I'm not always the biggest fan of writer interviews, but this one is definitely an exception. VG247 talked to Borderlands 2 lead writer Anthony Burch at the recent gamescom on what sort of craziness we can expect from Gearbox's upcoming title.
"This is a game made by gamers, because it's just full of all these things that gamers really tend to like: leveling up, loot, all this strategy. But that's also sort of bled into the story, and there's a lot of stuff that's very clearly trying to buck against videogame cliches."
Any what could be more cliche than the way some videogames represent women? The ladies of Borderlands 2 are far from the hypersexualized fighters of DOA. As Burch explains, "We have a lot of female characters that are cool or funny or badass first, and sexualized second, or just never sexualized period. Their purpose as characters is to be interesting inherently and they're not eye candy, or you're not supposed to rescue them. Like we have Ellie, who is a really overweight female character, whos just a super bad ass, hopefully super funny supporting character, and she's not there to be oggled or to laugh at, or anything like that."
As much fun as discussing perpetualized female stereotypes in videogaming in the new milennium, the show must go on, and so too does Burch. His favorite Borderlands 2 character? It's not the gunzerker, or the crazy ninja assassin.
"Handsome Jack, just because...I always wanted to write a really central villain and have him be all throughout the narrative and have him be a kind of unconventional villain in the way that he behaves. He's a really immature villain, he just makes fun of you all the time, he's sort of childish...he's burning ants with a magnifying glass and you're the ant, essentially. And he has a lot of fun being the bad guy, and I really had a lot of fun writing a really dickish character whose just enjoying screwing with you."
Courtesy VG247, you can check out the entire clip below.
And as a quick heads up, most are familiar with Anthony from the webseries, "Hey Ashley Whatcha Playin'" (HAWP for short), which Anthony began with his sister Ashley (who voices Borderlands 2's tiny Tina) last year. If you haven't seen it yet, give it a try. Below is just one of many great clips they've done.
Borderlands 2 is out for PS3, PC, and XBox 360 on September 18 in the US, and September 24 internationally.
