Borderlands 2 to address frame rate, voice chat and inventory criticisms

With Borderlands 2, Gearbox is hoping to correct some of the more prominent complaints leveled against the original.

"We’re entering the phase of development right now where we are focusing on framerate and stability, so it’s too early for me to give any final numbers, but you will see an improvement over the first game," producer Matt Charles wrote on the US PS Blog.

Inventory management, another favourite criticism of Borderlands, has ben streamlined, with Charles admitting the first game's approach "sucked".

"We decided to remove carryable health packs and instead fill that need with new relics and shields that can help keep you out of that emergency state to begin with. The result is a more fluid combat experience since now you’re not worrying about when the best time to pause the game is and you still get that fun sense of preparing for a battle by choosing the right gear," he said.

"Health Packs will still appear and drop and they will now heal you up in the middle of battle. We have a completely new inventory screen and all of the other interface screens have received various upgrades. There’s a lot more useful data for gear comparison and also more descriptive text on the item cards as well. Money and ammo now automatically pick up if dropped from enemies as well."

Charles also noted that Gearbox is hoping to address other notorious complaints, like the lack of variation in the environment, and technical issues like voice chat.

"A portion of our programming team is working on voice chat issues right now so they will be working for everyone when the game launches," he said.

Borderlands 2 is expected on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in September.