gun that has some stat differences, and the visual variety will be more impactful."

One of the strongest criticisms of Borderlands gameplay was the fact the enemies were, well, pretty damn stupid. The Crimson Lance, the private military force encountered in later levels, did use some tactics, but the psychos and bandits and hyperaggressive animals all had behavior patterns that could be turned against them. Kester said they'll be toughened up in Borderlands 2.

"The Psycho is still stupid and will still run straight at you, because he's a Psycho, but there's a lot more of a group dynamic," Kester said. "If there's a leader or an alpha male around, they'll rally around him."

The game, Kester said, will be balanced such that a player with brute force, determination, and the stats to weather a brutal firefight, can still prevail, but tactical exploits will present themselves to those who know to look for them. Exploiting the game's "Second Wind" saving throw—killing an enemy as you are bleeding out revives you with a full shield and critical health—will be tougher as certain foes can be healed or rebuilt.

Players will get a more diverse skill tree in their classes, two of which are basically new. The Commando and the Siren return to fill the Soldier and Siren roles of the original. The Gunzerker is Borderlands 2's heavy-firepower class, like the Berserker. The Assassin is for those who enjoyed playing as the Hunter.

"If somebody enjoyed playing as Mordecai (the Hunter) or whoever, a lot of the skills will be similar," Kester said. "We're giving you the opportunity to play a similar role, but with a lot more variety. We felt it would have been a disservice if we simply gave you the same characters again." The new variety will come in the form of a remodeled skills tree that, for example, gives Axton (the Commando) a Longbow Turret—borrowing the teleporting capabilities of the Longbow grenade in the original game. With the skill, you can place the turret anywhere that is visible, such as a nearby ledge outdoors, or on the ceiling indoors. Special talents and melee combat will also get more attention and be more useful in the new skill trees.

I worry, though, about when or how this game will deliver its hook, what Borderlands 2 moment akin to electrocuting the Bruiser will be—or even if it can be, considering this is an extension of a story as much as it is a new game. Burch promises Borderlands 2 will have those moments.

"This psycho midget was coming at me while I was shooting at him with a Tediore pistol," Burch said. When you run out of ammo with a Tediore, you throw the entire weapon like a grenade, and a new one "digistructs" into your hand. It's basically a disposable gun. "But I forgot that," Burch said.

"So I wounded the midget badly, but then I threw the gun at him and it exploded, and blood and body parts just shot everywhere," Burch said. "And I went, 'Whoa!'"

Zero, the Assassin, fills the role left by Borderlands' hunter, Mordecai.
Salvador, the Gunzerker, is the heavy class, akin to Brick, the Berserker.
Maya, the Siren, brings a new twist to Lillith's phase powers.
Axton, the Commando, is an all-purpose fighter similar to Roland, the Soldier.
Handsome Jack is the slimeball from Hyperion Corporation whom you and your vault hunters are trying to stop.

Would you like to play Borderlands 2? You can do it on September 18 this year, on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. (September 21 for international audiences, Gearbox tells us, meaning those of you not in North America.)

You can even play it in splitscreen. Four-player co-op, too. With more guns and skills than ever, it looks like.

Gearbox's long and no-doubt exhaustive search for an attractive young woman who looks like an attractive video game woman is over.

Australian Yasemin Arslan will be playing the part of Lilith in the upcoming Borderlands 2. You can see her in-character in the clip below.

Hopefully with this competition over Gearbox can now turn their attentions towards modelling competitions for "fat guy with assault rifle" and "weasly sniper dude". It's only fair.

One of my favorite things about the holidays is seeing all of the creative ways video game developers and publishers find to celebrate.

The many holiday cards we receive each year, are a great example of that.

Take, for instance, this fantastic Borderlands 2 card I received yesterday from 2K Games and Gearbox.

Thanks for thinking of us!

Perhaps you are a female. Perhaps you are a female who resembles Lilith from Borderlands. Or perhaps you know someone who does. If so, the game's developer, Gearbox Sofware, has a deal for you.

From the developer's website:

Do you want to be a character in a video game? We're looking for someone to become Lilith from Borderlands. If hired, you will appear in the game, Borderlands 2, as the live action version of the character. Additionally, you may be invited to participate in promotional events and trade shows.

Lilith is a siren—a female character with amazing powers. Borderlands 2, the upcoming sequel to Borderlands 1, features Lilith as a non-playable character.

"In the Borderlands universe, a Siren can project a live-action image of herself into the minds of those she wishes to communicate with," the site continued. "Your look need not be exact, but expressive of Lilith in the mind's eye—similar to how the Guardian Angel was portrayed in the original Borderlands."

There are a couple of stipulations. For one, you must be in the Dallas, Texas area for the first three weeks of December—which I should be! You also must be a female (rats) and between the ages of 18 and 30 (what is this shit?).

While no previous modeling or acting experience is needed, you should be able to follow direction and express character emotion.

Gearbox is careful to note that this isn't a contest. Rather, this is a "job opportunity". The selected individual will be paid US$1,000 per day of shooting, with a minimum one-day guarantee.

There are two ways to apply for the gig: one online, and the other is an open casting call in Dallas. More details in the link below.

Above, that's Kotaku columnist Lisa Foiles doing her best Lilith.

Casting [Gearbox Software]

Borderlands has a novel due for release on Tuesday, entitled Borderlands: The Fallen. It'll track the story of Roland, who represents the soldier class in the original game.

From the writeup on Amazon:

His name's Roland. Soldier class, a former mercenary, he's on a full-time mission to scrape a living out of the most dangerous planet in the galaxy.

Is he qualified? He's well armed, he's ruthless, and he's tougher than skag hide. And, oh yeah-he's strapped with some of the most exotic weaponry this side of the Vault, not to mention possessing fists like chunks of steel.

Zac Finn and his wife and young son had better get on the right side of Roland, because a stopover in orbit has turned into a nightmarish fall to the unforgiving landscape of the Borderlands. Zac hopes to find a strange new alien treasure in the Borderlands to turn his down-spiraling life around. But his wife, Marla, and his son, Cal, just want to survive, and reunite, because catastrophe has left them separated by hundreds of klicks. Their chances aren't good ... and Roland is all that stands between them and the planet's kill-crazed Psychos and murderous bandits—not to mention the grotesque primals, giant wyrm squids, insane tunnel rats, voracious skags, brutal bruisers, and ruthless mercs.

You can pick up a 40-page excerpt free, through Gearbox Software, at the link below.

Borderlands: The Fallen (Excerpt, pdf) [Gearbox]

Michael John Mamaril sadly passed away last month at the age of just 22. Being a big Borderlands fan, Michael's friend Carlo thought a nice way to remember him would be to have the game somehow pay tribute. Borderlands developers Gearbox did this and then some.

The game's loud-mouthed robot assistant, Claptrap, has recorded a short eulogy for Michael, which while a little strange to hear is still a touching gesture.

A more public showing is the fact Michael will be included in the game as an NPC.

You can hear the eulogy below.

Gearbox to honor late fan as an NPC in Borderlands 2 [Destructoid]

What would you like to see in a Borderlands 2 Collector's Edition? A box that opens up like a Crimson Lance chest? A psycho mask? Fake skaggy poo? A life-size rakk hive?

That last one might be a little tough, but Gearbox Software is taking suggestions for what premiums Borderlands diehards would like to see in a collector's edition when Borderlands 2 releases in 2012. They've opened an official thread on the Gearbox forums, so go in there and sound off. It's a studio that's very well known for its fan service, so maybe your idea will fly.

As someone who pumped at least 60 hours into that game, let me weigh in with my preferences. Realistically, they need to give a code for a truly balls-out in game weapon, as that's been one of the franchise's creative calling cards. Unrealistically, I want a See-n-Say Claptrap. Pull the string, and a Claptrap spins in the center, coming to rest on one of the game's many catchphrases, or Claptrap saying "The Skag goes ... 'Hlarglrbrfrgh.'"

Borderlands Collectors Edition Suggestions [Gearbox]

By now, you've probably seen the leaked footage of the most recent Borderlands 2 demo, and read our own Michael McWhertor's impressions of the game from Gamescom. Last weekend at PAX, I caught up with Gearbox's art director Jeramy Cooke to chat with him about the new characters, guns, and art tech in Borderlands 2, as well as why PC players will be getting a much more customized version this time around.

For starters, there will be an entirely new cast of characters in Borderlands 2, but Roland, Lilith, Mordecai, and the rest of the gang from Borderlands will still make the occasional appearance. "We decided to bring back all the original playable characters as NPCs in the new game," Cooke told me, "because everyone is so connected to them. I keep doing interviews where people tell me, 'Oh, I played the game for 300 hours.' These people spend so much time with these characters, but then, they don't really know who they are. This game is five years after the vault was opened, and we wanted to show what's happened since then."

The new demo has the player raiding an enemy compound to free Roland, the soldier from the first game; one would imagine this means that afterwards, Roland will be around for players to interact with, theoretically getting to know him beyond "This is the guy with the healing bullets."

"We're also trying to put a lot more variety into the actual zones themselves," Cooke continued. "There was a lot of repetition of the same brown rocks last time, and we said, 'We're not doing this again.' We want people to see the whole rest of Pandora. We had made a map a long time ago for Borderlands one, and it had grasslands, it had volcanic areas, it had icy areas, and we just never really got to build them all. So for Borderlands 2 I said, 'We are going to go see the rest of Pandora.'"

One of Borderlands's most distinctive aspects was its huge and varied arsenal. It's not a huge surprise that there will be even more weapons in the sequel. "There are a lot more guns this time," Cooke told me, "like, several orders of magnitude more. Our core gun system that we had last time we revamped the base code system for that to make it more efficient so that we could add more parts. So, in the past game we might've only had like five or six parts for a gun, now there can be more like twelve, fourteen parts in a gun. We paramaterized the scope views as well—before, it was all static art, so you might've only seen one of six scopes, but now you're going to see eighty-seven bazillion scopes, because they're all paramaterized. Guns dropped by bosses are going to have much more personality."

Cooke said that the various gun manufacturers would be much more distinctive, as well. Bandits' guns would be all about ammo, while other manufacturers would focus on rate-of-fire, ammunition type, and more. (And of course, the hilarious exploding disposable Tediore gun from the demo.)

The team has also been hard at work updating the game's art style. "I think I've helped evolve the art style for Borderlands 2", Cooke said. "We've added a lot more shader work. We've always seen ourselves as concept-art style instead of cartoony or anime or any of those things, because we do a lot more rendering. If you look at some of the ice, it's not just a 2D texture with lots of lines in it, it has pretty complex shader stuff, depending on how something catches the light." He went on to describe how when light catches various objects in the world, they each react differently—in essence, he and his team at Gearbox are building a world of living concept art.

I mentioned to Cooke how often, I find that I prefer a game's promotional concept-art to the way the game eventually looks. "That was how we made the switch. We were like, 'We're doing this high-realism thing, but the game has this crazy zany fun aspect to it, and it doesn't make any sense.' And we had all this awesome concept-art and we looked at it and said, 'Why don't we make it look like this? This is so cool.'"

"[Changing the art style for Borderlands] helped us find our voice, it helped us realize what kind of game we were making. There was a connection between the art and the game design, and suddenly they started riffing off of each other, and we ended up with crazy midgets strapped to shields… we realized that yeah, we're badass, but we like to have fun, too.'"

One of the chief criticisms of Borderlands was the repetitive enemies and somewhat simplistic AI—most enemies would simply charge at the character headlong, and combat frequently became an exercise in backpedaling and blasting. The AI was fairly easy to exploit in the first game, and Cooke says the team has addressed that, as well. "We saw people in the first game exploiting the AI," he said, "hiding around a building, getting the AI stuck and stuff like that, so now AI can completely navigate where players can navigate. They can jump from rooftop to rooftop, climb ladders, they can kick barrels down stairs... they have a much better sense of what's going on in the world. There's a whole new layer of communication, there's a whole new layer of states—we have wounded states, all these awesome buff states where guys hulk out. The AI is totally new from the original game."

"The other big area is user interface," Cooke continued. "We had a ton of fans who played the game on PC, but they honestly got a port of the console game. We heard a lot of fans say, 'Hey, you didn't really take care of us here.' So, we completely ripped out the UI - there's a completely new UI for PC, it's mouse-driven, supports drag-and-drop, all of the things that you would expect in a PC title. It'll be a lot more fun for people."

The first Borderlands managed to go from "oddity" to "obsession" to "dark horse GOTY candidate" - it was a flawed title that still managed to create an enjoyable experience simply by way of its strong mechanics and unique look. Listening to Cooke talk about the sequel gave me the impression that the dev team has listened hard to player feedback and is methodically addressing their concerns one by one. Very promising, to be sure.