Borderlands 2 Goes Gold, ESRB Rating Revealed

We’re obviously getting closer to the release of Borderlands 2, as testified by this tweet from Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, which informs us that almost all of the various versions of the title have gone gold:

Borderlands 2 is now GOLD (360, PS3 EU, PS3 NA, Win PC)! PSN, PS3 JP + others imminent. Official statement to come when all ballots are in.

And by the customary ESRB rating. Unsurprisingly, the FPS/RPG gets an ‘M’ rating, in large part due to “intense acts of violence”:

This is a first-person shooter in which players join rebel forces to take down an oppressive corporation on the fictional planet of Pandora. As players explore open-world environments, they complete missions to gain experience and increase their characters’ skills/abilities. Players use machine guns, sniper rifles, flamethrowers, explosives, and weaponized vehicles to kill human-like characters and hostile aliens in frequent combat. Firefights contain realistic gunfire/explosions; injured enemies scream and emit exaggerated splashes of blood. Various weapons result in dismembered limbs or bloody gibs. Some missions depict intense acts of violence: viewing characters getting electrocuted; shooting a man in the face; killing players’ incinerating a cult member as part of a ritual sacrifice. 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 (sh*t,) (p*ssies,) and (a*shole) can be heard in the dialogue, in addition to language censored by audible bleeps (e.g., (God-[bleep]-ing-dammit)).

Thanks VG247.