New Borderlands 2 Details Surface: Better AI, Environmental Interaction, Gun Info

Gearbox's guided demo of Borderlands 2 at PAX this year provided onlookers with a wealth of new information about the game, ranging from weapon info and improvements to the Psychos' AI, and additions to fights in general.

The optimized demo of Borderlands 2 was running on the PC, on Nvidia hardware. The game's visual direction is similar to that of the original Borderlands, with aliased black outlines surrounding the characters and intro videos for significant NPCs. The UI is largely unchanged, with the addition of a new mini-map to aid with navigation.

A new character named Maya replaces Lilith as the game's Siren character. Like Lilith, she too has the ability to Phasewalk. The new Gunzerker class will not be able to zoom while dual wielding weapons. Players will still be able to equip four weapons, which will be paired this time around for dual wielding.

Some enemies can now pick up and interact with objects in the environment by hurling them at you. Psychos and other human enemies will not run blindly into gunfire, and will instead attempt to dodge and hide behind cover. They can also be tactically wounded. Kamikaze robots, new enemies in the game, will behave and act like zombies—crawling if their legs are blown off.

With regards to the weapons, every manufacturer will have distinct properties. Tediore weapons will allow you to throw guns and magazines as grenades. Torque guns will have exploding bullets, albeit with a slower rate of fire than others. Vladorf guns feature rotating barrels and a high rate of fire. A new manufacturer, called Bandit, will offer very large magazines for increased ammo capacity.

The details are subject to change as the game remains in development, but judging from how far along it is in development, we don't expect those changes to be terribly drastic from what we've already seen.