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  • Acting for Two: Colleen Clinkenbeard voices both Lilith and Tannis, and the two characters have interactions or dialogue between them in certain scenes, specifically in the Commander Lilith DLC where they argue about what to do with the hidden prototype Siren chamber.
  • Bad Export for You: By virtue of Loot the World, the companion app, being No Export for You, the main game itself is this because those outside the US are just flat out denied better weapons compared to gamers in the United States.
  • Creator Backlash: A minor case, but lead writer Anthony Burch regrets how he handled the New-U Stations. His approach was that New-U Stations were a non-canon element that only existed for gameplay balance (thus allowing plot-based deaths to remain significant and final), but he felt that giving the stations dialogue (explaining them as Hyperion technology) was a mistake as it directly integrated them into the lore of the Borderlands universe, thus shattering the illusion and raising all sorts of questions on undoing death that weren't intended.
  • Dummied Out: Various little bits of dialogue, but ones that explain SO much:
    • Angel and Jack are the ones manipulating the New-U system to keep the Hunters alive throughout the game: Angel to take down Jack, and Jack to make sure he kills you himself after you kill Angel.
    • Captain Flynt mentions that he has a bounty out on whoever killed his brother, Baron. Other than that cut line there's no mention of any relation between the two.
    • Borderlands released official ringtones (free to download from their main website) featuring voice clips from Moxxi, Torgue, Claptrap, Tiny Tina, and Sir Hammerlock. The files consist of nothing but dialogue spoken by those characters, almost all of it (Tina doesn't have any of her DLC dialogue, but everything else is there.) This includes some dummied out dialogue, such as Torgue telling you to go down into the sewers and kill rats, and more of Tina's conversation during the tea party that never made it into the game.
    • Moxxi was originally supposed to be involved in Fink's Circle of Slaughter, located right before The Fridge. She also has unused Tip Jar lines.
  • Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: Two versions above the standard pre-order, including an art book, Marcus bobblehead, some extra in game items, and various other things. The most expensive version comes with a scale replica of the red loot chests from the first game!
  • Memorial Character: Michael Mamaril, the generous Vault Hunter that sometimes appears in Sanctuary, and who was created in the memory of Michael John Mamaril, a Borderlands fan that passed away at the age of 22, and whose friend asked Gearbox Software for a short eulogy by Claptrap, Michael's favorite character.
  • Nepotism: An unintentional example. When Anthony Burch wrote the character of Tiny Tina, he unthinkingly created her based around his sister Ashly. When he realized it, he figured he might as well ask her to audition for the part. While other actresses placed an audition, none of them could portray his sister better than his own sister, so Ashly ultimately got the part. Even without Anthony as writer of the series, Ashly still plays the role of Tina in all games she appears in, such as Borderlands 3 and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands.
  • No Export for You:
    • Not the game itself, but several of its marketing tie-ins, including two contests and a pack of limited trading cards, are only available to Europeans, which is sort of odd for an American game.
    • On the other end of the spectrum, the companion app for the game, Loot the World, is only available in the US iOS App Store and Google Play Store.
  • No Port For You: The Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary DLC is only available for the PC (specifically Windows), Playstation 4, and Xbox One ports of Borderlands 2. It is not available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Play Station Vita or even the Linux portsnote . Subverted with the Nintendo Switch port, which didn't launch with it despite releasing after the DLC, but got it later on.
  • The Other Darrin:
  • Permanent Placeholder
    • "Bullymong" was a placeholder name for the 6-limbed alien yetis. It stuck. A quest in game lampshades this with Sir Hammerlock trying and failing to rename them before his book on them ships.
    • The name "Handsome Jack" was a placeholder taken from a throwaway line from an episode of Doctor Who. The name proved popular with the production team, so they decided to make it the character's official moniker.
  • Pre-Order Bonus: The "Premier Club" edition contains the Gearbox Gunpack, Vault Hunter's Relic, a Golden Key, and the Mechromancer Vault Hunter. This was later made available for post-release purchase since October 9, 2012 under the "Mechromancer Pack".
  • Real Song Theme Tune:
    • "Short Change Hero" by The Heavy is used in the intro.
    • The end credits use "How You Like Me Now", also by The Heavy.
  • Refitted for Sequel:
    • The scrapped turn-in NPC named Captain Cabrera was later used in the Slaughter Dome DLC, which added the Natural Selection Annex area to the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve level.
    • Originally, as part of the Bearer of Bad News quest the player would have to tell Tiny Tina of Roland's death. Tina's coping with this tragic event is the entire basis of the Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC.
    • A "Refitted for Port" variant: Dummied Out audio shows that Jack himself was originally the voice of the Hyperion vending machines and New U stations (which was presumably removed to avoid opening the Fridge Logic surrounding them even further). The dialogue is present in the Switch version... And is more common than the Hyperion Voice.
      Handsome Jack: Every time you die, you're actually paying me! Wait, is that ironic or is that one of those things you think is ironic, but actually isn't? Like a cripple doing stand-up?
  • Screwed by the Network: The Linux port, which was outsourced to Aspyr. Gearbox pretty much cancelled their contract with Aspyr and as a result the Linux version doesn't get the Commander Lilith DLC, and is no longer capable of cross-platform play with Windows users. This has led to a strange situation where Linux users are now running the Windows version using Proton instead of the native port, which is a shame because the Linux native port was really well optimized and was previously held as a shining example of how smoothly a game that has been properly optimized on Linux would run.
  • Throw It In!:
    • Dameon Clarke (Handsome Jack's voice actor) ad-libbed a number of his lines, including the moment early in the game when he calls the Vault Hunter, mouth full of food, about his diamond pony.
      Anthony Burch: It's easily Jack’s single most popular line, and I didn't frigging write it. I will never forgive Dameon for this.
    • Tiny Tina's model has an animation issue where her left eye suddenly turns to the side. It makes her look even more like the psycho Creepy Child she is, so the devs simply left it there under the justification that she has strabismus (AKA lazy eye).
    • Character dialogue was meant to be targeted, meaning Axton would give flirty lines when reviving Maya, but neutral otherwise. After deciding against targeted lines, the Dev team realized that this means Axton can say lines like "Wow. Do you work out, or...?" to the male characters; despite this, they decided it would be better to just make him bisexual instead.
    • During production, the writing staff was known to change things on the fly. Nakayama's death, for example, was changed to what it wound up being half-way through Ian Sinclair's recording session.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Tediore guns were originally going to be unreliable and have a chance of exploding in your hands. Tediore guns in the finished product are dirt-cheap and disposable, but perfectly reliable.
    • For the Captain Scarlett DLC, originally the players would actually get to fight and kill Scarlett while Roscoe would be the new raid boss.
    • There was originally no plans to include a Buddy A.I. where that allied NPC is able to prioritize targets and attack them. The mission "Hunting the Firehawk", Lilith was going to have a smaller role where she would Phase Blast once for her intro and Phase Blast to conclude the fight by killing any surviving bandits during the fight.
      • Originally Lilith's title card didn't say "aka The Firehawk". It was added after focus testers repeatedly complained that they were never able to find this "Firehawk" the mission was telling them to look for. Anthony Burch also rewrote one of Lilith's lines to clarify the point.
    • Before coming up with the DLC, Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, there was initially an idea where Handsome Jack had a spoiled nephew that lived on an island and would trap the Vault Hunters in a game that forced them to fight their way through a series of complex challenges he had designed. The idea later became a fantasy idea and Tiny Tina eventually became the dungeon master.
      • Among the various ideas for the new DLC was the theme of heavy metal rock and roll which was on top of the list. Ryan Heaton, the Lead Level Designer for the DLC, was glad that the team did not go in that direction.
    • An early storyline quest would have involved the player chasing down Fink (the Rat who hosts the Bandit Circle of Slaughter) and beating some answers out of him. This was too complicated to program, though it does explain why Fink hates the players so much.
    • Originally, Motor Momma of the Campaign of Carnage DLC would have become a Raid Boss like Pyro Pete.
    • Handsome Jack would have originally played more of a Frenemy role to the heroes as a rival Vault Hunter who would help or hinder them whenever he sees fit. Eventually, the developers decide to make him purely a villain to make things clearer.
    • There were planned Vending Machines that would exclusively sell Bandit weapons. Even a Psycho would have been doing the sales pitch as evidenced by these unused lines.

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