October 1, 2009 - The world of Pandora may look like a wasteland, but it's full of treasure, and hidden somewhere in its surface is a vault packed with advanced alien technology and wealth. So says the introduction to Gearbox's Borderlands, a hybrid first-person-shooter action-RPG set to be released late this October. You play as a treasure hunter, and can team up with three others to roam the terrain killing monsters, looting corpses, questing, leveling up, and learning new skills.
We've written about this game a number of times, from when it was introduced to a more recent hands-on session with a large chunk of the opening portion. Yet maybe within all these impressions articles you didn't get the detail you were hoping for. After all, the game does give you four classes to play as, so when the game comes out you'll need to make a choice. We're here to lay out how each character class behaves, and show you a little bit of each in action.
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands_100109_36_1254437905.jpg)
Before that, a brief crash course in how Borderlands works. You pick your class at the very beginning, and you're given access to a terminal where you can change the character's default name and set three color schemes for the costume. Since you don't pick up armor in the game, just weapons and items, it doesn't seem like a class' appearances will change much. That means the color schemes would seem to be the defining aesthetic characteristic along with, obviously, the weapons, of which there are allegedly hundreds of thousands or more. At these terminals can also be purchased skill point resets in case you don't like how you've distributed your points and want to rearrange. For every class, there's a primary skill that serves as one of the main distinguishing factors. Under that are three divisions of skills you'll power up throughout the rest of the game, with each division consisting of seven individual skills.
The general idea here should be familiar to any role-playing game fan. Kill enemies, level up to boost health reserves and damage numbers, get skill points and use them learn new abilities and power up existing ones to become a more effective combatant. Some skills focus on boosting damage done, some on durability, and some on helping others. This is, after all, a social game at heart, meant for people to quest together to tackle challenges to find nice items. It should be noted that you're not restricted to a skill division once you start allocating points to a skill contained within it, but the entirety of the division won't be available immediately. You'll have to keep pumping in points to unlock access to the higher level skills. Also, most skills can be powered up a number of times, so if you like what one does you can dump in a few more points to increase its effects.
Below and on the next page are profiles for each class, complete with their primary skill and subdivisions of skill sets. We've also included video and screenshots so you can see how everything looks.
[gb]SOLDIER [/gb]
- Likes combat rifles, shotguns, and uses a short knife for melee -
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands-20091001022117306-001.jpg)
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands-20091001022151836-000.jpg)
Primary Skill: Scorpio Turret
Drops a turret on the ground that fires at foes while active. It also has shields that extend to the sides of the turret gun, providing cover if you need it.
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands-20091001024028598-002.jpg)
Skill Divisions
Infantry | This contains more general purpose combat abilities, with a few making you more effective with shotguns and combat rifles. You can also boost bullet and Scorpio Turret damage, get a bump to weapon fire rate and recoil, and get access to ways to reduce the cool down rate of the Turret.
Support | With these skills you'll be able to tweak the functionality of your Turret in a few different ways. You can enable ammunition regeneration for any player standing around the turret, boost the number of shots per burst from the turret, and reduce the overall cool down rate of the ability. There are also a few ways to augment your soldier's shields, as well as a way to have the turret occasionally blast out supply pickups for members of the party to pick up.
Medic | Are you the type of player that never wants to worry about health? Well, then this would be your ideal skill division. In it you can augment your maximum health, shoot team members to heal them, increase resistance to bullets, and make it so your scorpion turret can heal and revive. The highest level skill here bumps up party health regeneration temporarily.
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Watch the Soldier at work.
[gb]HUNTER [/gb]
- Likes sniper rifles, revolvers and swings a short blade. -
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands-20091001021917843-001.jpg)
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands-20091001022114306-000.jpg)
Primary Skill: Bloodwing
Triggering this skill lets you toss out an attack bird that'll confront distant foes while you continue to do damage from afar.
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands-20091001021523087-000.jpg)
Skill Divisions
Sniper | As you might have guessed by the name, these skills offer up ranged damage dealing bonuses. You can increase weapon accuracy, damage with sniper rifles, gain a triggered damage and reload temporary buff following a kill, reduce the Bloodwing cool down rate with sniper rifle hits, and boost sniper rifle magazine capacity. There's also an interesting skill here that gives you and whatever friends are playing with you an experience point boost if an enemy is killed with a critical hit.
Rogue | These skills mostly have to do with making your Bloodwing a more effective method of attack. You can increase the attack bird's movement speed, give it the ability to replenish your health when it attacks, give it a chance to rip additional special items from enemies, and giving it a chance to daze enemies. You can also power it up so it attacks more than one target per activation.
Gunslinger | This division focuses more on pistol attacks and general damage bonuses. You can bolster critical hit damage, give yourself the opportunity to blast off two bullets when you fire pistol instead of one, and increase pistol magazine size. The highest level Gunslinger skill bumps up your firing rate and give a percentage chance to temporarily inflict even more damage. A melee skill is also included here, giving each strike the potential to cause double damage or more, depending on how many points you dump in.
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See the Hunter in motion.
[gb] BERSERKER[/gb]
- Likes explosive weapons, fists, and swings a giant pipe. -
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands-20091001024035957-000.jpg)
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands-20091001024031364-000.jpg)
Primary Skill: Berserk
Activating this skill boosts your resistance to every kind of damage type as well as regenerates health. It allows you to attack with fists instead of guns.
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands-20091001022154476-001.jpg)
Skill Divisions
Brawler | These skills will make your berserk mode more deadly and augment melee strikes. By allocating points here you can increase the duration of berserk, reduce its cool down, gain a percentage chance for extra cash to drop after Berserk attacks are made, as well as regenerate additional health. There's also a bonus to base melee damage and a percentage chance per kill to temporarily dish out even more punishment.
Tank | As the title implies, these skills help your defenses, letting you absorb hits as teammates dance around dealing damage. You'll get bonuses to your maximum health, shield strength, two defensive triggered bonuses when shields are depleted, and a chance to daze with melee strikes. One skill in particular makes you harder to permanently get rid of in a fight, giving you more of a window of time to be revived by teammates, and giving you a bigger percentage of health if you are revived to help you get back into the fight more quickly.
Blaster | If you don't care as much about melee and just want to blow stuff up, these are the skills to focus on. Here you can bump up the rocket capacity in launchers, boost base level explosive damage, and even give you a chance after every kill to bolster your firing rate and temporarily regenerate rockets. Since you'll probably self-inflict damage from rocket blasts, there's a helpful skill that ups your explosive damage resistance.
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Video of the Berserker in action.
[gb]SIREN[/gb]
- Likes incendiary, shock, and corrosive guns and shoots energy from her palm. -
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands-20091001024009599-000.jpg)
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands-20091001030403019-000-000.jpg)
Primary Skill: Phasewalk
When activated, your Siren will become invisible and move with increased speed. You can also pull off a damaging phase blast when triggering or exiting from Phasewalk.
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/103/1030605/borderlands-20091001024006115-001.jpg)
Skill Divisions
Controller | A set of skills more for those who prefer defense and crowd control. Dumping points into this division will give you more shield capacity, and provides a few health and shield regeneration bonuses. It also gives you the ability to daze opponents at specific times, such while dishing out a melee attack, as an added effect on your phase blast, and even adding a percentage to daze with every bullet fired.
Elemental | These skills are for those who love seeing enemies burn and corrode. Within this division are skills that bump up your chances of causing bonus elemental damage, add shock damage to phasewalking, and corrosive damage to melee attacks. The highest level skill here, called Pheonix, blasts fire damage at nearby enemies when you make a kill and adds a percentage chance for shots made to temporarily not detract from your ammunition reserves.
Assassin | These skills are for players who just want to kill stuff in the most straightforward manner possible. A number of skills here are damage boosts, one that bumps up critical hit damage, one that bolsters bullet damage and accuracy, another that augments bullet velocity and damage, and yet another that dramatically increases melee damage while Phasewalking.
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Check out the Siren's style of attack.
So there you have it, all four character classes explored. Of course there's plenty more to see in Borderlands, particularly the giant arsenal of weapons you can bring out into the world, the vehicles you can drive, and the various enemy types, which we'll have more on in the future. Borderlands is currently scheduled to ship on October 20th, 2009 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and October 26th for PC.
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