Borderlands 2 includes a playable assassin, Zero, who is taking on the sniper role that Mordecai filled out in the previous entry. However, these two characters differ in some major ways, primarily Zero’s Bloodshed skill tree, an entire section filled with melee-based upgrades.
As awesome as the Bloodshed Skill Tree looks (view it here), Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford was wary of its inclusion in the first place. He revealed the following information during an interview with PlayerAttack:
The entire Bloodshed skill tree for the assassin is thanks to them ignoring what my experience would have informed would have been a risk, and ploughing away anyway and forcing it through and making some really great gameplay as a result.
These guys are able to say, ‘I hear your point, and I understand what you’re bringing to the table Randy, but I really think I can pull this off. I want to try it because I’ve thought this through myself, and I’m looking at it a little more closely than you are, and I’m looking at some details that you’re not seeing.
“These guys” includes Creative Director Paul Hellquist, one of the primary reasons it seems Zero is going to be a crowd-pleaser.
There were cases where [Hellquist] just put his heart and soul into things that only worked because he cared so much. There were other risks he wanted to take that I didn’t think were going to work. He proved me wrong – they not only worked, but worked brilliantly.
You can pick up your sniper rifle and digistructable blade as the silent assassin Zero on September 18th.
I agree with randy on this one, i didn’t like this part of the skill tree.. it just seemed off