After announcing a Borderlands board game, Randy Pitchford invited a handful of Gearbox Software employees to talk about the upcoming remaster of the original Borderlands Game of the Year Edition, as well as a free Ultra HD pack for Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, which includes Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and dozens of DLCs. The employees seemed very excited about the remaster and the Ultra HD pack. You can see the trailers below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiJjmdEvl9o
The remaster includes some new features such as new weapons, new character heads, new gold chests, and keys. The visual enhancements include improved character models, environments, weapons, and textures. Paired with a 4K display, it should look much improved.
The Ultra HD trailer of the The Handsome Collection is also advertised with similar visual improvements, and it will include all bonus add-on content (including season pass).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKL_sP23Clk
Likely not as a coincidence, The Handsome Collection is currently available with a 94% discount on Steam, which is definitely a bargain for those who pushed off on buying the DLCs. Borderlands 2 is definitely much more content-rich in DLCs than the original Borderlands, but most of the content is cosmetic. Still a bargain and worth picking up if you're a diehard fan.
The release date for both the remaster of Borderlands and the free UHD pack is April 3, 2019. Just as the Handsome Collection, Borderlands Game of the Year Edition will release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam. There is currently no planned Nintendo Switch release, it seems.
Update: According to PC Gamer, owners of the original Borderlands on Steam will get the remaster for free. The base game alone is enough to get you the remaster, which the PC Gamer writer double-checked with 2K Games. So now even if you just own the base game you'll also be able to try the expansions for free, which is a pretty great deal.
Quick Take
I can't say I see much of a difference between the Borderlands GOTY Edition remaster and what you get if you play the original on PC with the settings on ultra and some tweaks. There are differences, of course, but the cell shading art direction doesn't really seem to be very conducive to 4K resolution, which is definitely more geared toward photorealistic graphics. However, as explained in the PC Gamer article above, there are other differences between the original and the remaster, such as an enhanced final boss for extra challenge. So I'll definitely try the remaster at some point.What do you think of the Borderlands remaster? Did you miss the original wasteland-ish atmosphere of Pandora? Let us know in the comments below!
