Gearbox Software’s Borderlands franchise is arguably the standard for loot-based FPS games and many of its mechanics have carried over into over series like Call of Duty and Destiny. It’s not as though the developer is unaware of it – at PAX South, franchise creator Matt Armstrong spoke about those inspirations (as reported by IGN).

“One of the big difficulties we had, which I think people kinda don’t remember as well, [is that] when we started testing [the original Borderlands], it became really clear that nobody knew how to play this game.

“Right now, if you give someone who’s never played Borderlands a copy of Borderlands 2 they’d pick it up pretty quickly,” he added. “Because there’s a lot of games that have added role-playing elements to them; Call of Duty has role-playing elements in their multiplayer. Destiny’s out there, and that’s really cool, and they have a lot of inspiration that they may have taken from us [crowd laughs].”

Of course, CEO Randy Pitchford clarified Armstrong’s comments. Gearbox actually worked on Halo: Combat Evolved for PC and said that, “[Armstrong] didn’t mean it like the way you just took it. You have to understand that Matt himself learned a lot about procedurally generated worlds from a data-driven system that we learned actually from Bungie when we worked on the Halo franchise.

“Our [Borderlands] characters’ jump height and movement is framed around Halo – that was our starting point. We want this to feel like Halo, because Halo’s awesome. We love Halo. There’s nothing bad I can say about Halo or Destiny.”

Thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments.

inXile Entertainment had been teasing a new game for a while now and it appears to be something separate from Shadowrun: Hong Kong. Over the weekend at PAX South, CEO Brian Fargo revealed the studio’s next project: The Bard’s Tale 4.

This is the same RPG that Chris Keenan said had “been passionately demanded of us for a while now.” Fargo took to Twitter to confirm the game’s announcement and said that he is “personally excited to be working on this.”

The Bard’s Tale 4 will continue the story from the third game and will apparently have the good ol’ style of turn based combat according to GameSpot. As with inXile’s other games, The Bard’s Tale 4 will have a Kickstarter campaign with more information to come in the next few months.

What are your thoughts on this new project, especially since Fargo has been involved with the previous games? Let us know in the comments below.

The New Nintendo 3DS XL actually makes a very compelling case for itself- better build quality, more premium finish, better ergonomics, better screen, a 3D effect that does not break and does not require the infamous ‘sweet spot,’ new control additions, including a second analog stick, and two more shoulder buttons, minor quality of life improvements such as a screen that automatically adjusts its brightness based on ambient light levels… that said, it is still possible that existing 3DS owners need more convincing.

Well, if that’s the case, then you’re in luck- Nintendo will be bringing the New 3DS XL to PAX South in San Antonio, Texas, and it will be fully playable there, so you can check it out and go hands on with it for yourself.

PAX South will run from January 23-25, and the New 3DS XL will be playable all three of those days on the showfloor at Nintendo’s booth. if you live in Texas, it might not be a bad idea to make a road trip to San Antonio this weekend.

I live in Texas. Guess what I am doing this Friday.