At PAX 2012, attendees who braved the massive line at the Borderlands 2 booth were treated to a first look at the fifth character class for the game, the Mechromancer, which will now be given free to everyone who pre-orders the game.
The character is a trendy, pixie-looking girl in metal armor who summons a giant, killer robot named Deathtrap to help her kill enemies. In the demo today, we got to look through her skill tree, which will give Deathtrap a number of offensive and defensive abilities—from lasers to fire to something called "Explosive Clap," which, naturally, has the robot clapping its hands together and causing a huge explosion.
When the Mechromancer headed out into the world, she summoned Deathtrap and the first thing he did was head over to an enemy, stand over him, and clap. Boom—blood everywhere. Good times.
The gearbox representative demoing the game swore up and down that they didn't start working on the DLC until after they finished the proper game, but said that it will be done sooner than expected because "Turns out we're really good at making Borderlands." So, the mechromancer will be due out in October, not too long after the game comes out.
There are, of course, lots of ideas for characters and content that got shelved until after Gearbox finished the game. "I'm pushing for a bard, personally," said Borderlands 2 producer Matt Charles when I spoke with him after the demo (he was sure to tell me multiple times that he was kidding). "That's sort of a running joke, people look at me very strangely every time I say that."
I dunno, I could kinda see it...