How The 'Borderlands' Pre-Order Guns Work

Pre-ordering "Borderlands" at GameStop nets you 8 unique guns for use in the game. That's not really news, it's been on their site for weeks now. But I have been getting some questions from readers as to how, exactly, the guns will be integrated into the game experience and what their limitations are, so I reached out to Gearbox to find out.

If you pre-order the game, GameStop will give you a download code which basically unlocks the guns for use when you start up the game. The eight guns are spread out among the game's different weapon types, ranging from pistols to sniper rifles to shotguns and rocket launchers. The above screenshot is one such gun, the Vicious Thunder Sniper Rifle. When you start a new character, all of these guns will be accessible from your inventory right from the get-go, so there's no need to level up to use them.

According to Gearbox, each new character you create will have these guns, and there's no limit to who you give them to. So, theoretically, you could create a bunch of starter characters and dole out the weapons to friends that didn't pre-order the game. Or, and I'm just spit-balling here, you could sell them all at the start of the game for a wad of cash (presuming Gearbox didn't have the foresight to set the pre-order guns' value to zero).

Worth noting that the guns are really designed for the early part of the game, so they're not likely to give players much of an edge (apart from leveling a bit faster at the beginning). Personally I think this sort of bonus takes some of the joy from the early-game experience, as finding random and awesome guns is the most compelling part of "Borderlands," but I'm aware that there are people out there that would much rather have the best possible equipment from the start, rather than hope for good loot drops while playing through normally. Those are the same people that run "WoW" raids 30 times over to get magic pants, by the way. I'm just sayin'...

A way better pre-order bonus, in my opinion, was the one offered by Mikey Neumann, the Creative Director of Gearbox. The offer is long gone, but for those that acted on it, he was offering to play "Borderlands" online with anyone that sent him a photo of them pre-ordering the game, giving them excellent loot scoured from the depths of Pandora. His list is hundreds of people strong, on multiple platforms, so he's certainly got his work cut out for him.

Tags 2k games, borderlands, gearbox