Unfortunately, it’s not all good news for the team at Gearbox Software, as the studio has recently been called out for making reference to a “girlfriend mode.” Borderlands 2 lead designer John Hemingway, revealed that the studio is working on a “BFF skill tree,” which will make the game easier for players unaccustomed to first person shooters.

However, after referring to it as “girlfriend mode”, some gamers are upset by Hemingway’s terminology – because it suggests “girls can’t play video games.” Gearbox co-founder, Randy Pitchford, took to Twitter to defend Hemingway, stating that “Borderlands 2 does NOT have a girlfriend mode,” and that “there is no universe where Hemingway is a sexist.”

You can read Hemingway’s description of the BFF skill tree below:

“The design team was looking at the concept art and thought, you know what, this is actually the cutest character we’ve ever had. I want to make, for the lack of a better term, the girlfriend skill tree. This is, I love Borderlands and I want to share it with someone, but they suck at first-person shooters. Can we make a skill tree that actually allows them to understand the game and to play the game? That’s what our attempt with the Best Friends Forever skill tree is.”

While it may have been a poor choice of words, it’s definitely a stretch to think that Hemingway was being dismissive of all girl-gamers. The BFF skill tree is meant to help out coop partners who just aren’t as experienced with shooter titles. No doubt, there are plenty of girlfriends who can rack up killstreaks better than boys in the online arena and pigeonholing everyone into “girlfriend mode” was an error of judgment but, for the time being, we’re going to take Pitchford at his word and chalk this one up to foot-in-mouth disease.

There is a boss in Borderlands 2 so tough you probably won't be able to kill it. But there's a quest to kill it anyway. It's called 'You.Will. Die. (Seriously.)'
1

That's Terramorphous the Invincible. Good luck.

The boss is called Terramorphous the Invincible, and he earns his name. This gargantuan thresher serpent thing emerges from the rock with a roar that echoes throughout his cliff-side home, Terramorphous Peak in the Thousand Cuts area. Its knock-back attack sends you flying high into the air, probably to your death. It hits hard enough to kill you outright. Its tentacles, many of which protrude from the ground, nag at your already frayed concentration. And the number of hit points it enjoys... well, let's just say, there are enough of them to make the player feel very, very insignificant.

"If you don't curse the design team at least five times on the way to beating this guy, we haven't done our jobs," says producer Randy Varnell with a smile.

Terramorphous was conceived after Borderlands developer Gearbox Software saw how players enjoyed taking on Crawmerax the Invincible (no relation), the crab worm raid boss from the superb The Secret Armory of General Knoxx downloadable add-on. The mission to kill that beast was called 'You.Will.Die.' You see what they're doing here.

Crawmerax was pretty much the hardest challenge the first Borderlands had to offer, and required a group of four maximum-level players all with high-level gear to take it down. Terramorphous is like that, except he's even more of a bastard.

A raid boss comes on the disc this time because Gearbox wants to include enough end-game content to keep players who've hit the level 50 cap playing for years after launch. The developer has already revealed one of the new mechanics designed to do this, the unique Badass system and its infinite levels of profile-wide progression. We're at Gearbox's Dallas headquarters to see the rest.

"If you don't curse the design team at least five times on the way to beating this guy, we haven't done our jobs" - producer Randy Varnell.

"Once you hit that end game, what are you doing? That's what Crawmerax was," Varnell says.

"You can fight Terramorphous multiple times and he's going to drop different loot every time. Some of the best gear in the game, great legendary items, will drop from this guy. He has specific items that only drop from him in the game. There are some legendaries you'll only find from him.

"A lot of the end-game pull is that four-player co-op challenge at a high level against a really tough-to-fight boss. He is designed to be impossible. I'm not going to say he's not soloable, because I know how well gamers break games, but he really is tuned for that end-game, four-player co-op fight, testing your build and your gear and your equipment and your ability to work together as a team. His rewards are great. So, if you are that end-game player, this is your challenge right here."

The dialogue contains jokes/one-liners that reference sexual material (e.g., “I will hang myself from my own tombstone if in you I can’t put my bone,” “If there’s anything they love more than getting to second base with their sisters, it’s cars,” “Bacon is for sycophants and products of incest.”); during some sequences, players can find and collect adult-themed magazines—though no actual nudity is depicted.

One mission requires players to consume three alcoholic beverages from a bar before they can progress. The words “shit,” “pussies,” and “asshole” can be heard in the dialogue, in addition to language censored by audible bleeps (e.g., “God-[bleep]-ing-dammit”).