Borderlands 2 PC to ship with Steamworks support

The PC version of Borderlands 2, the sequel to Gearbox Software’s 2009 loot-hoarding FPS, will ship with full Steamworks support, Gearbox and 2K Games announced today.

Gearbox says that players will be able to enjoy the best of Steamworks’ features, including Steam achievements, Steam Cloud support, auto-updates when Gearbox rolls out patches for Borderlands 2 and, best of all, Steam multiplayer matchmaking support.

Borderlands‘ PC release was pretty solid, but the decision to use GameSpy and not use, say, Steam to handle matchmaking wasn’t exactly met with a whole lot of praise. The best you could say about Borderlands‘ mutliplayer on PC was that it was mostly functional.

In case you were planning on picking up Borderlands 2 at retail instead of a digital distribution service, Gearbox says that the retail version of the game will also employ Steamworks, so you’ll be needing to use Steam regardless of where you buy it if you plan to play on PC.

To get up to speed on what all is new with Borderlands 2, here’s a rundown from 2K Games:

Borderlands 2 features all-new characters and skills, imaginative and diverse new environments with unique missions and enemies, and more exciting, fun weapons, equipment and loot than ever before. All of these features come together in a story that takes players to the world of Pandora to take down the notorious Handsome Jack and his corrupt Hyperion Corporation as a solo campaign or with up to four cooperative players.

Borderlands 2 is due out on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on September 18 in North America. A European release follows on September 21.