Borderlands type Video Games

It’s official. Borderlands is indeed blasting onto iOS devices in an all-new title starring the series’ original quartet of vault hunters. Borderlands Legends, the bite-sized take on the console blockbuster, will have players looting, leveling, and laying waste to ugly bandits on Oct. 31 ($4.99 iPhone, $6.99 iPad).

Behind the big guns of Brick, Lilith, Mordecai, and Roland, fans will be treated to a fresh take on the series’ signature shoot-and-loot formula. Playing from a top-down perspective, they’ll encounter various classes of familiar foes — Skags, Bandits, Crimson Lance, Spider Ants — and pimp skill trees loosely based on the original Borderlands. Characters possess three action skills and six abilities, with each of the latter supporting five levels. In a neat twist, players control all four characters simultaneously and can temporarily coordinate their corpse-piling talents to unleash powerful attacks.

While additional details on the action-RPG-strategy hybrid are scarcer than solid Eridium bricks, we did smuggle a few more tidbits from our brief look at Legends: the gameplay’s driven by randomized, objective-based missions; enemy difficulty scales alongside players’ unlimited ability to level-up; guns and gear can be purchased from mustachioed merchant Marcus; and, like its console counterparts, Legends allows lethally wounded players to score a life-reviving “second wind” with a well-placed slug.

Oh, and did we mention boss battles? Yeah, players will want to take full advantage of every death-dealer in their arsenal — as well as Legends‘ strategic cover system — before facing the screen-filling Hellhound.

Craving more Borderlands Legends intel? Click through for images, and check back this Thursday for our exclusive hands-on preview!

Characters’ upgradeable action skills and abilities are tweaked much how they are in the console games

Image zoom Lewis Jacobs/NBC

The series’ signature stylized visual presentation makes an impressive jump to the small screen.

Image zoom Lewis Jacobs/NBC

Legends adopts a top-down perspective, offering players a more strategic view of Pandora’s battlegrounds

Image zoom Lewis Jacobs/NBC

Players can avoid becoming pulpy puddles by utilizing Legend’s cover system — a first for the franchise

Image zoom Lewis Jacobs/NBC

Marcus’ vending machines — accessible before, after, and mid-mission — provide a one-stop shop for all your arsenal-building needs.

Image zoom Lewis Jacobs/NBC