IGN: As for the RPG elements, how deep is the character upgrade system? What sorts of things can you improve?

Randy Pitchford: We've linked the characters in the game to the classes because the characters are really cool, but you'll name your own character and pick your favorite colors for them and all that. As you play, your character will get tougher and more skilled. You'll level up and get stronger in the usual ways and in some ways that are unique to Borderlands. Each character also has a skill tree where you can develop your character in unique ways to make them more powerful with the play style you prefer. It astonishingly robust for a first person shooter, but we've made sure to make it super accessible and not too complicated. It won't slow anyone down – just add value to the growth experience.

IGN: What are some of the co-op skills you can learn and how are they used?

Randy Pitchford: There are a lot of complimentary cooperative skills. The classes themselves complement each other well and within each character, there are ways to get unique and distinctive for particular play styles. I don't want to spoil anything here because a lot of this stuff is really fun to discover.

IGN: Last I remember hearing there was a claim that Borderlands features more than 650,000 unique weapons. Are you sticking to that statement? And if so, how is that even remotely possible?

Randy Pitchford: Actually, 650,000 guns is the safe number. We've now got some other new types of weapon classes and a lot of different weapon manufacturers and we have created a bunch of super rare and unique epic weapons and other gear, so the actual number of different weapons in the game is quite a bit higher than that. There are more weapons in Borderlands than in every shooter on both the 360 and PS3 added together. It's an absurd number of guns to the point where talking about it isn't really relevant any more. What's relevant is to realize that you'll be able to find lots of varied and better weapons and gear as you play to become more and more powerful.

Theoretically there is a "best" weapon in every class and type, but some of that will be up to taste as some traits are mutually exclusive with others. Some players will get there and find some of those "best" weapons, though. It feels pretty good to go back through and just completely own some bosses that were tough when you were weaker.

How is it possible that we've created so many guns? We've created technology, as sort of AI for all of the different weapon's manufacturers that we've created, that uses all kinds of different raw materials and components and parts and other content to procedurally generate the weapons for us within the styles of each manufacturer and the nature and general specifications of each class of weapon. It's amazing stuff. I'm still being surprised by it!