Borderlands, the popular shoot and loot RPG franchise, is going to land in China as both a free-to-play PC and a mobile game offering. This is a surprise development and it isn't known precisely what form the games might take and how the F2P and mobile gameplay will work. Kotaku reports that the games are being developed by China's Shanda Games in collaboration with Gearbox and 2K games.
The game looks to allow players a similar choice of characters to those Borderlands players are used to; there is a soldier, siren, hunter and berserker present in the various promotional game art screens published with the press release (4 pages starting here).
As an online F2P MMORPG some sites have come to the conclusion that the games will be focus less on independent story driven play and more on the team play shooting and looting. I could imagine there will be lots of chances to sell golden keys to special weapons chests and so on, to make the most of any microtransactions shoved into the game.
The screenshots from what is thought to be the PC game show it to be similar to the experiences the main Borderlands game series offers. As for the mobile game it could be similar or a different kind of game altogether; like Borderlands Legends for iOS, or like the Tales from the Borderlands 'Telltale' type of adventure game.
The F2P PC game and mobile game are expected to arrive next year after beta testing is complete. I also read that gamers can sign up for the beta testing here, but you'll have to be able to read Chinese at least. It isn't known if these or similar format Borderlands games will be published for western consumption.
