Hrm - that test could have meant that the game is like Crackdown in that players can level up their characters. Or maybe, it's like Crackdown in that the game now uses cel-shading. Cel-shade animation makes rendering appear hand drawn (see reference photo). Apparently, in an upcoming issue of PC Gamer, Borderlands developer talks about how the game. A supposedly leaked page of the article shows the new comic book look with the caption: "Looks like a panel from a comic book. It's, in fact, a screenshot."

In a post on the Gearbox forums, community manager Ennui writes, "We do care about all our fans, no doubt, and the decision to alter the art style was assuredly not one taken or made lightly... Though there's always the chance some people could be turned off by the style, it was decided that, overall, it fits the game and creates a more visually interesting experience."

Gearbox adds that this new look retains detail and style that's usually lost during the move from concept art to 3D. ""The entire world has life to it, from the creatures to the very rocks and dirty walls," Ennui continues. "The game world is no less gritty, dirty, or harsh - all of the detail is there, and the environments have even more atmosphere. We solicited feedback from our focus testing initiative, which consists entirely of a very large pool of gamers from all walks of life, and in the end, the choice was clear for us."

Heh! No, Borderlands is not cel-shaded - it's a gritty and serious world after all. But since the game was first unveiled we have made big advancements with the art direction and the technology to support the art and have produced some pretty impressive, even shocking results.

We weren't expecting a story about this to break this week, but I'll tell you that the http://www.borderlandsthegame.com website will soon be getting new content that will expose how far we've gone with the art. If the story you guys broke today makes too much noise for us to deal with we may decide to speed up when we update the site with media. Also, PC Gamer came to visit us recently to check out and play the game with us. The result of that is that the next issue of PC Gamer has Borderlands on the cover and inside there is a big story with a lot of images and a story written by Dan Stapleton. Finally, there's always E3 in a few months where attendees can see the game live. I know some folks have figured out that we've done something big to Borderlands even if no one is quite sure what we've done yet and I know I'm still being a bit cryptic on that, but frankly we aren't quite ready for this story to get out.

Cheers! - Randy Pitchford