50 Fun Facts About Borderlands 2

Which robot, the last of its product line, finds the stranded Vault Hunters as Borderlands 2 opens?

Claptrap won Character of the Year at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards for this outing. He later stakes that very trophy in the crossover game Poker Night 2.

Which Borderlands 2 bandit flies into a rage and attacks friend and foe once his helmet is shot off?

A raging Goliath levels up as it kills and drops better loot, so players often let one rampage through its own allies first.

Which Borderlands 2 gun maker's weapons are thrown like grenades and explode on every reload?

Tediore was designed as the throwaway brand, with artists borrowing from disposable razors and lighters. A fresh copy of the gun digistructs in your hands after each toss.

Which returning hero of the first game is unmasked as the Firehawk early in Borderlands 2?

Lilith adopted the Firehawk alias to draw Bloodshot bandits away from Sanctuary. Her message lures the Vault Hunters to Frostburn Canyon in search of a missing ally.

Butt Stallion, the pony Handsome Jack brags about buying in Borderlands 2, is made entirely of what?

Diamonds make up the whole pony, which Jack insists is a living animal and not a statue. He nearly named her after the Vault Hunters with an insult instead.

Which legendary Borderlands 2 shield adds heavy bonus damage to every shot while its charge is full?

The Bee stings to match its red text, 'Float like a butterfly...', the first half of Muhammad Ali's famous boast. It drops from Hunter Hellquist in Arid Nexus.

Which playable Borderlands 2 Vault Hunter speaks mostly in haiku and shows emoticons on a blank faceplate?

Zer0 is named for the '0' that flashes on the faceplate after a kill. Managers wanted the faceless design changed, but the art director refused.

Which element, new in Borderlands 2, coats enemies so that all other damage types hurt them more?

Slag doubles the damage a coated enemy takes from other sources, and triples it on the hardest playthrough. In the story it is a by-product of refining the mineral Jack mines.

Bunkers & Badasses, the tabletop game Tiny Tina runs in Borderlands 2, spoofs which real game?

Dungeons & Dragons gets the full parody treatment, with Tina as game master rewriting the world on a whim. The story is really about her refusing to accept a friend's death.

Which resistance leader, rescued early by the Vault Hunters, does Jack later kill in Borderlands 2?

Roland's death was a deliberate choice by the writers to raise the stakes of the story. A later expansion built around a tabletop game centres on one teenager's grief for him.

Which guide of the Vault Hunters turns out to be Handsome Jack's imprisoned daughter in Borderlands 2?

Angel is a Siren whose powers Jack exploits to charge the Vault Key, and she asks the Vault Hunters to end her life to stop him.

Which monster does Jack release from Pandora's second Vault as the final boss of Borderlands 2?

The Warrior obeys whoever releases it, which is why Jack wants the Vault opened at any cost. After the fight, the heroes finish it off with an orbital strike from his own station.

Which space station, visible in the sky from any outdoor area, is Handsome Jack's base in Borderlands 2?

Helios is styled as a giant letter H and fires 'moonshot' bombardments and supply drops at the planet below.

Which mineral that flourished after the first Vault opened is a second currency in Borderlands 2?

Eridium bars buy backpack, bank and ammo upgrades from Crazy Earl's black market, where ordinary cash is refused. Jack also uses the mineral to force-charge the Vault Key.

Which resistance group do the Vault Hunters join in Sanctuary to fight Handsome Jack in Borderlands 2?

The Crimson Raiders were forged from stranded soldiers of the Crimson Lance, the corporate army players fought in the first game.

Which returning sniper loses his pet bird Bloodwing to Handsome Jack's experiments in Borderlands 2?

Mordecai's bird is mutated, fought as a boss and then killed by Jack, a moment written to turn the joking villain into a serious threat.

Which cyborg enforcer ambushes the Vault Hunters at a derailed Hyperion train in Borderlands 2?

Wilhelm is himself the trap: the power core he drops lets Jack lower Sanctuary's shields. He later returned as a playable character in The Pre-Sequel.

Handsome Jack's name in Borderlands 2 began as a placeholder nod to which British sci-fi show?

Doctor Who's Captain Jack Harkness lent the villain a name that was only meant to be temporary, and it stuck all the way to release.

What is the class of Salvador, the Borderlands 2 hero who can wield two weapons at once?

Gunzerker Salvador is the only Borderlands 2 hero known to be born and raised on Pandora. While his Action Skill is running he can pair any two weapons in the game.

Which Action Skill lets Maya the Siren suspend a Borderlands 2 enemy helplessly inside a sphere of energy?

Phaselock shunts its target into another dimension for a few seconds. Enemies that cannot be lifted simply take a burst of damage instead.

Which cyborg hunter is the first friendly human that the Vault Hunters meet in Borderlands 2?

Sir Hammerlock lost his limbs to a thresher he calls Old Slappy. He is stranded on the Southern Shelf studying the local wildlife when the heroes arrive.

Which Sanctuary bar owner in Borderlands 2 hands over rare guns to players who leave big enough tips?

Mad Moxxi rewards generous tippers with the Good Touch and the Bad Touch, and may slip into a thick Southern accent she begs you to keep quiet.

Which mechanic, the sister of Scooter, builds the Vault Hunters a Bandit Technical in Borderlands 2?

Ellie moved out to The Dust because she was fed up with her mother urging her to slim down. She salvages wrecked bandit vehicles to build the four-seater truck.

Which sheriff of Lynchwood, Handsome Jack's girlfriend, is an optional boss in Borderlands 2?

Nisha enforces more than 200 laws of her own in Lynchwood, each punishable by death. She became a playable character in The Pre-Sequel.

What is the name of the robot that Gaige the Mechromancer summons as her Action Skill in Borderlands 2?

Deathtrap was built by Gaige as a school science fair project, first labelled the Mechanized Anti-Bully Deterrent.

Which Psycho became the sixth playable character of Borderlands 2 and fights mainly with a buzz axe?

Krieg hears a sane inner voice, the last trace of the man he was before being experimented on. His Buzz Axe Rampage heals him with every kill.

Which actor, later the voice of Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn, plays Tiny Tina in Borderlands 2?

Ashly Burch landed her first voice acting role as Tina after her brother, a writer on the game, suggested she audition.

Which studio boss voices the black-market dealer Crazy Earl in Borderlands 2?

Randy Pitchford, co-founder of the game's developer, lends the trader his own voice. Earl only takes payment in a rare mineral, never cash.

Captain Scarlett's pirate add-on for Borderlands 2 introduced which new hovering vehicle?

The Sandskiff glides over the dunes around Oasis, where Scarlett hunts Captain Blade's lost treasure while openly promising to betray the player.

Handsome Jack's manner in Borderlands 2 was first based on a talk-show interview with which actor?

Nathan Fillion came across as charming and funny but slightly arrogant on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which was exactly the tone the writer wanted for his villain.

In Borderlands 2's colour-coded loot system, which colour marks Legendary gear, ranked above purple?

Orange drops usually carry a line of red flavour text hinting at a unique effect. The common scale climbs through white, green, blue and purple before reaching it.

Which legendary Borderlands 2 pistol, a Doc Mercy drop, has the red text 'It's closer than you think! (no it isn't)'?

Infinity never consumes ammunition, so it never needs reloading, and it sprays its shots in a sideways figure-eight.

Which legendary Borderlands 2 pistol has red text that starts by asking if it fired six shots or only five?

Unkempt Harold scruffs up the name of Dirty Harry, whose famous bank-robber speech the gun misquotes. Its shots split in flight from three to five to seven.

Which legendary Hyperion shotgun in Borderlands 2 has the red text 'Let's just ping everyone all at once'?

Conference Call lives up to its name: each pellet keeps spawning extra projectiles to either side as it flies. The final boss has a raised chance of dropping one.

Which old-fashioned Borderlands 2 gunmaker builds weapons that fire as fast as the player can pull the trigger?

Jakobs sells Wild West style revolvers and rifles with real wooden stocks, and almost none of its guns carry an elemental effect.

Which Pearlescent rocket launcher in Borderlands 2 carries the red text 'It will split the sky in two'?

Tunguska is named after the huge 1908 explosion over Siberia, and its red text echoes eyewitness accounts of the blast. Its rockets land, hop into the air and then detonate.

Which Seraph rocket launcher in Borderlands 2 bears the red text 'for hate's sake'?

Ahab takes both name and red text from Moby-Dick, whose captain spits 'for hate's sake' at the whale, and it fires an arcing harpoon. It is sold in Oasis for crystals earned from raid bosses.

Which single part of a Borderlands 2 gun decides whether it is a magenta E-tech weapon?

Barrel choice makes a gun E-tech: the alien-tech versions carry hexagonal stabilisers that spread open as they fire. Barrel and body makers also decide a weapon's title.

Which Pearlescent weapon in Borderlands 2 carries the red text 'It's a helluva thing...'?

Unforgiven quotes the 1992 film of the same name, where the full line runs 'It's a helluva thing, killin' a man.' The pistol hits hard but fires slowly.

Which Seraph shotgun in Borderlands 2 fires slow pellets that fan out wide and then curve back together?

Interfacer has red text that explains its own pun: 'Because it enters your face. Get it?' It drops from the raid boss of the Big Game Hunt add-on.

Which studio developed Borderlands 2 for publisher 2K while also finishing Duke Nukem Forever?

Gearbox Software had planned a sequel of similar size to the original, but the first game's surprise success let its budget and scope grow.

Which Borderlands 2 system turns completed challenges into tokens that raise stats across all your characters?

Badass Rank bonuses are small but permanent and apply to every character on a profile, so a veteran's new hero starts out stronger.

Which items, redeemed with SHiFT codes, open the special loot chest in Sanctuary in Borderlands 2?

Golden Keys cannot be traded and never drop as loot. Each one buys a single opening of the chest, which holds rare gear scaled to your level.

In Borderlands 2, what does a downed player earn by killing an enemy before bleeding out?

Second Wind puts you straight back on your feet. Fail, and a New-U station rebuilds you at the last checkpoint for a fee.

Which handheld console received a 2014 port of Borderlands 2 that cut co-op from four players to two?

PlayStation Vita owners got the whole game plus extra content, but reviewers panned its weaker graphics, lag and unsteady frame rate.

Which band recorded Short Change Hero, the 2009 song used as the main theme of Borderlands 2?

The Heavy also supplied the end-credits song, 'How You Like Me Now?'. The first game had opened with a Cage the Elephant track instead.

Which giant thresher, unlocked after the main story, is the signature raid boss of Borderlands 2?

Terramorphous was conceived as a tougher follow-up to Crawmerax, the raid boss of the first game. Its mission is bluntly titled 'You. Will. Die. (Seriously.)'

Which 2013 shooter was reportedly neglected by its studio while the same team built Borderlands 2?

Aliens: Colonial Marines was largely outsourced, insiders claimed, because the studio poured its people into the Pandora sequel. It was released to negative reviews.

Which Hyperion city is Jack building in Borderlands 2 as the template for a rebuilt Pandora?

Opportunity is meant for the galaxy's richest families, and the overworked labourers building it are told they will never be allowed to live there.

Which Assassin's Creed composer scored Borderlands 2 with Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco?

Jesper Kyd, the Danish composer of the Hitman scores, also wrote 'Ezio's Family', the piece that became the unofficial Assassin's Creed theme.