Gearbox shares more info about Borderlands 2's 'Gunzerker"'

Gearbox has shared additional information about its upcoming sequel to 2009's roleplaying first-person shooter, Borderlands. We already knew the four playable characters would be replaced or drastically altered, but only one of them was teased: a bearded dwarf named "Salvador" is a "Gunzerker" who can dual-wield any two weapons and serves a similar role to Borderlands' Brick the Berserker.

Two of his abilities were also revealed in August: one increases the fire rate of any gun the longer its trigger is held, while the second boosts accuracy when dual-wielding same class weapons or doubles damage with mixed class weapons. However, a recent report by IGN has painted a more vivid picture of the Gunzerker's role along with his backstory -- something the original characters lacked.

"Everybody in the first game was implied to have just come to Pandora looking for the vault. Salvador is actually a native of Pandora and the idea is that he sort of protected a town wherever he lived out in the sticks. Once Hyperion came to the planet they've been on this quest to eradicate all the 'bandits' from Pandora, but in their mind that's everybody who is not part of the Hyperion corporate family," said Gearbox.

Interestingly, Salvador's ability to dual-wield weapons is said to be temporary. This could add some depth to the combat, forcing you to mix and match the right weapons at the right time. Many guns have special elemental effects that can work together when dispatching enemies. For example, you might combine a shock machine gun and a fire shotgun to drop a bad guy's shield before lighting him on fire.

Like the original, each class in Borderlands 2 will have three skill trees that offer different types of gameplay and Gearbox is adding more abilities to make each route more unique. Many of the skills are supposedly based on movie quotes, such as "Yippe Ki Yay," a Die Hard reference. The Gunzerker's trees will include "Rampage," "Brawn" and "Gun Lust" -- DPS and tank-like trees, it sounds like.

IGN offers more details about each style and like the original, you won't be locked into one path. You'll be able to distribute your points across each tree, accumulating abilities that suit your play style. You won't be severely punished for trying different combinations either, as respeccing will be cheap. "We do everything we can to encourage experimentation so the players can try out the different things"