Borderlands 2 producer Matt Charles took some time to give a few details to fans who asked questions about the upcoming game on his twitter page.
On character customization: "You'll be able to choose from a large variety of swappable heads/hairstyles/headgear in addition to choosing from hundreds of unique color and decal themes, and both together offer a ton of options for customization."
On vehicles: "We're introducing a new vehicle, the Technical, which can hold 4 players at once and also a few weapon configurations to choose from. Some are better than others depending on the types of enemies you'll face and the environment you'll be fighting in. On the other hand, Borderlands is mainly a game about weapons and loot so we don't want to force people to stay in vehicles for too long."
On the enemy types: "There are brand new enemy families in Borderlands 2, and the total count of unique enemies (including special elemental variants with unique AI) is in the triple digits. New environments + new enemy types and behaviours = much more varied combat encounters!"
On the cut-scenes: " We're mixing it up a bit this time: few short cutscenes (and title cards) where necessary, lots of in-game moments, ECHO logs, missions, and environmental storytelling - not to mention the significant NPC improvements we made so it doesn't just feel like a cardboard cut out of a dude is sending you on a quest. What's great is that we catered it towards both audiences that love story telling through NPCs and those who prefer to go kick some ass! If you choose to do the latter, you can run off as the NPC is talking to you and the discussion will appear as an ECHO transmission. No chains attached!
On health packs: "It was a tough decision, but we decided to remove carryable health packs and instead fill that need with new relics and shields that can help keep you out of that emergency state to begin with. The result is a more fluid combat experience since now you're not worrying about when the best time to pause the game is and you still get that fun sense of preparing for a battle by choosing the right gear. Health Packs will still appear and drop and they will now heal you up in the middle of battle."
On the environments: "We've shown a tundra, cavern, grasslands, and Hyperion tech environments so far, but there are many more in the game - I think you'll enjoy the environmental diversity in BL2.
On the level cap: "We're balancing the game cap at level 50; in the first game we ended up pushing the cap to 69 through post-launch patches and DLC. I don't have DLC plans for Borderlands 2 yet but we tend to want to one-up ourselves each time, so...we'll see what happens!
Charles also promised an improved frame rate and voice chat. Borderlands 2 is available September 18th.
