Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Borderlands 4 State of Play Live Reaction - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

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What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, April 30th, 2025. I'm one of your host Greg Miller alongside Forbes 30 under 30, AKA New York Game Awards nominated, AKA Hadeo Kajima's best friend. Blessing at E. O. Ye Jr. Good day, Greg. Hey, how are you? Did that work for you? I like that.

Yeah. I love what we do. We're running the intros again. This is the part that will go up as the podcast, people, so they won't have caught it over there. Isn't that right? Best hair in the business. Fran Mirabelle and third! It's right.

We are back. Thank you for having me back, Greg. Volk dash your super chats on YouTube. com slash kind of funny games, just like you can to be part of the show and says, OMG just noticed Fran. Haven't seen you on Kind of Funny in a while.

Missing around here, man. Hope all is well. Thank you for that super Fran and chat. I appreciate that. Where can people keep up with you? You're still Twitch streaming. Yeah, Twitch streaming. FM3 over on Twitch.

Yes, there's an underscore after it, but you'll find it. FM3. What have you been playing lately? It's been a lot of the marathon alpha because obviously we want to be able to talk about that. But I am on our like hour 110 of Final Fantasy 7 rebirth.

Trying to wrap that up. But my goodness, does not end. Okay. The master of hype, Snowbike, Mike. He's gaming over there. Thanks for having me today, Greg. Had a lot of fun. I want to tell you how much I appreciate that you take the analog notes.

Greg, I'm doing my best to put the PC and phone down when we're on the podcast so I can engage with you guys a little bit better. I find there I am. I'm checking emails. I'm looking at the stock market. I'm like, do you know that you have a piece of? I don't say, do you know that you have a email? I know if he knows he has a slack walk in.

So for me, I'm just, I'm trying to put the screen down. I'm trying to be engaged. You didn't say a word. He was locked in. You got to watch it. I didn't have any funny quips like you. Because I'm not as funny. That's right.

He's not as funny as the Hispanic hotthrope, Texas treat Latino. He'd clicking heads and ripping him to shreds the globe trotting headshot and three point shooting, root and tutin nitro rifle from don't mess with Texas. Twitch. He's on his email. He's on steaming right now. I'm downloading arc raiders. I've been there. Let's not do that.

That's part of the job. That's multitasking. Yeah. I was getting a code for bless. You gotta do it. You gotta do it. I'm gonna play arc video. I'm not looking up pants like Nick was on the kind of funny podcast.

It was upset. No, that was in review. In review. That was even more he should be dialed in on what he's doing. On the kind of funny podcast, I can see you making that into a bit. In review, not so much. I put in the code. It says product already owned.

Me too. Okay. Yeah, that's weird, right? It told me that too. If you didn't know, everybody, this is the kind of funny gamescast. Each and every weekday, we talk to you about the biggest topics in gaming, whether they be reviews, previews, or PlayStation's state of plays that are third-party partnerships about 2K games. We cover it all here, usually way earlier in the day because we are kind of funny and we're all about live talk shows. Usually your day starts at 10 a.m. with the kind of funny games daily episode.

Then it's the kind of funny games cast at 11-ish. Then it's a stream around noonish or an in-review or the one the only kind of funny game showdown, which does have its finale this Friday. and I hear some rights are getting wronged. I hear one person is unbeatable. I'm not going to name names. I'm not going to name names on who's doing really well. But I will say, Super Chat from Eddie says, Team Purple, good luck in the game showdown super finale.

Thank you. Can I once you come back and, you know, I have a great time for my last appearance on Game Showdown. Oh, yeah. I don't know if you're aware of this yet. Have you heard this? No. So, again, this is always complicated now.

So not as the leader of Team Blue, the back-to-back two-time champions. more as the CEO and your boss. I've brok her to deal with Andy that he's going to give me his star and retire from Game Showdown and Mike's going to take his place next season. So you've got to make all that work out of right. That's all continued on me

getting to start and saw that game. I'm not agree to anything anymore. Do I get Carl Jacobs in here? I don't know. I don't know what's going on with that. I was tricked last time. I don't think that's how it happened at all. Of course, if you love these shenanigans, consider picking up that kind of funny membership. Get all of our shows ad free. Get the ability to watch me. Greg Miller in a series I call Greg

way each and every day and get cool stuff like maybe the kind of funny happy hour which we are doing right after this i digress pick up your membership youtube.com slash kind of funny games patryon.com slash kind of funny apple spotify remember you can youtube super chat to be part of the show right now housekeeping we've been going all day long because we're an 11 person talk show network uh kind of funny games daily covered EA cancelling another titan fall game the stream was escaping from tarcov uh my kind of funny member exclusive gregway is going up momentarily and it's all about gamer guilt Thank you to our Patreon producers, Anatoly asked Delaney Twining, Carl Jacobs and Omega Buster. Today we're brought to you by Imperial and Aura Frames. We'll tell you about that later for now.

Let's start with topic of the show. If you are an audio listener, maybe you haven't been aware of what's been going on. But yesterday, out of the blue, Borderlands 4 was like, yo, we're pushing our release date up a week for no reason from September 23rd to September 12th. Don't worry about it. Don't look into it. It doesn't matter. And then, of course, they said we're doing a PlayStation state of play, 20 minute deep dive on gameplay.

We just live reacted to that. You can watch the archive on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. But for now, let's talk about what we saw and what it did for our hype levels. Andy Cortez, I'll start with you and work my way back. It was, I saw what I expected to see. I was a bit disappointed by, you know, some of the flat nature of the overall visuals. I was hoping we'd get some sort of. advancement in that area

I think there's ways that you could still completely honor the traditional art style and what made Borderlands very unique back in the day while still kind of pushing forward but it feels like it almost kind of regressed in some way so a little bit bummed out about that but movement looks cool these

vault hunters seem way more interesting and way more fun to use this time around I like the abilities that I was seeing I like the grapple hook you know only just certain spots but still Is that a bummer for you? Did you want that to be gravel anywhere?

Of course, but I don't know how feasible that could be. You know, I could totally see why they would want to limit that in certain ways. And, yeah, getting a lot of destiny vibes kind of popping on your little, your little sparrow. You know, a sparrow. Otherwise, it's such a known quantity at this point that Borderlands will always be a fun time for me. I love the sound design. I loved the different weapon variations. I love seeing the upgrades when it comes to weapons parts.

I'm pumped for this It's always a good time for me Because I get in And I get out And I have my phone with Borderlands It's never something that I main and do Crazy end game content for It's like I had my phone with this campaign

I had fun hanging out with friends And shooting stuff and experiencing cool boss moments Now let's move on But thank you for your time Do you roll credits on it or you just bounce I always roll credits Oh yeah yeah Okay

Master of Hype Snowback Mike Yeah Greg This one didn't knock my socks off and get me as hyped as I thought it would be. I'm pretty right down the middle, maybe a little bit lower than I thought. You know why, Fran? Because the tone felt a little off in this. It didn't feel like Borderlands.

There was no wacky intros. There was no real wacky characters. It did feel more like a Destiny or a Far Cry with the tone of it all. And I thought, man, that just doesn't feel like Borderlands. And I know this is coming from a guy in the pre-show that said maybe I don't want more peepy-pooh jokes. But at the same time, when I watched this whole

trailer, none of it screamed borderlands, right, with all capitals where we are over the top, we are wacky and fun, right? We saw a little bit of that with the guns, right? When it was like, hey, here's your, you know, optional gun you can throw out. And it runs around as a little minion. And so, you know, I appreciate borderlands for the co-op nature of it, right? The quality of life when it comes to playing with friends, everybody being able to choose their own difficulty, fast traveling to players, right?

Everybody gets their own loot, full crossplay. Those are big wins for me. I love seeing that the movement has been touched up and kind of brought up to 2025 with some fun touches there. I appreciate being able to rerun bosses and missions. I think that's great. I think the skill tree looks very similar to what we've had in the past. Of course, it's blown up a little bit here on the bottom. But I appreciate the core skills of, hey, here's your big three.

You choose from the big three. And then you kind of dance around in there. Guns looked great. As always, there's going to be a gazillion guns to find and have fun with. But something about this, the tone wasn't right, Greg. It didn't bring the hype like I wanted it. Well, I think it was interesting you, for you to call that out and talk about they're not being the bombastic intro yet.

Obviously, they talked about doing a big gameplay hands-on thing eventually. But when Pittsburgh was introducing it, he did talk about a return to their more grounded tone from what we've seen in Borderlands, maybe originally out the gate. It'll be interesting to see if that's a turn off for everyone or not, but we'll get to it. Fran, what did you think of this presentation? Yeah, as usual, I would have a ton to say, so feel free to reel me in. But I think probably best to respond to, like, what Mike just said. I did notice from production level.

Yeah, like, it seems like they were very excited. Be like, look, we want to show you the new world. We want to show you these new abilities. It's a lot to take in. We've got a new U.S., and, like, they're so focused on that. It really didn't show the tone of borderlands. That being said, I'm not doubting that it's there. You know, like, you have, like, Blessing was bringing up before on the reaction.

Like, there's a lot of talented writers on the team. They've got a lot of the OGs. So I think the tone will be in there, but no, it didn't come through. And you even heard them occasionally try to crack a little joke. And it felt, outside of production. It was a production thing. It was like a production thing.

It almost felt like they were working with a third. Not good at game shows. A third party or like you know how this goes in production. It could have just been something with putting it together, getting it done. Anyway, so they showed a lot of new stuff. And yeah, for me, I could go a lot on the visuals. I will say I've always been hoping for a bigger upgrade.

But this was the first time I did get to see the game playing. I'm like, well, it does look like really crisp, nicely tuned shaded. the PS5 Pro footage, for whatever reason, I'm hoping to see on a Vod that it runs much better. Why didn't we see really crisp 60 FBS gameplay? But actually, it looks nice and it looks like Borderlands. I don't think it's a bad thing. But I do wish that it looked more next-gen.

That being said, it'll probably translate easily to Switch 2. So there's a plus. Great point. Samsonnell did say in his super chat, of course, be part of the show with your thoughts and opinions on what you've seen so far and, of course, our opinions, noticing a distinct lack of poop and cringe jokes. Blessing, what about you?

Did you see that? Did you miss the humor? Did you want the humor? I think I missed the energy is what it was, right? I agree with what Mike's talking about, where I think halfway through I found myself starting to doze off a little bit and not in the sense that this is a bad presentation or anything along those lines. I think for me, partway through it was the realization of Borderlands as a franchise is what

I'd equate to a mom-in-pa-owned restaurant that's been around for 50 years where they've not changed the menu. They know what they are. and they are catering to a very specific community of people. And it's almost like I'm watching a presentation where they're like, yeah, we furnish the bathroom and we replace the dusty couch. And if you're somebody who attends this restaurant every single week or whatever, right, you are like, oh, let's fucking go.

I hated that couch. Oh, sweet. They need it to replace the urinal in the bathroom, right? But like, if you're coming here for an exciting, oh, and we've updated the menu and it's all different and we serve pizza now and we do that. Like, this isn't that. Right? And I think that's fine for what it is.

analogy. You're making a good analogy. Yeah, and that's fine for what it is. If you're somebody who's a super borderlands fan and you're watching this, I think you catch on to the details of what's happening. But if you're somebody who's looking at this, wondering, oh, is this the borderlands that's going to shake everything up and get me into borderlands? No, it's more borderlands. And as I'm watching this,

I'm not necessarily excited, but I'm not necessarily put off by it. I like the idea of there being a little bit more of like the emergent things that happen out in the world, right? Hey, if you're trying to make a world a world that feels a bit more open and interesting, I like the idea of, oh, I felt, this thing and it's a part to a vault key and when I find the multiple other parts I can combine them to do a mini vault

that sounds fucking awesome. That gives me a reason to kind of roam around and hang out in the world a little bit more. I think some of the stuff they showed off regarding the new gun types, the new gun companies or whatever and being able to combine different parts with your gun to give them some of those properties of the

other gun brands. I think that's fucking cool. But if you're not a borderlands person, I don't know how you watch that and go, oh, that's exciting. it's almost like a this was a thing that was meant for the hardcore because they're not rebuildings from the ground up.

This is Borderlands 4. Like you know what it is. They're sticking to it. I think my big thing is like yeah, it felt like it was lacking a bit of the energy, but I'm fine with it. I'm hoping that we still have that there in the final product.

Yeah, I think what's interesting about it is when Fran and I hosted the Borderlands show for Borderlands 3, that was always meant to be this deep dive for the borderlands community. And I feel that there's a lot of that here, where this is 20 minutes of gameplay, which is great, which needs to be applauded, right?

Where I was talking about not showing enough gameplay. Yeah. And then going into the skill trees. You talked about it in the preamble, right? So I was getting live, right? Are they going to go into that today? They went deep on this in a way of, hey, this is for the hard, hard core of borderlands people,

which then leaves me to think that the next time we get it is going to be that splashy, wide, here's their names, is they come out of the ship and they're doing the thing, and that's the borderlands. drive that home. This was meant for the gamers of like, we're taught, they were making such a big deal about, hey, we're actually giving you less

legendaries. You're going to get legendaries fewer because we want this to be the most rewarding loot cycle of all time. Yeah, what do you point? I was pointing. I was pointing because you corrected a fewer. I was like, look at this. Look at this journalist over here. I'm, you made a really good note. The trailer at the beginning, it was nice. It was a good lead into this sort of serious reveal.

But they could have made that more bombastic and fun or whatever, right? And I'm surprised they didn't. Well, I mean, again, I think the We'll see it. The number one thing I think they got dinged for was that humor and was that dubstep and was that, like, you know, that either you either liked and enjoyed and got a laugh out of it here or there or hated. And so I think coming in and saying ground into doing that is setting it differently. Yeah.

If I may, I do it. Which is a thousand percent agree. They showed gameplay. They actually tried to explain the game to you. And the too often things get trapped in marketing. And like, so I think it's fair to ding them on like your marketing tone wasn't what I expected. But dude, so happy that you were focused on gameplay and we should applaud that. And I think for me, the thing that was lacking for me, I should say, what I thought was most exciting watching this was those hints of, oh, is this just an open world?

Like, you're going here and then random fights are going to pop up, but then, oh, look, there's this thing, the silo where you go in and there's a vault key fragment that could, if you get enough of them, you unify to get a vault can get your own vault. And it's like, that is very interesting to me in terms of what moment to moment gameplay is going to be. Excites the hell out of me. They've always talked, I mean, Borderlands is all. always been ahead of the curve, I feel, in terms of co-op and drop and drop and drop and drop and drop and drop it. It sounds goofy now, but, you know, Borderlands 3 was awesome because it was, you could drop in at level 10 and I could drop in at level 30 and maybe see level 10 people and I'd be seeing level 30, but we'd be playing together. So even streamline

that more like they're talking about the boss, you know, replay and the mission replay and all the stuff. I like that, but I love the idea of jumping online and be like, all right, I'm doing whatever. What's Andy? What's Andy? Drop into Andy's game, hopefully help him get a key go off this way. And I'm interested in that. I would have liked to have seen more of that. One of the things I saw on the chat was even this mission looked boring. And I think there's always a difference, obviously, between being on sticks and watching something.

But I agree that watching that mission running up, chasing after Amara, right? I wasn't like... They did the E3 demo, you know? Yeah, they did the slow ban and everything. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people, I saw several comments about the movement. I don't disagree that I think the movement is

maybe about 10 to 15% a little too slow. But a lot of it was a control. player trying to show off the visuals and not be crazy herky jerky and like crazy like fast aim and crazy movement because you want to see what you know what is actually happening on the screen so that's one thing you kind of have to fight yourself to not be like all all over the place movement wise but to go back to the open world stuff please i really like it's my favorite shit in big video games are the missable things the stuff that you could maybe not experience and and and that That's really, really tough for game developers because you are possibly creating something that people won't see.

And that's a lot of work and time and budget that goes into shit. But that's what makes those experiences so special. Is that like, wow, I was, I guess when I think of Borderlands, it is so linear. It is, you know, it's mission to mission. Even though we might have a larger open space, you are still going and going step by step with your friends and me like, oh, I'm actually on this mission. Yeah, hop in. Oh, I did that one last night. I like the idea of Romeroon and experiencing special things that require kind of hunting down and puzzle solving.

I think that's really, really neat. And to go back to the writing comment, because I know the podcast listeners wouldn't necessarily have heard that conversation that we had about the writers. And we fucking crush it. But this, yeah, this was talking about how the new writers, one of the lead writers, Winklers explained that they aren't Liberty at Liberty talk much about the content of Borderlands for. but the team is keen to avoid the pitfalls of the previous games writing. This is from videogamer.com and they reverence a lot of the tweets

that we were talking about, Bless, where they said, I'm not going to say that there's no toilets, but if the word Skibbidi ships in this game under my watch, I'm going to cry real tears. And over the past few months, viral tweets have made the rounds claiming there will be a gun dubbed

the Hawk 2A. I think that's a Paul Tassie tweet. I'm not sure. Just as a joke, like, here's this gun called the Hawk and then dash the number 2A. and then the fellow dev asked me if it was real

and I wanted to put my hand down the sink in the sink grinder so like they are aware they don't want to be that dumb and cringy but I still think based on what I experienced with in you know

about the seven to eight hours I played up Tiny Tina's Wonderland I it was like a night and day experience for my enjoyment writing wise I thought it was clever and really cute and funny in a lot of moments

and I hope that we eventually get that back I don't disagree with Mike though when it comes to the presentation about kind of feeling like it lost the tone and I think all they really needed to do was when they showed off one of these bosses boom that big splash screen with the big name of the character and then the little quip at the bottom of like

you know fucking shit's on the ground or whatever you know like whatever they needs to be I think if they would have added that it would have felt more borderlandsy I'm so fascinated by how that feels in the final product in terms of how the jokes hit how the tone is different and stuff because I fear a little bit that it could be a be careful

what you wish for kind of thing where the critics and like a lot of the hardcore gamers are like oh we hate the writing oh we hate the jokes or whatever but then you think about how again I always come back to this how mainstream borderlands is and how many people that they're speaking to with that stuff and like I do think there's a level of the me me jokes that really work

when you're talking about a big audience and like in the way that we talk about like oh man that's co-worker music or whatever like the joke that's going around lately of like oh you hear people talk about I don't know Macaw or some shit Maybe not Maccamo, but like, you know those artists where you're like, he's based, man, we love Magamore.

Yeah, like, I like, I like Maca Moore, right? But, like, I feel like Borderlands, kind of a co-worker game. It's like, all right, cool, we all play Borderlands. Oh, you think the Skibbitty joke in the game was funny. Okay, cool. But it kind of works for, I think, the vast, the mainstream appeal of Borderlands. What I would say on that real fast, is that Borderlands tone is, we know what it is. It doesn't need to be, like, Mimi and into the social sphere.

Like, meaning the writing is just what it is, and it can be funny. with the characters and like, that's all that it needs. And so in other words, I don't care if they make some social reference in a gun, like, I think Paul was joking about the Hawk 2A or whatever being something. It may not have even been Paul Tassie, but I feel like it was. Sorry, Paul, you're on deck now. Fuck you, Paul. But the point is, I care a lot less about it being in a gun description that I do in the

story, in the quips like you're saying. And like, again, I don't think it needs any of this to be funny. I mean, Greg, do you think, like, don't you just think the characters and everything just come through when the writing is good regardless of referencing stuff? I think we're taking a lot of, I mean, educated guesses or whatever from what we're looking at. I think this is still going to be a funny game. I think it's just going to be less Hocktua of what we're making these references to. I don't think you do borderlands and make it serious by any stress imagination.

Even Randy saying grounded, I don't think, means you're stripping all that away. We need a big pizza bed right here. Will there be an audible fart noise? Yes. Yes. Yes. There will be a character of. Sorry.

probably a fart gun We'll clap trap I was gonna say we'll clap trap Do you do the duggy But the doggie is like 10 years What's like a modern Meamy dance You know what I mean

The Gritty? Oh the Gritty Yeah The Gritty everybody loves Yeah yeah Wait when did the Gritty come out Because I feel like Clap Trap Might have done that in the last

I mean it was big in Fortnite Like two, three years ago We were doing the Gritty all over These fucking losers in Fortnite People are saying flossing Even I know flossing Even I know flossing Yeah that's too old

Yeah Yeah no it's all old I like the fart But yeah to be taking that? Will somebody fall down from a far distance and then go, I'm okay? Yeah. I get like, I... I hate that shit. We gotta let that go, man.

It's been doing it for like 50 years. It's a classic. It is a classic. I'm so not worried about the tone, but I agree they just didn't show it. It's right to question it. I just don't think we should get caught up. I think got a lot more to show and like, Borderlands has never not been quite comical and, you know what I mean, tongue and cheek. I think what's I'm a... So there's two things I want to jump into, and they both

come from the new planet Cairo's here, right? As they said, in the presentation, if you didn't watch it, of course. An alpha, the planet, or a moon called Alpha, used to be around Pandora, the events of the end of Borderlands 3, sent it away. It crashed into this planet, wreaking havoc. For years, the timekeeper has kept this planet hidden. He's put bolts in the necks of everybody and make sure that they are able to do exactly his bidding. Now that you have crashed in, basically. All hell is breaking loose.

I love that idea. I love seeing what we saw there. the fact that things have gone into chaos, people taking out their bolts, but ripping out part of their brain, doing all these different things. Like, I love that idea. But Ty Wilkins's VO superchast and says, I'll be honest. Excited to be off Pandora. But I saw nothing here that couldn't have been been on or looked like it wasn't Pandora. Biomes, et cetera. 100%. I was going to say the same thing. Where if he didn't tell me that this is Cairo, I would have assumed this is still Pandora. Yeah. 100%. I mean, I understand that like Pandora is a lot of different things in deserts and this. but I mean that looks ripped right from every borderlands.

Definitely borderlands three of fighting out there. And I don't know a thousand percent how you make that look, but definitely not having the psycho mask. Like having psychos and like, oh, those things growing out of them like, I'm watching them like, I guess narratively they're on that moon of Alpha so them getting smashed in would make sense they'd be there.

But it's also like, that doesn't scream that I'm on a new foreign planet, which is a bummer, which is what I'd want out of Alpha personally. Do you think we will ever get... Jack Carus. A level of like, I'm trying to think of the word here,

but, you know, I think Handsome Jack kind of became such a popular villain because of how, I would call him iconic at this point. I think he's something that you could point out and say, like,

that's an iconic villain. That's a top 10 video game villain, do you think we'll ever reach that level again with somebody that like really makes a name for themselves and you go, oh shit, that was awesome. In Borderlands or anything? In Borderlands Ugly Johnson

I'll say The opposite of a handsome Jack I don't know Because like the twins in Borderlands 3 did nothing for me You know They just I enjoyed them fine

Yeah The timekeepers got a cool name A cool setup You know I don't know If it would go over the top there But Borderlands 2 And handsome Jackie figure Again was

Borderlands 1 Was So interesting and pivotal And pivotal And exciting because of the, you can have a million guns, the classic Dave claimant sketch, right? Or a bejillion guns, whatever.

But it was the gameplay and the guns in this and the replayability and running it. I don't remember Borderlands One Being and then there was this boss. There was like the worm creature you flock to grind. But it's like you weren't that, Borderlands 2 was the one that came out and was like, here's all that awesome gameplay

and compelling villain that's awesome. And here's this humor we're doing. And it really was all these different things that came together that we were like, holy shit, what a game. And then they've been chasing that ghost ever since. And so I don't know, I don't think, yeah, the twins at all lived up to Handsome Jack's legacy. But again, once that jig is up, can anybody?

Because then you, especially when you start iterating and trying to do, like, Borderlands 1 to Borderlands 2, you expect that direct sequel to be like, okay, cool, we're taking what we learn and Pandora and everything else. To stay on Pandora for as long as we have and do so much and have it all be so Pandora influenced, I would have loved to gotten here. The planet thing is very much the art thing for you, Andy, right? where they showed that original trailer. We were like, are they changed me art style of Borderlands 4?

And then we got it like, oh, no, you're not. And then watching this again, you're like, oh, man, it obviously is, I'm sure, running great, even though we can't tell because of the stream, but it's PS5 pro footage. I'm sure it's gonna look crisp and awesome,

yet, yeah, but it looks like borderlands. It doesn't look like a new thing. And that's where I'm at with the planet. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's really tough, though. I think maybe we're still talking about what they're improving on, like, what are they doing with it? It's the question of, like,

do we expect this to be like a, you know, breath of the wild moment for Borland's. And like, what's the comparison, right? When I look at something like Doom, which I'm not an expert in,

but I'm like, well, doom is kind of just iterated and like it looks like more doom. And people love that. But they changed the gameplay systems a lot and the speed of it. I think that helps. But again,

like, what is it that you were looking for if not that in Borerland? So it's the same as I would have loved like a bigger reinvention. I think the visuals is the biggest thing. If they just looked different and had the same like gameplay stuff

they're talking about, maybe some of the tone. I don't think we'd have this reaction. So I just don't think that because it looks like more of the same, it's kind of hard to get around that because you're like, oh, I was expecting it to look different. I just want metal materials to look like metal materials. I want specularity maps to really work.

And hopefully, you know, when the game comes out, the modders get on that and maybe like, you know, bump up the spec, because it still just looks really, really flat. Even when we, about maybe 30 seconds back in the video where they show the, they show the main kind of character select screen and the robots there. It's like, you know, let's get that jacket shimmering a little bit. Let's have the metal parts on certain parts, like getting some reflections or not necessarily just reflections, but I want to be, you know, that helps the visuals pop a lot more. I think the, yeah, the art style has kind of hit a ceiling on how good it can look.

Yeah. I think when I look at this, right, like it looks better than Borderlands 3, but not that much better than Borderlands 3, right? If you told me that this is Borderlands 3 running on a PS5 pro, I'd be like, okay, sure. We remaster Borderlands 2 or 3 with like a new. lighting engine. Like I would kind of believe it, you know. Yeah, we're going to have to see it eyes on, play it as well, you know.

But one thing I mentioned that they didn't mention on graphics. There is supposed to be like dynamic weather and events. I didn't think I saw it in there. Yeah, I didn't mention that right right here when they were talking about this open world. Hopefully that'll be a little something. Yeah. And I think to round this out of the Super Chat before we kicked ads and come back, a lot of Quest Super Chat and said, mostly it looks like just quote unquote more borderlands,

but that's not necessarily a bad thing. And that's the thing of watching this, like, you know, I'm taken back to when we did watch the Borderlands two, three presentation. And they were like, we added mantling in the room like applauded because it was like awesome. The glide they do here, I do look at and go like, oh, that's fucking cool.

Like I'm back, I am that level of Borderlands player. Like I played a lot of Borderlands. So just tweaking it and changing the way I'm going to patrol the environment does sound cool. The digital, uh, whatever, scooter. I'm like, all right, cool. That's interesting. Like these are all minor upgrades,

but I don't know if there'll be enough to keep me engaged for nearly as long as I was with Borderlands 3. But we'll talk about that one second. Of course, we have to pay some bills. If you want to help us pay those bills, pick up a kind of funny membership. Of course, you'd support a small independent team making video game content each and every day, all day, every day. And of course, you get all of our shows ad-free.

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Terms and conditions apply. we're back everybody still talking about border lands for snow bike mike yeah bring the hype what did you what did you just fucking say to me andy borderlands borderlands borderlands good borderlands god damn it so like mike bring me the hype like we're talking a lot of questions a lot of this what did you see that you go oh yeah i can't wait new vault hunters right let's talk about new vault hunters let's get the excitement going on because of course it's always exciting with a new iteration of borderlands to get four new vault hunters that all have unique abilities maybe sometimes you've seen similar tendencies in the past with them.

But, you know, we got to see two out of the, I would assume four probably, but maybe more. And they made a point to say at war. Yeah. So, you know, we got to see two. I think we saw a little bit more of one than the other. But it is cool, right? We talk about that. I'll just call her the witch character.

I don't know the exact name right now at the top of my head. But it is cool to see you summon that familiar. I think everybody loves being that necromancer like Andy brought up of, hey, what cool things can I summon? And I love that it can be a cute, or two tiger looking cat or it can be a crazy grim reaper floating in the air swiping at people with the sight. Like a club of you, I think.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of always seeing our vault hunters and what cool abilities they can do and how they mesh together, right? So that's pretty great. Let's get excited about that. Yeah, for sure. Vex the Siren, this is from the PlayStation blog, who uses supernatural phase energy to empower herself and can conjure

deadly minions and Rafa, the exo soldier, a former TDOR a trooper who wears an experimental exosuit capable of digestructing an arsenal of weapons hell yeah and then Vex has a spectral feline named Trouble who can absolutely

mall any enemy that tries to attack Why not talk about the other two? Marketing. Marketing beats Yeah, marketing marketing. You figure they already talked about having some kind of gameplay hands on or whatever I forget they had a very event is what they call that I don't know what that would be

or when that would be but I imagine on yeah also you probably peppered in somewhere else hey PlayStation we'll do this and then Xbox SGF I don't know yeah get it let's get trailer placement there to talk about this yeah yeah what I would do yeah I like what I saw even if you can throw that back up there

that still you had of all four of them jumping for me with Borderlands 3 I had a real hard time finding somebody I connected with like when I think of pre-sequel I always forget her name I apologize but the woman who used the shield like Captain America God I loved playing a series that was so fantastic and for me Flack never gave me that

in the last one. But I look at this and I even look, and I look at Vex, who's like, we called it out, being more necromancy, right? At least in one of her builds, the other using the familiar here.

I look at this dude with the two hammers though. Me too. Thor Cratos. He looks cool as shit, right? The other one looks like from Overwatch and then Exosuit guy, whatever. I got nothing. I don't know.

Raf ain't doing it for me there. But in the middle of two there, I'm like, okay, I can see me vibe with somebody there. And again, Borderlands for me, especially was such a Jen and Me game. Like that was one where he sat there the PlayStation side by side on TV's playing it so I hope we find that again here

even though it'll be so hard because of this Ben kid. Yeah. They're sucking up all the free time. We got that two-player co-op on the split screen. Exactly. Maybe they're still keeping that two-player change screen. Yeah, we don't get that often blesses, right?

This is always been such a multiplayer play with your friend's game, right? Yeah, but people still do that? Yeah. On the split screen? Yeah, on the borderlands? Wow. That'd be a requirement for Switch 2 development,

so. Oh, that's good point. I couldn't. I wonder how this is good. We made a joke about, like, you know, art style, this, that the other. I wonder how it runs on Switch 2, and if it is just the great experience there. You know, one of the things they called out there, right, was the idea that there's nearly no loading in this game. They made a point to say, right? That it really is

going from place to place doing the thing. They didn't really show it what they meant, though, right? They're like, a next to no loading. I'm like, wow, what does that even mean? But, well, I guess we'll see. It means it doesn't load much. I think what they mean is spawning around the planet, right? But, meaning, when you're going between everything else, I'm sure there's some loading in Yeah, but I mean there was like in Borderlands 3, you know, the usual of like, I'm going to the next area and I got it's hit with a loading screen. But we know it's especially on like Solid State Drive on PlayStation and all that. They're super fast not, which is amazing. So of course.

And someone who's played the Switch 2, I expected to run fairly decently, right? Like I look at this game and art style wise, right, presentation wise, it's not a God of War Ragner Rock kind of thing. It looks like a better looking borderlands. And I come back to when I went to the Switch 2 event, I played cyberpunk 2077, which is another really really. good looking game. And my boil down of it is that it is perfectly recommendable of a way to play. It looks fantastic. It doesn't have the best frame rate in the world, but like I could see

somebody perfectly playing cyberpunk that way. I imagine that, yeah, you might give up frame rate a bit. You might give up some of the bells and whistles, but based on how this looks, yeah, I can see this running pretty well on the switch too. Looks like it scales really well. Yeah. I don't want to derail the discussion much, but cross progression is actually always a big thing of mine. I assume. Not a chance. not happening. Cross play,

they did confirm, of course, make a big deal out of there. Doesn't everybody hate that at this point? Isn't that interesting? Yeah. You have the 2K accounts.

Let's figure out how to link all this. Get it right now. You're going to get your shift codes ready. Yeah. I'm someone, yeah, it's odd, Fran. When we talk about cross progression,

there's so many people playing on different consoles and maybe you're jumping around. Maybe you are one of the lucky few that can afford to play it on different systems and ecosystems. It's odd that we just haven't been able to link that. Some companies have done it,

and it is awesome to have. And it's 20, 25 and beyond when we talk about these cross-play and cross-progression, but weird that we don't have that. Yeah, so that's a big bummer on this one. I would love to be on the road, play on my Switch 2. That's the benefit of that, but also I just play this on PC when I get going. But anyway, I didn't hear any of that in there, but it is cross-play.

Yeah, when they said cross-play, I think I automatically assumed cross-rogression as well. Nothing is. That's kind of messed up. We've got to fight. I've been fighting. Yeah, cross-play happening is insane. But like cross-progression, it feels like that one should be, I know I'm ever developers rolling over in their grave, but like, it should be easier than getting

crossed. It should. Yeah. It's a disservice. It's 20, 25. I'm so glad. And I'm with you. And I'm with you, Mike, of like, if I have to have a 2K code or account to get my

shift bucks, you know, I already have one. Why is this not all connected and why is it not happening there? How do I use my NBA 2K BC? Yeah, my virtual. Especially for a game like this, I think it would play really nicely to have it on. You're going to start bringing it up more. We got to talk about it on every show. It is like, honestly, it's a crime in game development.

Shawchew says people hate accounts. Then stop making me make accounts. You know what I already made the fucking accounts. Yeah, I don't. I think I have an account for most games I play now. And it's most player for sure. I mean, you have to transfer your data somehow. So I don't know what they're proposing otherwise.

But anyway, that one stood out as like, well, worth noting, I think we need to push developers and publishers, whatever. And it's actually like even Sony distributors and all this stuff in between. But outside that, whenever it's the right time, I would like to respond to what saw on the gameplay. But you liked? Yeah. Go for it.

Yeah, like just, I know we've touched on it, but me personally, I am excited, regardless of it being iterative, I was like, okay, they're adding, they're just redoing a lot of systems. And when I came to Borderlands 3, I did really notice, like, man, they're still tied to a lot of these on real hooks. It just was a lot of similarities, you know, and there were like little touches and improvement, but this does seem like more of a revamp in a lot of ways, right? New U.X for all of the stuff.

and then you've also got like all these new movement systems glide point grapple and more of an open world so they need to sell us more on this and Greg you know all of you know this when you get in front of something

and touch it for the first time not only the fidelity but the way it feels there's no replacement for like well I watched it and tried to figure out how it was so I'm just hoping that time comes soon so we can stop speculating on

like is the movement any good you know yeah but I do think the bones of it are there but the demo was very E3 demo and it made it look kind of slow. I wasn't even totally sold on the shooting, you know, like, I was like, yeah, it seems the same, but it almost felt slow. Right? What? It did sound great. Oh, yeah. Oh, I enjoyed, yeah, I enjoyed the sound design. Very crunchy, but I also feel like maybe some of the sound was clipping at some points. I did hear like some popping. I don't know

if that was our speakers or just the Vodd experience. A super chat. Oh. From Matt Engman. Hey, I'm a gearbox developer and there is cross progression through, shift code confirmed already. Now, Matt, I don't know if it's one of those. I'm going to Google around here. Let's just assume for now that it's true, but it is like, one, you should have highlighted it, not you, Matt, but. One, fuck you, Matt.

If it's in it, that's huge right, because not a lot of developers are doing it. And so I didn't catch it in there. Maybe it was in the announcements, but it's just important. No, no, no. He's saying it's from, it's confirmed already, as it. if that's something that's just out there somewhere. Okay. You're going to look it up.

We'll look into it. Everybody's Googling it right now. It is because it's more rare, right? This is not like a bad guess. They didn't mention it. Usually you want to say it's cross-play, cross-progression. Yeah. Cross-platform, whatever.

Yeah, there's somebody earlier in chat that said, that called out that Marvel Rivals doesn't even have cross-progression. And I think that's one of the big reasons I didn't play as much Marvel Rivals as I would have in any other universe. Yeah, it's not an excuse. Look, I know that development is hard.

but the point is it should be more of a staple in publishing and development that like everybody should be that should be one of the first things on the list when you have a multi-platform game I even look at a game like belatra I know it's in any game but we should be developing tools that make it easier to do cross-progression then like I don't know the details but I played balatra and it's like I'd love to pick it up on my phone I'm not going to do that I'm not going to start over I just don't have time for that and it's such an awesome feature for those who are really in these games and quite frankly I think supporting them you know these are your biggest and most passionate audience.

So if it's in there, that's freaking awesome. I can't find it yet, but I can't confer through LinkedIn that Matt does work at Gearbox. There is a Matt. I have set you a message. I have set you a connection on LinkedIn,

all right? You connect back and you fucking message me the URL. Otherwise, I don't believe shit yet. I don't believe shit yet, Matt. I'm glad I brought it up. Good job, yeah. What if they're leaking info?

What if we're not supposed to know this yet? Oh, no. You know, Matt. For the next day to play, full name out there, so. Sorry, Matt. He put in the parentheses, Disco Spider-13. So, like, I don't know, you know,

they'll give me both names if you don't want me to read the full name. You know, yeah. That'd be awesome if that would be, because that would be, as somebody who wants to platinum it, if I get, like, that's my thing, because you're going to fuck it up.

Well, no, I'm not, but you know how I am. Yeah. A Tim Geddes would fuck it up because he fucked it up. Yes. Because he doesn't care about trophies until he cares about trophies, and you realize he fucked up.

I would be so very clear of, like, what am I getting, I'm going on the road. I'm going to put it to switch and grind out this thing. am I going to do? What do I need to pop? Like, I'd be okay with that. I can make it work. I can fix it. I can make sure it would happen. You know what I mean? Somebody saved this clip.

But I'm more, I am more concerned after watching that, if I will connect with Borderlands 4 enough to want a platinum man. Why did it board a thing? Because I look at that and I'm, we haven't touched it, we haven't done above all the things. And I looked at it and when it started and he did the jump glide, I was like, that's fucking cool. I love Borderlands. And I do.

But I looked at that and I planted Borderlands 3 and I did all the DLC when we were doing the show and stuff. So it's very much like I just, I'm very full on Borderlands. I'm not burned out like I am on Diablo because I did it to myself, you know, grinding shit to get the platinum. But I'm not like hankering for a game that I feel looks very similar to what I've played before with Borderlands.

I think once you get in there, the hooks will hit you. Yeah. Like I, the fact that I will walk around the obvious while we're all kind of playing other newer titles and Greg is just like, he's, I see it in his eyes, he's feeding him for Monster Hunter.

And I think once you kind of get into that experience, once you feel that environment, one more time, he'd be like, oh man, I did miss this. I am going to play with Jen tonight. We are going to have our date night.

Like I'll never do it. I expect a lot of date nights with Greg and Jen. Yeah. By the way, I went very quickly linking through Borderlands 2 had cross-save functionality. I'm on Gearbox's support on their Gearbacksoftware.com. Borderline 2 had like an upload your seat.

So in other words, they have supported it in the past. And they said through shift? Through the shift code? Yeah. Well, yeah, you have to have an account to redeem the shift code, right? So you already have your Xbox and PlayStation all that linked there. Yes. So theoretically, you'd be able to do that.

Shift, I mean, it is interesting. Shift, all that stuff is where you punch in. By the way, make sure you get a shift account ready because Randy's going to be giving out tons of codes for skins. And like, you don't want to miss them. And the shift system is fairly easy. But yeah, that's where it would potentially handle it. Okay. It's a lot like whatever the...

It's like another account. Yeah, whatever. It's like Ubisoft Connect and or, what's the CyberPunk 277 one they use? Cyberverse... Like the Gog or whatever? I think it is Gog. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's what handles, I think, the cost... I didn't know, like, because I guess I didn't know if they said, like, the word code in there because I thought I heard it, so I was scared it was going to be a thing of you would have to, like, copy and paste a thing in order to send it up there. According to, again, Matt Eggman, who has...

He linked me! He linked me! Yeah, man! Yeah! We're going to be elected. Oh, Matt, you're the best. I hope you're going to get fired. There is cross-progression through Shift-confirmed already.

And then he links me to this PC outlet. Control. We're all in. Tell them to get it out there and whatever page it needs to be. Cross-region will also be implemented, allowing players to transfer their save data and character progression between different platforms. This feature enables seamless gameplay experiences across various devices.

What page is that on? This is on PC outlet.com. Oh. But you heard from Matt on LinkedIn. But that's basically... All the skill makes a great point. I mean, Matt works there. You know what's going on.

I mean, I believe that. All the skill in YouTube chat makes a great point. Cross progression maybe was admitted because it's a PlayStation state to play. Oh, sure. But I mean, dude, don't even get me started on all. Like, you have a lot of important things to communicate. A game to show at 60 frames, for example. We understand it's a PlayStation state of play.

Also, they talked about crossplay. Yeah. Like, why would they not talk about cross regression? It's so uncommon. It really is. I know there's games that support it, but what's funny is I think when I bled into that cause way, I don't want to derail us like so many

things. Come on. And sure enough, you're listening to watching kind of funny, everybody. Look, if they're doing it and they're certainly big enough, Borderlands is a multi, multi, multi, million dollar,

million sold franchise. So it should be in there. And it sounds awesome that it is. So let's just assume so for now, right? Is that? No, I mean, according to PCL and somebody who works out, he knows. You saw him on LinkedIn.

I don't think, I don't think fucking Matt is working at gearbox but getting his news about the game he's working out of PC outlets. What's his position? No, he messaged him on LinkedIn, which is amazing. He is unreal SDK engineer at gearbox publishing.

Okay, I trust that. But you know, like, that sounds from real nerd shit. Yeah, I know. I said he worked in the lunchroom or something. And it may be elsewhere, but like, Trump. I love that.

He's dying. I love that. Oh, right, gearbox. That is hilarious. But yeah, like, when you're reporting such an important fact, get a little nervous, at least, you know, as a journalist, right? You're always, like, scared.

You're going to get everybody repeating that it's in there, and then you're wrong, you know? I mean, we broke the news here. Sorry, nobody reads PC outlet. We got it covered, you know what I mean? Oh, that's hilarious. God bless Matt. I do want to talk a bit about silos. We're talking about things we liked.

Oh, no, no, control F. No, no, control. Ooh. Ooh. One of the things I liked and thought was interesting is they called out Echo 4, a drone following you, hacking, and guiding you to objectives. Then, of course, I was talking about the open world stuff. As I found that in the PlayStation blog right up,

they're kind of linked. So let me read a few paragraphs together. To help you get around Cairo's sprawling, seamlessly connected spaces, you can now summon a personalized digital runner vehicle at will and jet boost your way towards the horizon. We've built a world that exudes craftsmanship and encourages you to explore your own pace with the option for guidance provided by your Echo 4 robot buddy.

As you take on new enemies, encounter world events, and discover hidden treasures. Like, again, that is what really gets me going. Of like, all right, cool, there's the main quest and go do it. But also, what's that over there? And oh, there's this little activity. And yeah, ta-da-da-da-da. Did we ask, can we be a part on the map, we think?

I think so. I would hope so, yeah. They didn't show it. We did that. You could do that in Borderlands 3. We could be on different. But they were only so. Yeah.

Yeah, I guess you already could, though. That's a good point. From order patrols to world bosses, there's always something to shoot and loot as you explore Kairos. You'll also come across short, gameplay experiences and new activities that auto grant attract mission whenever you discover them, like silos, which house old decommissioned order tech that you can hijack for the Crimson Resistance with the help of Echo 4.

Once you've reclaimed a silo, it will reveal the approximate location of a vault key fragment. Collect enough fragments and you'll unlock a hidden vault, a high-level dungeon with challenging combat and serious loot. Reclaim silos can also be used as fast travel points, or you can zip line up there hijacked, I'm sorry, hacked communications balloon to start gliding through the air towards your next objective. They showed that, but I didn't get all that, and we were all horsing around and talking or whatever.

That all sounds awesome. Again, the idea of even if it was Jen and I are playing, as I found out with Monster Hunter, I just cannot progress the story without her or she'll never come back. I can just run around and do that stuff, right? I'm going to go get all the fast travel points. I'm going to go do all this stuff. I like that a lot.

Yeah, I mean, you nailed it before where you're like, that's absolutely one of the best parts about Borderlands is when you just kind of drop in and you each have different objectives, but you can kind of just like wander around and start getting stuff done and then in the past, I don't think they've noted it yet, but maybe Matt can tell us is the, you know, the

way scaling works. You start interviewing Matt? I'm telling nothing. So what are the other classes like, Matt? What do you call those other two of all hundreds? But just how scaling worked you know, with like you were still getting the loot you needed and they could be super low level and just like

drop into your late game world. Same idea here from what they said in that presentation and another paragraph, wreaking havoc across Cairoos is awesome alone and even better with friends, which is why we've made it easier than ever to jump into co-op multiplayer, whether through two-player split screen or via our improved lobby system, with drop-in, drop-out action for up to four players online with full crossplay at launch. Borderlands 4 is designed for co-op from the ground up with instance loot for each player, dynamic level scaling, individual difficulty settings,

and the option to fast travel directly to other players to keep the party together and having fun through the whole campaign. It's saying the right things. Yeah. I want to believe. I want to touch it. I want to go. Yeah, they barely showed that bot.

Do we know what that drone's called yet? Echo 4. Echo 4. Sorry, I keep missing that. It's fine. I feel like they only showed briefly that little waypoint thing, but those little things can add up in a big way for me. I don't feel like I had major issues like that in Borderlands 3 recently,

but there was definitely moments where you're like, do I go up above this thing on the map or below? and some of that like verticality was confusing. And like if the bot, I don't know if it's meant to help with all of that, but just waypointing and little things like that add up fast for the quality of life. So we'll see. 100%. Now, Fran, of course, we always make fun of you for being up at 4 in the morning with a spreadsheet

trying to figure this out. All untrue. When you see, of course, okay. It's 340. Here's how the new skill tree works. Okay, great. You're going to get a bonus if you're using the same manufacturer across the way. And then you get into this fact of like, all right, now you're going to be unlocking guns

with different permutations and different manufacturers from their barrel to their clip to et cetera. Does that get you excited or do you freak out if that's going to be too obtuse? Well, I always freak out

in that it's so much loot and the loot management. So I've been wanting someone to be, I always call it the Apple iOS of like gear management and stuff like all of these third party like in Destiny I got it like a browser open on the side.

It's just it takes away from the game. We'll see how they handle it. Borderlands 3 was the same thing. I just like sitting there sometimes write shreds. in gear, being worried that you're ready to get rid of all that. So putting that aside though, Borderlands is all about

they literally say billions of iterations and combinations and all this and like it already was that in Morelands 3. They admitted they overdid it with legendaries. I like that correction. Like they need to feel special. I thought it was funny. I'm sorry. No, no. Put a pin your thought. I got it. Early on we were watching it live,

Jay plays casual says, is it just mere there a lot less loot drops? Which of course they go on to say yes, there are. We're trying to make this matter more. Yeah, and I'm down for that. I want to manage, like, less loot that you're not going to use anyway. Just garbage, garbage, garbage. Think of all the potential reading that you have to do. Oh, the reading.

Who likes to read? And honestly, I get pumped up about it, to be honest with you. And, like, it reminds me of just mixing the handles and blades and Liza P. Blessing. Like, I, you're talking about this. Like, that's sort of cool mixing and matching mechanic. Plus, I think with Borderlands, I might really, really love the way that this gun handles or shoots or fires, but I don't love the perks.

And I might have to choose. that other gun because it has cool perks, but I don't love that you have to charge it. Like, I love that I can possibly have a sick ass, like, magnum hand cannon that hits like a truck and it, you know, you feel the impact of it, but it maybe does, you know, leach damage or it, you know, sends electricity kind of, you know, from one enemy to another. I love that stuff. It kind of gives me that roguelite stuff that I really enjoy. Let me give you two paragraphs. So if you're an audio listener who didn't see it, you know a little bit more what we're talking about.

With the new licensed part system, you can find guns that incorporate the behaviors and abilities from multiple manufacturers into a single weapon, fueling our wildest loot variety yet. In addition, Borderlands 4 reworks are approached the iconic legendary guns that have unique effects you won't find

on any other piece of gear. In Borderlands 3, legendary has dropped too often, devaluing them and making other loot feel less special overall. In our new system, not only do all guns feel great, but now legendary drops

will be truly special events. We've added the magic back to our loot chase, and we know you'll love grinding all the great gear on Cairo's. Farming coveted gear is much more intuitive now that you can replay the entire missions or use Moxie's a big encore machine to fight bosses whenever you'd like. Speaking of bosses, blah, blah, blah, it goes on, I'm sorry, but that's what I want to drop in for talking. Back to you, Frank.

No, and Andy pretty much finished that point for me. I was leading to, I don't like all the gear management, but I'm exactly like Annie. I'm like combining this stuff is really awesome, and Borderlands is definitely about that. So in other words, they can make it a little more scarce, but then have all these cool combinations. So that's like, again, it's a new system where before I'm just grinding like perk rolls on a gun in a manufacturer. And now you're like basically you're modding out your guns, which I think is awesome. Hold on.

You go. Nicole? A little something in your pocket. Yeah, Jen was calling. I wasn't sure if she was calling because Ben just wants to talk to me or if she wants to talk about Borderlands. I thought it could have been Matt. Maybe she knows Matt. Yeah.

And Matt called her. I shared my number with Matt already. Because of LinkedIn. LinkedIn connection has a phone number. But yeah, I'm excited for all of it. Doing a live call. This could go well. Or could go terribly.

Yeah, I didn't get ready. He's right. He's shitting everywhere. It's everywhere. He fell off the hide chair. Your call has been doing. That's unfortunate. Rip.

Wow. So, yeah, anyway, I'm excited about all the iteration. And that's where, like, I don't know if anybody was like that. Even I didn't get super hardcore into, like, end game. Yeah, where you're going back, targeted vaults, targeted gear. And you are trying to. to get these insane builds and combinations. And that's what this community ultimately thrives on.

It gets excited for, you know, I think it's probably the difference between the 20 million sold, but the millions of players would have that are like nuts about. They're still playing Borderland's 3 and still doing this and still running. Yeah, of course, of course, of course. If you're one of those hardcore people, you've made it this far from the blog, there are also new gear slots to specialize your builds even further. Ordinance, a shared slot for grenades and heavy weapons like rocket launchers, recharges, on a cool down to keep you locked and loaded,

especially during tough encounters. Enhancements, which replace the artifact system seen in Borderlands 3, augment your weapons based on their manufacturer, rewarding you with extra firepower when you optimize a gear loadout. And then rep kits add utility by letting you kill yourself or activate temporary buffs to help turn the tide in an intense battle. Now it's all happening here. Benny.

Yeah. How you feeling, Ben? You came home sick from school. No, you can't go to swim class if you're coming home sick from school. you bamboozled us is what it sounds like it sounds like you weren't sick when you came home early today learning I feel so much better daddy I'll discuss this later I see you I can see you looking up to watch us on TV you're just calling to interrupt the thing ask mommy if she's going to play borderlands four with me

let's get some in and out oh she says yes okay okay great that's good news okay great all right I love you guys I'll see you soon little post swimming in that mic yeah a little swim class in and out sounds like a great time dad I would love that I'm back But yeah, I was going to say that all that stuff adds up. I don't know if you guys caught that too. I mean, I know you did. The augment system.

But those were like, what, you can build your skill tree and then slide in augments. But then they also have the ordn and stuff on top of it. And like, it's a lot on top of moding. So you have your action skills, three class defining abilities. Then you have augments that get plugged in and change those skills. And so this is where they were showing. Yeah. We're switching our class defining ability to the animal who's trouble.

and then when you activate this then you're changing how trouble works and they show of course changing the elemental effect of your gun changing the elemental damage that troubles doing which is pretty dope and that's what I was trying to put out I think right it's on the fly you don't even have to reset your skill which you can do it didn't look like that it's basically like

what gems in Diablo or like I'm sure other games where you're just plugging in we only know Diablo you and me though you know I'm talking about yeah I do saw in a toxic gem or whatever and boom so I think all of that combined we got to see in action but it's yeah it's exciting for all of the build potential for sure.

Yeah. But again, that's where I gloss over. I'm dedicated. I just build out the skill tree, Andy. I know my things and I go off and I fight. I'm not worried about my bill. It would be a really nice accessibility thing too. At the start of the game, be like, this is my end goal. Just do it automatically.

Set it to where I level up, bam, the next one is slotted in. When I level up, bam, slot the next one in. I think that would kind of be neat and maybe a way to not. scare people off into, you know, but like, oh man, I'm going to have to be in these menus for quite some time. Even though I love that shit. Yeah.

Okay. I don't like it. Any final thoughts in here? I'm excited for it. Yeah. You mean, keyboard and mouse? Yeah, September 12th. I mean, this is definitely going to be a play for me, of course,

with the borderlands just love that I've always had. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm hoping for some good laughs. Brandy? Yeah, of course I'm looking forward to it. It's just, you get, I like all games. I have to go hands on with them, see them in person to really judge them, but I am excited.

By the way, what platforms everybody playing on? PC. PC. Come on. Tough. Okay. PC, I think.

It hurts to say. I mean, now that it's cross, like that really is a game changer where I mean, I think, again, I'll work PlayStation probably for trophies, but I will eventually be playing it on a PC as well, right?

Yeah. How does, I'm sorry, everybody, as you know, I have taste, no play a lot of PC stuff, except for handhelds, which make them great.

Is there a 2K launcher? Is this one of those bullshit? I'm going to have to jump through or no? Is this just a steam game? Is this just a whatever? It's just a steam. Yeah, then I'll be doing Steam and probably PlayStation so that I can get my trophies,

but I can also play in bed on the deck natively and all that just. If I can get a code, I want, you know, the PS5 Pro, PC, and, you know, Switch 2 eventually. No joke, switch to, I always keep thinking about this more and more now if stuff runs on it, so. Remember when I made Borderlands 2 come to Vita and it was not good? That was right to be.

I would have made all that habit is just putting a good run. Really sad with it. Almost put gearbox out of business. Oh, no, no. That's why I almost put Dave Lang out of business. What's the Iron Galaxy? That's what I'm like. And then, bless, how are you feeling there right now?

Yeah, I feel very good. I'm excited to play it. And like, I'll play for as long as it'll have me. I'm borderlands is one of those franchises that I'll never beat a borderlands, but I'll usually get a good 15, 20, 30 hours. I would love, love, if we were able, if we got codes and we were actually all in. And again, cross platform, I think it was going to help with that. But like, you know what I mean, Mike?

I mean. Don't just run for me as you always do. We got on an counted hours. We live in a weird one where we review these games. forward they're out to the public, so then it becomes, do we have time? And it's like, Greg's playing at his desk, blessing, plays at 7 o'clock at night at home. All of a sudden,

Mike's just lost. He's playing Final Fantasy 10. We've got to come together, guys. We've got a better gel on this. I like that. I like that a lot. All right, we'll look into it. Ladies, gentlemen, and NBs, what do you think of Borderlands for? Let let us know in the comments below. And of course, remember that we're kind of funny here for you

each and every weekday with a variety of live shows, starting attending it with Kind of Funny Games Daily. Rolling into the Gamescast, usually rolling into a stream, but we also review movies, do a game show, a trivia thing that I'm pretty great at and Tim sucks at,

Andy's okay. I'm real bad at, yeah. As long as one of us beats him on Friday. As long as one of us beats him. You can have my stuff. Again, this is the deal we brokered. See you and see you too, Mike.

And again, this isn't me as a participant. I'm not saying yes anymore to think. This isn't me as your boss. Nobody gets off. Let him know. We'll be back with more content later. If you are watching live right now,

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