Vi kender det alle fra et looter-shooter-spil. Selvom idéen er, at hver genstand skal føles unik og speciel, ender størstedelen i praksis som ubrugelig skrammel, der enten aldrig samles op eller straks sælges i spillets butikker. Hos Gearbox er man fuldt ud klar over dette, og i Borderlands 4 introduceres et system, der skal gøre våben mere spændende - og som samtidig gør selve idéen om at samle et våben op og straks bruge det endnu sjovere.
Under Gamescom talte vi med senior project producer Anthony Nicholson, der forklarede, hvorfor Licensed Parts-funktionen bliver en central del af spillet. Det er Gearbox' store idé til at gøre hvert eneste våben mere skævt, unikt og værd at bruge.
"Yeah, so we wanted to take a lot of the things that worked really well, that people thought were really, really cool, and our gun team has done an amazing job on the design side, the art side, animation, everything has been really, really well done. And so we wanted to see, what are those pieces that people love? Like the Hyperion part of Hyperion, people love the shield whenever it's up. So we take that licensed part, we don't have the full manufacturer, but we take that part and now you can have it on your Maliwan gun with Jacob's Crit and TD or Reload or whatever crazy thing that it may be. So it really is about making sure that the player feels like they're awesome every time they pick up a gun and that they can continue to shoot and loot and keep that going on all through the entire campaign."
Som det ser ud nu, er de fleste våbenproducenter repræsenteret i Borderlands 4 som kernemærker, og kun en håndfuld mangler. Disse vil dog stadig være til stede i et vist omfang takket være Licensed Parts-funktionen. Men hvordan beslutter Gearbox, hvilke producenter der får en central rolle, og hvilke der må vige? Lead level designer Jason Reiss forklarede processen:
"Oh, it's impossible. It's a give and take. We love them all. And so we kind of find our different niches, the different play styles, and we make sure we cater to those. But it's actually extremely hard to pick. And so it's great with the Licensed Parts, because we still can bring some of those feelings to there. Hyperion is still there, Atlas, you bring that Licensed Part here and you can still have their behaviour, but you get to combine it with all these other ones, which I love because it makes our loot chase that much more relevant. It makes purples or epics that much more enticing and that much more exciting when those drop. And so there's even more reward out there for the player to get."
Se hele interviewet nedenfor, hvor vi også får en smagsprøve på, hvordan post-game bliver i Borderlands 4, samt hvordan den nye sømløse verden giver Gearbox mulighed for at udfolde deres kreative ambitioner.
