Not only the character is leveled up, but the player themselves.
Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford continues to give interviews, and during a recent conversation, he touched on neuroscience when discussing Borderlands 4.
According to the creator, the looter-shooter is good for the brain. In the game, there are situations when you need to make a choice: keep the current equipment or take a new trophy — this represents "a very important, fundamental need and skill that our brain possesses."
Randy explained that Gearbox has reduced this need to one simple moment with the interface (the player can aim at the trophy and immediately see its characteristics and their own item).
According to him, this is a "pleasant cycle" and a "pleasant decision", the brain "needs to do this" and it "likes to do this" (make a decision about choosing equipment):
"The more we train this muscle, not only in video games, but literally in life — this is what distinguishes our biological species from many others, and how we developed language and how we developed all kinds of high levels of consciousness and cognitive abilities that allow us to analyze the world. A large part of what our prefrontal cortex is designed for — what this adaptation exists for and what it is used for — is this skill or its variations."
The process of determining what is better: the current piece of equipment or the one that dropped, and "managing the cognitive processes between the objective, almost scientific analysis of this choice and the emotional impact of this choice, is very interesting and, dare I say, addictive," said the creator of Borderlands 4.
Randy Pitchford suggests that other developers do not pay enough attention to loot grinding:
"If other game designers who were trying to get into [looter-shooter] development understood the neuroscience behind Gearbox's decision-making, we would have more competitors, or we would have good competitors. However, this has not happened yet. It's strange. People who want to get into this don't think about it on that level. They just launch something based on market analysis. This does not come from the desire of the designer or creator. This is either driven by business or the desire to become someone you are not."
Randy also shared that he expected a wave of other Borderlands copycat games after the release of the first part. And if that had happened then, the studio "would have already died because [it could not] compete with many other [companies], especially at that time."
