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Plot
It is revealed that the Firehawk is actually Lilith, a Siren and one of the original Vault Hunters. She does not have Roland in her possession, but informs the players that he has been captured by the Bloodshot, a local group of bandits. The new Vault Hunters break into the Bloodshot base and rescue Roland before he is abducted by the Hyperion and return with him to Sanctuary. There it is revealed that the second Vault contains a powerful creature called the Warrior, who according to legend it will obey the commands of whoever awakens it, and Handsome Jack intends to obtain it by making use of the same Vault Key of the first game, now in his possession. With assistance from demolitions expert Tiny Tina and Mordecai, the Vault Hunters ambush a train supposedly carrying the Vault Key. However, the train is a trap, containing the Hyperion Corporation's flagship robot, Wilhelm.
Successfully defeating the robot, a unique power core is found in its wreckage, which could potentially power Sanctuary's shields for an extended period of time. Upon inserting the power core, Handsome Jack uses the Guardian Angel to interface with the city's network through the core and shut down the shields, bombarding Sanctuary with mortars from his lunar base. Lilith is able to move Sanctuary to an external location with her powers, teleporting the player away from the city in the process. After raiding a Hyperion base for a lunar drop beacon, the Vault Hunters are able to fast travel back to the Sanctuary, now floating in the sky. The Guardian Angel contacts the heroes again, revealing that the Vault Key is being kept in a Hyperion base along with herself, with the best Hyperion security, weapons, and soldiers guarding them.
The Vault Hunters are tasked with obtaining the means to access the Hyperion base to obtain the Vault Key and prevent Jack from awakening the Warrior. First, they journey to the Hyperion Wildlife Exploitation Preserve to find programming upgrades for Claptrap that will allow it to slip past a barrier that would normally atomize all non-Hyperion entity passing through it (the Claptrap robots were originally made by Hyperion, but the Claptrap in Borderlands 2 is the last of them.) Next, they journey to bandit territory to enlist the help of the bandit leader Slab King, who is revealed to be Brick. Brick volunteers his bandits as soldiers to assist the assault on the base. The final preparation is a journey to the city of Opportunity to kill one of Handsome Jack's body doubles and create a forgery of his bio-metric signature and voice to bypass the security of the base's inner chamber guarding both the Guardian Angel and the Vault Key.
Assisted by the original Vault Hunters, the heroes enter successfully take over the base and reach the room where Angel is kept, just to find that she a Siren like Lilith and Maya whom Jack has been pumping full of Eridium to charge the Vault Key in a shorter amount of time than its normal 200 year charging cycle. It is also revealed that Angel is Handsome Jack's daughter. Jack sends robots to kill everyone but Angel in the room. The Vault Hunters repel the assault, and by Angel's request, destroy the machine where she was being held with Roland and Lilith's help. Soon after, Angel dies, but just before retrieving the Vault Key, an enraged Jack appears and kills Roland, before restraining Lilith, who uses her powers to teleport the other Vault Hunters back to Sanctuary, where they reconvene with Mordecai and Brick. Mordecai sends the Vault Hunters to another Hyperion facility to recover information pertaining to the location of the Warrior. After defeating another massive Hyperion robot (an extremely large "loader" robot called Saturn), the Vault Hunters retrieve the necessary information and set out to end the conflict once and for all.
The Vault Hunters have to fight through one last massive Hyperion base to reach the new Vault. They find Lilith, forced to use her powers to charge the Key against her will, and Handsome Jack. Jack attacks the Vault Hunters, wanting revenge for the death of his daughter, but the Vault Hunters overpower him. At that moment, the Key finishes charging, and Jack unlocks the Vault, summoning the Warrior, a massive dragon-like creature that appears to be made of lava and rock. The Vault Hunters fight and destroy the Warrior. Dying, Handsome Jack tries to argue that the Warrior could have brought peace to Pandora. The player(s) can damage and kill him at any time during his speech, but if they wait long enough, eventually Lilith will kill him. Lilith goes to remove the Vault Key from its slot in the ground, when suddenly the Key flashes. A map of the galaxy appears above, the symbol for the Vault (a circle with a "V" in it, seen on the game's box art and title screen) appearing on multiple worlds all across the galaxy.
After the credits, the player can journey through the world and finish missions they may have missed. If they return to Sanctuary and go to the Crimson Lance headquarters, they can find Mordecai, Lilith, and Brick upstairs talking about the future. Lilith insists they need to bury their dead and rebuild, while Brick calls "dibs" on hunting for the other Vaults.
Gameplay
Returning gameplay features from the first game will include the 3-branch skill trees, class-mods, and four-player online cooperative modes. New features include a more expansive and customizable weapons system, reworked four-seat drift-able vehicles and vehicle physics elements, and dynamic mission systems. For example, taking too much time to save a friend in a mission may result in their death and the failure of the mission, which will affect the story as the player progresses. Technically, the game world will be all connected, rather than loadable levels for each region, allowing accurate viewing of the entire world from a given point rather than the first game's premade "Skybox."
In addition, the artificial intelligence (AI) system has been reworked for the game. Non-enemies will populate the game world more often and will travel around different locations depending on the time. According to Gearbox VP Steve Gibson, enemy AI will encourage teamwork, such as flanking, as well as taking cover when wounded, though lower level enemies like Psychos will still embrace the mentality of, "Wow that's a gun! I want my face in front of it!". Shooting enemies will stun or cripple them depending on where they are shot, such as shooting a Hyperion robot's arms will cause the arms to fall off, impairing its damage-dealing capabilities. For a change, enemies will be intelligent enough to climb and traverse difficult terrain to pursue the player. Enemies will also be able to interact with each other. For example, certain enemies can heal their teammates, boost their shields for defense, or use them as shields to protect themselves
Characters
The first new character is a "gunzerker" named Salvador, who resembles Brick from the first game in abilities, but instead of using massive melee power to decimate enemies, Salvador can dual-wield any combination of guns. His skills can be upgraded so that he can throw multiple grenades at once, regenerate massive amounts of health and ammunition, or attract the attention of enemies with a double middle finger taunt.
The second character, a siren named Maya, has an ability called Phaselock which suspends and immobilizes enemies in midair and resembles Lilith from the first game in abilities. Her abilities revolve around the game's elements (fire, electricity, corrosion, explosions, and slag.) Her Phaselock can be upgraded to explode upon expiration or even convert enemies into temporary allies.
The third character, Axton, is a commando character who relies on turrets to decimate his enemies and resembles Roland in abilities. While most of his abilities are geared towards upgrading his turret, they are quite potent. Axton's turret can be armed with additional gun barrels, can detonate upon deployment, or stick to walls and ceilings. One particular skill tree allows two of the turrets to be deployed at once.
The final character, Zer0, is an assassin capable of creating a decoy of himself and becoming invisible for a short time. At the end of this process, he is then able to unleash a critical hit on an enemy with his sword or gun. He is skilled with sniper rifles and pistols, and is similar to Mordecai, one of the playable characters from the original Borderlands. His skills can be upgraded with emphasis on sniping or using his Deception ability as a primary method of damage-dealing.
The four player characters from the first game, Roland, Lilith, Brick, and Mordecai, all return in the form of NPCs that the new characters will encounter on Pandora, or in various missions. Non-playable characters like the Guardian Angel and Claptrap return to aid the player during quests. Characters from the first game such as Scooter the mechanic, Dr. Zed, and the insane archaeologist Patricia Tannis join new faces such as the cyborg Sir Hammerlock and Scooter's sister Ellie as quest giving characters.
In addition to Axton, Zer0, Maya and Salvador a fifth playable character was revealed at PAX East by Gearbox referred to as the "Mechromancer." The character, who is named Gaige, a red-headed cyborg that can summon a D374-TP ("Deathtrap" – a hulking, floating machine made of scrap parts), is currently in concept stage and Randy Pitchford stated that they would begin to work on her some time after the main game is completed "in a couple months." She will be released on October 16 and will be free to those who preordered the game from certain retailers, granting them access to the Premiere Club.
Awards (Reception)
Borderlands 2 received critical acclaim. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation 3 version 92.12% and 92/100, and the PC version 90.71% and 89/100 and the Xbox 360 version 90.05% and 90/100. IGN awarded the game a 9.0 out of 10, praising the game's sense of humor, world structure, and RPG systems, while feeling disappointed by the game's lack of meaningful visual customization and the sharing of loot during co-op play. They stated that the game had roughly 30 hours of gameplay, and was worth playing multiple times. Game Informer gave the game a score of 9.75 out of 10, praising almost every aspect of the game, particularly the game's writing, regarded as some of the best in the video game industry. Its frequent references to pop culture and internet memes were the subject of both praise and criticism.
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