Borderlands (2009)
Borderlands is a 2009 shooter video game made by Gearbox Software and Feral Interactive.
Pandora is a dust-choked frontier planet where corporations dumped their trash and their prisoners, and rumor says an alien Vault full of loot waits somewhere beneath it. You pick one of four bounty hunters and go treasure-seeking through a cel-shaded wasteland of bandits, mutant wildlife and psychos in masks. The hook is the guns: millions of randomly generated combinations, from lightning shotguns to rockets, all fed by a first-person loop of shoot, loot, level up, repeat. Solo it runs on manic dark comedy; with up to four in co-op it becomes gleeful chaos.
Quick answers
What is Borderlands about?
Pandora is a dust-choked frontier planet where corporations dumped their trash and their prisoners, and rumor says an alien Vault full of loot waits somewhere beneath it. You pick one of four bounty hunters and go treasure-seeking through a cel-shaded wasteland of bandits, mutant wildlife and psychos in masks. The hook is the guns: millions of randomly generated combinations, from lightning shotguns to rockets, all fed by a first-person loop of shoot, loot, level up, repeat. Solo it runs on manic dark comedy; with up to four in co-op it becomes gleeful chaos.
When was Borderlands released?
Borderlands was released on 20 October 2009.
Who made Borderlands?
Borderlands was made by Gearbox Software, Feral Interactive and 2K Games.
Similar games
Explore Borderlands guides
Borderlands in our writing
- Companion guide: Bounty Hunters
- Companion guide: Deserts & the Wasteland
- Companion guide: Found Family
- Companion guide: Space Western: The Complete Guide to the Final Frontier
A few thoughts on Borderlands
Borderlands runs on wasteland mayhem and gallows humor, so watch Mad Max: Fury Road for the same roaring, sun-blasted anarchy on wheels. For a ragtag crew of mercenaries scraping a living on a lawless frontier, Firefly hits the exact irreverent tone. Blast The Prodigy's The Fat of the Land while you loot.
Wasteland outlaws living by their own rules
Borderlands drops four bounty hunters onto a sun-scorched planet where corporations dumped their trash, and its whole appeal is watching outlaws carve out a living there. Mad Max: Fury Road runs on that same desert lawlessness, Firefly rides a ragtag crew across a frontier the law forgot, The Scorch Trials sends survivors across a burned wasteland, and Red Dead Redemption 2 lets you live as an outlaw a while longer.
A dystopian soundtrack as loud as Pandora itself
Borderlands treats its own chaos like a punchline, cel-shaded violence set to a soundtrack that never lets up, and these records share that same manic, dystopian energy. Deltron 3030 raps its way through a corporate-run future, Repo! The Genetic Opera turns organ debt into rock opera, The Prodigy's The Fat of the Land is pure breakbeat aggression, and Ayreon's Universal Migrator arc builds a whole space opera out of noise.
Space frontiers where danger is just another day at work
Borderlands treats Pandora like just another job site, vault hunters grinding for one big score, and these follow that same frontier-worker attitude. Old Man's War signs soldiers up for a war fought light-years from home, Ghost in the Shell patrols a future where the job never ends, Galaxy Express 999 rides its heroes planet to planet on a train, and Phoenix spans entire eras of one sprawling space myth.