Fact: Games have long development cycles. During those long cycles, developers like to make lots of little announcements that are hard to keep track of. That’s why we have launched a new weekly feature called “What We Know So Far”. With this feature we aim to bring you a nice, compact summary of what we know so far about an upcoming game.

Back in October 2009, Gearbox Software ended up with a surprise hit on their hands. The “roleplaying shooter” Borderlands blew everyone when it was released, largely due to how low profile the title was. Having sold 4.5 copies since its release, the announcement that Gearbox Software was working on a sequel was no surprise. Now, six months after the announcement of Borderlands 2, it is time to catch up on what has been revealed so far.

Starting with the game’s story, Borderlands 2 takes place roughly five years after the events of the original. The main character of the game is Salvador the dwarf. This Gunzerker can dual-wield any weapons in the game, although the dual-wielding ability is limited. Salvador has been featured in nearly every one of Borderlands 2 promotional releases, including the game’s teaser trailer which you can watch below. Along with a new cast of characters featuring Salvador the dwarf, Gearbox has added the entire original Borderlands crew to the sequel as NPCs.

Comedy will continue to be a driving force in Borderlands 2. Picking up where the original game left off in terms of writing, the game pokes fun at just about everything through weapon, item, and class descriptions. Classic comedic enemies such as midgets make their return along with hilarious little sayings and sound effects.

Missions in the game will now be much more story-driven and dynamic. They will now feature certain factors, such as time, that are critical to their success. Most importantly, the missions will have less of a MMO vibe to them and will instead tie-in more with the game’s story. The missions are also expected to feature boss battles like the previous game, except this time the missions will also include mini bosses called “Badasses”. These missions will also bring players to new, unexplored regions of the planet Pandora.

Speaking of Pandora, these unexplored regions give the environment a visual makeover. While the game will retain its cell-shaded visuals, the environments will now have a much needed touch of green and blue. Filled with islands, mountains, and water, Pandora is set to look better than ever.

As for the gameplay, this sequel aims to take the Borderlands gameplay experience to the next level. By adding new enemies, weapons, and equipment the game will be full of loot and things to shoot. Included with the addition of new enemies is better enemy AI. Enemies will now do everything they can, including scaling walls and buildings just to get to the player.

Co-op was a huge part of the original Borderlands and the sequel acknowledges that. New in Borderlands 2 is online couch co-op. With this new form of co-op, two people can play together locally and then jump into an online co-op session with two other online players. Gearbox’s Steve Gibson revealed to Joystiq at Gamescom that

The only situation you can not do is split-screen plus split-screen because you need a host. And a split-screen guy uses a lot of CPU, so he can not be the host.”

For local and online co-op the game will allow for four players like its predecessor. Enemy AI has also been improved in co-op to accommodate more players. Also to accommodate more players, the UI for split-screen has been improved. With the new in-game menu system, players will be able to customize their classes without having to scroll through the upgrades menu.

It has also been revealed that each gun in the game is designed to fit the personalities of their in-game manufacturers. For example, one manufacturer produces very cheap, throw-away weapons thus you can literally throw away the weapons after you run out of ammo and a new one will regenerate.

With all of these new additions Borderlands 2 appears to be an impressive improvement over the already great original. Veterans of the original Borderlands should be thrilled to learn that the co-op AI has been improved along with the in-game menus. The improved visuals should also give long time players something new to look at while sinking hours into this adventure. Hopefully before the game is released Gearbox will announce some sort of feature to help bring new players into the fray. As it stands now though, players should be more than excited to get their hands on Gearbox’s upcoming “roleplaying shooter”.

Borderlands 2 is currently set for release sometime between April 2o12 and March 2013 for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.