Why Gearbox created a Borderlands 2 boss so tough it's nearly Invincible

[BrayWyatt]

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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.)'

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.

"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."

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Why Gearbox created a Borderlands 2 boss so tough it's nearly Invincible • Previews • Eurogamer.net