Gearbox Promises More "Non-Season Pass" DLC for Borderlands 2

[Timothy Chang]

Gearbox Promises More "Non-Season Pass" DLC for Borderlands 2

The CEO of Gearbox hints that new characters and vehicles are in the pipeline.


Now that Borderlands 2 is out the gate and everyone is busy raining hot brass all over Pandora, Gearbox Software is focusing its attention on the upcoming DLC packs. This includes the new Mechromancer character class and four additional DLC expansions that will be covered in the Season Pass [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119376-Pre-Order-Borderlands-2-DLC-With-Season-Pass]. It appears, however, that the company is already thinking about supporting the game with even more paid content that lies outside the scope of the pre-paid DLC bundle.

Randy Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox Software, revealed the news in an open Q&A session, where he spoke of expansions beyond that of the Mechromancer add-on. "Things like new weapons and enemies will come in campaign DLCs and other DLCs," he explained. "We will have other, non-season pass related DLC. The additional (Mechromancer) character is one kind of example."

"Since we finished the game, we've started with some new ideas that we expect will show up in DLC. Some new vehicle types are on-deck - awesome stuff."

The Mechromancer DLC is set for release on October 16th, although Pitchford had no announcements regarding the upcoming Season Pass DLC, other than mentioning that the first installment is "extremely far along" and the second is "also in amazing shape". He says that the Campaign-style DLC contained in the Season Pass will be considerably rich in content, similar to previous Borderlands DLC packs such as The Secret Armory of General Knoxx.

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5944891/randy-pitchford-ceo-of-the-company-that-made-borderlands-2-is-answering-your-questions-right-here]

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[andersgeek]

When they first introduced the concept of the "Season Pass", I was under the impression such a Pass would include all the DLC that gets released for a game for a slightly discounted price. Good to see that they can cannibalise everything.

 

[suitepee7]

i was initially under the impression that the season pass was going to grant you more than the 4 accounced, but they had only announced 4 definite ones so far. seeing as thats not the case, thats kinda lame. i know you save money overall, but still. i would have liked to make a one off purchase that means i get all dlc ever released for that game...

 

[Dandark]

Are you ****ing kidding me? The whole point of a season pass is that you pay for all of the DLC right?

Congratulations everyone, we are willing to take even more of your money because doubling the games price wasn't enough for us.

 

[Legion]

I don't know why people are so surprised.

Gears of War 3 had a season pass DLC with 4 expansions and yet you still had to pay for all of the weapon skins separately.

It sucks, and defeats the point of calling it a "Season Pass" as opposed to a "pre-order discount" but it shouldn't come as a shock.

Congratulations everyone, we are willing to take even more of your money because doubling the games price wasn't enough for us.

What on earth are you talking about?

For starters the DLC is optional, so you can't claim they are "taking more of our money" when if you don't want it, you can choose not to buy it.

Additionally this isn't Day One "Already on the disc, you just pay to unlock it" content, it is full length additional missions, that are not a part of the main story, but people can buy them if they want to, just like the last games and the Fallout DLC's. It's for those who want a bit extra.


They are not doubling the price of the game, they are releasing additional, optional content. It's not like the game is a four hour adventure where they cut out crap to sell it to us later.

The game is easily complete within itself.

 

[mad825]

Talking about milking an franchise, this is something I expect MS or EA to do this.

 

[Meight08]

People this is a kotaku article, The guys who said that the mechromancer would be a disc locked pre order bonus,
Let's wait for a source that is not kotaku before we make assumptions.

 

[Denamic]

The season pass is advertised as covering 'all upcoming DLC'.
I'm not sure they're allowed to make DLC that isn't covered by it, given their sales pitch.
False advertisement and such.

 

[Arizona Kyle]

Seems to me that the non Season pass DLC is just little things like small stuff that doesnt matter at all. Everyone is getting in a hissy fit over this for nothing

TF2 Hats - All i have to say i will leave that there no one has any problem with those... Basicly the same thing gearbox is doing

Come at me Bro

 

[newdarkcloud]

That defeats the entire purpose of having a Season Pass?

 

[uguito-93]

Seems to me that the non Season pass DLC is just little things like small stuff that doesnt matter at all. Everyone is getting in a hissy fit over this for nothing

TF2 Hats - All i have to say i will leave that there no one has any problem with those... Basicly the same thing gearbox is doing

Come at me Bro

People just seem to want to get angry over every little thing developers do these days.

"What was that? Gearbox announced that they will also sell optional vehicles and characters months after launch that are in no way required to enjoy the game? Everyone get your pitchforks!"

As for the people complaining that this should be part of the season pass: No, it doesn't have to be. The season pass is so that people can get the self contained story driven DLC for a cheaper price than buying them all individually. That's what was advertised and that's what should come with it.

 

[Jhooud]

I don't know why people are so surprised.

Gears of War 3 had a season pass DLC with 4 expansions and yet you still had to pay for all of the weapon skins separately.

It sucks, and defeats the point of calling it a "Season Pass" as opposed to a "pre-order discount" but it shouldn't come as a shock.

Danggit! I was all ready to come in and be mad, but now you've gone and reminded me about Gears 3. I got everything I was interested in with their season pass, the non-pass stuff was all cosmetic (and I've got more gun skins than I know what to do with anyway).

I guess we're just going to have to get comfortable with that fact that in order to get a solid return on the publisher/developer's investment in creating a game, those publisher/developers (pubveloprs? devlishers?) are going to look to get as much revenue out of their games as possible.

 

[Lenriak]

Yay, another game that rewards people for NOT buying the game and waiting for the GOTY edition.

You know what, I'd be interested in seeing if a developer can do something like: making ALL DLC free for one week to everybody that owns the game (maybe not the "Armory of Knoxx" level content, but at least make that cut-price) then putting on a price tag later (or full price) and NOT offering a GOTY game. Then there's the small shit, the kind of stuff half-decent modders do over a weekend, should always be for free. That way, the people that actually support the developers from day one are the ones that get the best deal.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

I don't know why people are so surprised.

Gears of War 3 had a season pass DLC with 4 expansions and yet you still had to pay for all of the weapon skins separately.

It sucks, and defeats the point of calling it a "Season Pass" as opposed to a "pre-order discount" but it shouldn't come as a shock.

Congratulations everyone, we are willing to take even more of your money because doubling the games price wasn't enough for us.

What on earth are you talking about?

For starters the DLC is optional, so you can't claim they are "taking more of our money" when if you don't want it, you can choose not to buy it.

Additionally this isn't Day One "Already on the disc, you just pay to unlock it" content, it is full length additional missions, that are not a part of the main story, but people can buy them if they want to, just like the last games and the Fallout DLC's. It's for those who want a bit extra.


They are not doubling the price of the game, they are releasing additional, optional content. It's not like the game is a four hour adventure where they cut out crap to sell it to us later.

The game is easily complete within itself.

People so often forget these simple facts. Thank you

As much as everyone bitches about DLC, it doesn't seem to have stopped them from developing a speedball-injected-directly-into-the-eye level addiction to it.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

That news makes me feel a slightly better about jumping the gun and preordering Borderlands 2 before they announced the season pass deal. Thanks for the offer Randy, but I think I'll stick with the vanilla game, and should I feel like playing the game again at some point in the distant future I'll pick up the complete DLC collection at a steep discount.

No point buying a whole pie at once when in all honesty a slice will do nicely for now.

 

[GenGenners]

Wow, pointlessly angry gamers are angry, what a shock.

Screw your heads back on. The season pass DLC's are like Shivering Isles in Oblivion, while this non-season pass DLC is the equivalent of that fucking Horse Armour.

Will you all calm down (which won't ever happen).

 

[Smooth Operator]

Ah I see, the season pass was for 4 DLC packs of devs choosing and everything outside that is free game, sorry people who threw money at it blind but they defined the terms clearly at the start.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Hmm I'm under the impression a season pass cover should cover a season or in video games terms cover all future content released. If that is not the case they perhaps should have not called it a season pass and rather called it a limited time discount on the fist set of dlc to avoid some confusion on the matter. However Gearbox did say that the season pass would cover the 4 dlc announced so far, so I wouldn't say they have intentionally mislead anyone. Although there will be rage because as I said the term season pass at a glance implies all future content for an upfront investment.

 

[Negatempest]

You know what sounds silly? That with each purchase of a companies DLC, the next one gets a cheaper sale. You know, the more you buy the more you save? Such a silly idea.