Well this game looks pretty cool. Gearbox is basically building Borderlands as an open world loot game mixed with a first-person shooter. Like in loot-heavy role-playing games you'll walk around, accept quests from NPCs and kill creatures roaming around, get experience for draining their life bars, then pick up the loot they drop after death. Gearbox is claiming there are tons of different varieties of weapons to pick up and use in the game, which should make for some pretty interesting pickups.
Gearbox says the game was first built as a first-person shooter, then had RPG elements layered on top. We didn't get to play, but we were treated to an extended demo showing off a few quests as well as the character development system. Before starting out you'll need to pick a character class, of which there are four. The demo focused on the Brick class, which is basically the tanking type. Each class gets a few different branches for its skill trees, which you can power up with points earned by leveling up. So for instance with Brick you can choose to focus on his melee skill set, earning special abilities like an adrenaline rush that allows him to run around like a madman pummeling enemies with fists. When selecting a class you'll also have the opportunity to customize the appearance to a degree, as well as slapping on a custom name, so not everyone who picks Brick is going to appear to be the same, and they'll be further differentiated depending on what skill branch you decide to follow.
The game can be played co-operative with up to four players, and it lets you utilize your character you've been building in any game. This means if you're playing solo and want to join up with a friend who's further into the game, you can do that and jump in with all your skills and items already earned. If you happen to pick up something really cool while playing with the friend you'll be able to hold onto and bring it with you afterwards into other games. Joining other people's games will see the enemies scale in power and number, so the challenge level will be dynamic based on who's playing and what level they're at.
While out in the world questing you'll get objectives like kill X number of Y enemies and boss characters, and you'll find loot sprays off your kills like in Diablo-style action-RPGs. UI windows will pop up when you approach the loot, letting you know the approximate value, special effects (electrical, fire, acid damage, etc), type of weapon (shotgun, sniper rifle, assault rifle, and many more), as well as rarity, indicated by a Blizzard-esque item color coding system. Weapons are generated by the game based on a number of presets, so you might find something like a fiery sniper rifles with a rotating chamber of three high caliber bullets.
A number of enemy types, from monsters to human bandits, are walking around the game's large open world, and similar to World of Warcraft's elites, you can find some enemies of a higher power level, referred to in the game as 'badass' enemies. These things are harder to kill but also yield better rewards, and while killing anything you'll be working toward upgrading your proficiency with certain weapon types as well as amassing experience and items. Combat can also take place while in vehicles, which you can outfit and jump into at special stations around the world to allow for easier travel across the terrain as well as some added firepower.
Like in action-RPGs or MMOs the game also assaults you with statistics as you fight, with damage totals floating up over enemies' heads as they get shot, and a 'critical' notice popping up after a particularly damaging hit. Console players who have no interest in playing online should be happy to hear that you can, if you want, play offline in split-screen co-op.
Hopefully everything goes well for Gearbox's Borderlands, as it's certainly looking really good right now. It's expected to be released this holiday season for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.