Borderlands 2 is getting tons of DLC this fall

[compl3x]

Gearbox confirmed at their PAX Australia panel that Borderlands 2 will be getting a level cap upgrade (to 72), and new raid bosses and missions in the form of DLC. The level cap DLC will be called the "Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack 2: Digistruct Peak Challenge," and will be priced at $4.99 (I still can't believe they're charging for this), with an intended release day of October.

 

 

The challenge itself features the character Patricia Tannis, who allows you to fight "high level" enemies for loot. In addition to this paid DLC, a free title update will be coming to increase ammo, bank, and backpack slots.

If you aren't satisfied with that, "Headhunter" packs are also coming, with more mission and boss content, one of which will feature T.K. Baha (of Borderlands 1), and a boss fight against "Jaques O' Lantern." Right now Gearbox doesn't have a set date or price on these Headhunter packs, but states there might be "two or three" of them. More skins will also be coming, including Dragon Keep flavored costumes.

 

 

So provided you're excited for all this, here's the bad news -- as expected (and clearly listed on the description itself), the Season Pass will not include any of this content. More info will be revealed in the future, including Gearbox's "Community Day" on September 14th. I wouldn't count out a "Season 2" pass.

 

 

Well, it looks like my wish of a fully-fledged campaign similar to Dragon Keep isn't happening. Instead, we're getting a ton of different micro-transactions that I'll have to sift through the marketplace for, and attempt to locate amidst the cavalcade of costume DLC.

 

Source

Borderlands 2 [OXM]

[PurpleHaze420]

"The season pass will not include any of this content"

 

Thats ridiculous. Wasn't that the whole point of the season pass, to include all future Borderland 2 DLC's.?

[compl3x]

I thought so.

[dafin0]

"The season pass will not include any of this content"

 

Thats ridiculous. Wasn't that the whole point of the season pass, to include all future Borderland 2 DLC's.?

no it was said it would only cover the first 3 DLC packs

[PurpleHaze420]

no it was said it would only cover the first 3 DLC packs

 

Ah fair one then, I wasnt actually sure.. They're definately milking every last drop of cash from this.. :woot:

[Davo]

So another company playing fast and loose with the phrase "Season Pass". I really enjoy this franchise but I'm about done with this crap.

[ensiform]

no it was said it would only cover the first 3 DLC packs

No, it covered the first 4 campaign dlcs + the other UVHM pack (which wasn't originally disclosed)

 

So another company playing fast and loose with the phrase "Season Pass". I really enjoy this franchise but I'm about done with this crap.

Pretty sure it clearly said that it was for 4 campaign DLCS in the description on steam.

[Nagisan]

All this costly DLC is exactly why I didn't buy BL2 during the Steam sale.

[xWhiplash]

Even without the DLC you still get over 100 hours of gameplay.  I think my BL2 gameplay is at 126 hours.

[Grinch]

All this costly DLC is exactly why I didn't buy BL2 during the Steam sale.

Well you aren't forced to buy the DLC, are you? I'm about 99.9% certain you can play the core game without DLC. :)

 

While it's sad to see that the Season Pass won't cover the new DLC, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Let's look at when Borderlands 2 was released which was September 18th 2012. "Season" has several definitions but all but the one related to Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter state that it is a "Period of the year" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/season).

 

So to those that thought the Season Pass meant "HERE! HAVE FREE DLC FOR LIFE!" then you were not only a fool, but apparently unable to read and comprehend things. :)

[Lingwo]

In the sale you could have got BL2 cheap, along with the season pass cheap and you would have got the DLC at much bigger discount.

Plus the DLC isn't connected to the main storyline apart from references, so it isn't like you have to play it to continue the story.

 

As xWhiplash said, without the DLC the game is huge. I clocked up about 96 hours before the DLC was even released.

 

Gearbox and Bethesda are probably the only two devs that give you value for money when it comes to DLC.

[Nagisan]

Even without the DLC you still get over 100 hours of gameplay.  I think my BL2 gameplay is at 126 hours.

Yes, but you are missing out on two full classes to play as.

 

Well you aren't forced to buy the DLC, are you? I'm about 99.9% certain you can play the core game without DLC. :)

I know, but the fact that they release so much DLC to me makes it feel like the game was incomplete when they released it. Take Skyrim for example.....they released 3 whole DLC packs. Two of which were fairly large, new story packs, one was pretty much cosmetic (ability to build your own house). Borderlands 2 has four story packs (twice as much as Skyrim), 2 class packs (doesn't really compare to Skyrim since it doesn't have classes.....but they added the whole vampire lord thing in one of the story packs), 24 customization packs (from what I could find, might be more), then five other DLCs.....now, the season pass combines 5 of those into one, but that still leaves you with 30 total DLC packs.

 

It's a bit different because Borderlands 2 has online play and Skyrim doesn't, but it has IMHO much more single-player playtime than Borderlands 2 (I am at a total of around 500 hours and still playing Skyrim, and I haven't even made all the classes I want to make), with much fewer DLC to buy, and because of how easily mods can be created, it has MUCH more content than Borderlands 2.

 

Even the base Borderlands 2 game is not worth the $10 it was during the sale to me, you miss out on two classes and it doesn't have as much playability as other games.

 

Even at a 66% discount, that's $20 for Borderlands 2 + Season Pass......Skyrim Legendary was $15 more and IMO gives much more content, especially when you consider the modding community.....so either $20 for online play, or $35 for a virtually unlimited amount of content......easy choice for me.

 

In the sale you could have got BL2 cheap, along with the season pass cheap and you would have got the DLC at much bigger discount.

Plus the DLC isn't connected to the main storyline apart from references, so it isn't like you have to play it to continue the story.

It still wasn't worth the price IMHO.....as for the DLC stories being disconnected from the main story, that's a downside IMO.....I would rather have the DLC expand on some other aspect of the story or continue the story.

 

 

Maybe I'm stubborn, but I see companies that release craploads of DLC as companies who slacked when creating the game or released it earlier than they should have. I don't doubt that Borderlands 2 is a good game (I played my friends copy for a few hours and it was fun), I just don't feel it compares to Skyrim and other games.....recently I've been going back and playing Oblivion, Fallout New Vegas, and Morrowind even, and I'm finding that I'm having more fun in them than I did when I played Borderlands 2.....and I got them all for less than Borderlands 2 costs (without the Season Pass).

[xWhiplash]

I have no desire to play one of those characters, so I do not plan to purchase that DLC.  

 

How does DLC make a game feel unfinished?  The main story begins and ends with the base game.  Now if the single player eventually said..."Purchase DLC #1 to find out what happens next!" I would agree with you.  But I finished the main story twice before any DLC was released.  What makes you feel like they slacked?  It took me 20 hours to beat single player the first time, even with Coop.  That is more hours than most single player games these days.

 

They built the game with extra content in mind.  Just like MMOs for example.  

 

DLC = Cheaper expansion packs.

[techbeck]

Borderlands 2 was fun through the first couple DLCs...now, just bored of it and everyone I used to play with is as well.

[_neutrino Veteran]

i was hoping they would do more like they did with the Tiny Tina DLC because it was by far the best DLC i have ever played for any game ever. Love this game.

[chrisj1968]

It doesn't look my idea of a good game. it looks like the game is a cartoon

[_neutrino Veteran]

It doesn't look my idea of a good game. it looks like the game is a cartoon

 

That is the point, it is a comedy FPS game.

[McKay]

It doesn't look my idea of a good game. it looks like the game is a cartoon

 

It's their graphical style, do you dislike it for other reasons because at the moment it sounds like you're saying its a bad game based solely upon its graphical style.

[Nagisan]

I have no desire to play one of those characters, so I do not plan to purchase that DLC.  

 

How does DLC make a game feel unfinished?  The main story begins and ends with the base game.  Now if the single player eventually said..."Purchase DLC #1 to find out what happens next!" I would agree with you.  But I finished the main story twice before any DLC was released.  What makes you feel like they slacked?  It took me 20 hours to beat single player the first time, even with Coop.  That is more hours than most single player games these days.

 

They built the game with extra content in mind.  Just like MMOs for example.  

 

DLC = Cheaper expansion packs.

DLC alone doesn't make a game feel unfinished, the sheer number of the DLC they release does. If you can release 20+ DLC packs, cosmetic or not, in less than a year of releasing your game, than you should have spent a bit more time and added half that stuff (or more) into the base game.

 

I never said the story felt unfinished, just the game overall due to what I mentioned above.....and honestly 20 hours for 1 playthrough? Is that going straight through the storyline or doing side-quests as well? Many games I've played recently have taken longer than that, much more if I avoid the main quest for a time.....I mean hell, I'm 7 hours into The Walking Dead right now and I am towards the beginning of Chapter 3......I will probably be around 15 hours or more by the time I finish (currently less than halfway through the game at 7 hours) and that's a game with few sidequests (usually find something for someone as you go about following the story) and is very linear compared to Borderlands 2, and I got it for nearly half the price of Borderlands 2 (on sale), for nearly the same amount of playtime (based on your 20 hours), and no online element.....in terms of RPG games, it sounds like Borderlands 2 is an extremely short game.

 

If they built the game with extra content in mind, they need to get in touch with Bethesda and release some modding tools and let the community help with that. Extra content is great, but not when they are going to charge for every tiny little bit of content.

 

As for DLC = cheaper expansion packs, I would rather have traditional expansion packs that actually add a huge amount of content. And while it's not a huge sample, a post on 2k's forums clearly shows I am not alone in feeling expansions > DLC. Shimmering Isles (expansion for Oblivion) can easily add 20 hours to each play-through if you explore everything. Much more desirable than paying $10-20 for an extra 4-5 hours of playtime every couple months, when you could pay $30 (price of Shimmering Isles on release) for 20 hours or more of playtime.

 

All I'm saying is I'm tired of seeing games with tons of DLC, while no you don't have to buy it, large amounts of DLC shortly after release (to me that covers the first year of a games release) tells me that they released the game early and could have added more to it if they wanted to, which is what makes a game in this state feel unfinished to me.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Gearbox really screwed gamers over with BL2's DLC.

 

Then again I got the Season Pass for 50% on a Steam mis-price before it even launched / free on XBL, so :laugh: Will wait to pick up the rest one day in a GOTY on Steam for 75+% off

[Zidane]

i was hoping they would do more like they did with the Tiny Tina DLC because it was by far the best DLC i have ever played for any game ever. Love this game.

I can't echo your comments more.

 

Compared to the original stories of Borderlands 1 and 2, Tiny Tina's campaign's absolutely decimates them.

[xWhiplash]

I can't echo your comments more.

 

Compared to the original stories of Borderlands 1 and 2, Tiny Tina's campaign's absolutely decimates them.

 

I agree.  I just started it last night and it is really awesome.  Best DLC ever.

[francescob]

You shall not season pass!

[xWhiplash]

I really do not remember the season pass mentioning you get ALL future DLC.

 

Official description of the Season Pass:

 

"All Season Pass content will be available by June 2013".