Borderlands 2 - Official Companion Guide

Borderlands 2 is a 2012 first-person shooter video game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games. Taking place five years following the events of Borderlands (2009), the game is once again set on the planet of Pandora. The story follows a new group of Vault Hunters who must ally with the Crimson Raiders, a resistance group made up of civilian survivors and guerrilla fighters, to defeat the tyrannical Handsome Jack before he can unlock the power of a new Vault. The game features the ability to explore the in-game world and complete both main missions and optional side quests, either in single-player or online cooperative gameplay. Like its predecessor, the game features a procedurally generated loot system which is capable of generating numerous combinations of weapons and other gear.

With the unexpected success of the first game, Gearbox was able to secure a budget of $30–35 million to develop the sequel. Like its predecessor, the game adopted the "concept art style", which features graphics inspired by both photorealistic imagery and comic-book-inspired visuals. The team attempted to address players' feedback from the first game, and recruited Anthony Burch who wrote the game's script which is seven times longer than that of the original game. Among the game's diverse cast of characters, Handsome Jack, the central antagonist, was created to be a charismatic "douche" that mirrors Burch's own personality. Borderlands 2 was released for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in September 2012, and it was ported to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as part of The Handsome Collection in March 2014.