The Big Sauce
Brownlow Medallist
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Okay, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is the next project from 2K Australia, who began work immediately after wrapping up on their contribution to Bioshock Infinite.
Gearbox is overseeing development, but its main team remains focused on some as yet unannounced next-gen IPs.
Note that the Pre-Sequel isn't coming to PS4 or Xbox One, which may be a source of disappointment for our console cousins, who probably hoped for an uptick in resolution and/or frame rate, but there are no such worries on PC.
The game is being built using the Borderlands 2 engine, which as we know runs buttery smooth at high resolutions when powered by a half-decent GFX card.
The Pre-Sequel tells the story of how Jack came to become the villain of Borderlands 2, with you helping his (initially well-meaning) rise to eventual super-villainy.
In the demo Athena and Willhelm are trying to storm a Hyperion base in order to stop a giant death-ray that's blasting lumps out of the moon.
The lack of atmosphere has a couple of gameplay implications: Firstly you need to keep your oxygen meter topped up by collecting O2 canisters, which drop in the same way as other loot.
Not fun in itself, but you can also vent these to enable double jumps and to power jetpacks. This creates cool platforming opportunities—one massive jump sees the characters land on a pillar of moon rock, below which lava from a laser strike flows—and adds a pleasing verticality to the shootouts as enemies whizz around.
You can also shoot out their helmets to rob them of air. As if being shot in the face wasn't already inconvenience enough.
