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Hidden in a dark, damp crevice of the Take-Two mega-mountain of news today was a brief, albeit interesting, comment from Ben Feder, president and CEO. After referencing the success of Gearbox's Borderlands, Feder stated that Take-Two "will continue to support the title with add-on content."

So, if you've finished The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot and The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, expect more soon. But, where will our intrepid foursome go next?

There's new content for both PS platforms in the latest PSN Euro update, ranging from an unimaginably beefy demo for Darksiders, W!Games' strategy title Greed Corp, the The Secret Armory of General Knoxx expansion for Borderlands, the totally free third installment of Blue Toad Murder Files and a PSP demo for The Eye Of Judgment Legends. Check out the full list of releases after the jump!

Time played: 4 hours

I was in for a surprise as I set out for The Secret Armory of General Knoxx with a level 50 character, because as beefy as I thought my Siren was, she couldn't stand up to what was waiting for me at T-Bone Junction and beyond. Basically, I died. All of the time. I went from having around four million dollars in my bank account down to under a million before I even gained my first level in the DLC -- the hefty cost of respawning in the wilds of Pandora. And that's what made this whole thing so odd.

The expansion -- which is intended to give you some more mileage out of your maxed-out characters by raising the level cap to 61 -- continues from the end of the Borderlands story, so playing it before finishing the game proper is not advised. I finished my second playthrough with a level 50 character, so to start this add-on and run into such a wall, such constantly merciless opposition, was pretty perplexing.

Alongside today's release of The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC for Borderlands (on the Xbox 360, at least -- it's this Thursday for PC and PlayStation 3), Gearbox Software has unveiled a new trailer touting the many new features of its third content pack. As you can likely guess, a multitude of guns, creatures, dudes, and the destruction thereof, makes up the majority of what you see above -- there's also some pulse-pounding music to go right alongside that, if you're so inclined.

With a raised level cap and a lack of arena-based combat (at least as far as we know), General Knoxx could very well be the most enticing content add-on to date for Borderlands. And that's exactly why we're standing near a couch when reviewing it, hoping to be knoxx'd off our feet. (Sorry, there was no getting around that one.) We'll let you know in a few.

Ready to cross the border into new lands in your ... Borderlands? The doors will creak open to Borderlands' "Secret Armory of General Knoxx" add-on tomorrow. TeamXbox reports that the downloadable expansion, which adds new areas with new missions, the requisite piles of weapons, and even an increased level cap, will be released on Xbox 360 tomorrow, February 23, for 800 ($10), with PS3 and PC releases to follow on Thursday for the same price.

One more thing: When you go online to explore the new content, we recommend that you let Gearbox's own hiring policy govern your interactions with your fellow mercenaries.

Update: According to a 2K press release, the level cap is increased to 61 in this expansion. "Secret Armory" also adds "almost 30 new villain types," improved AI, new vehicles and a new weapon class.

Gearbox head Randy Pitchford delivered some claptrap at DICE today, saying that Borderlands has sold 3 million units globally. A good sign for 2009's fastest-selling original IP, which may not have generated the most revenue, but it's apparently starting off 2010 with good momentum. And with a third DLC pack on the way, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, it appears Borderlands may welcome even more travelers.

As DICE is a business conference, Pitchford was also quite open about what's important to Gearbox as a studio -- he also shared his Gamertag ("DuvalMagic"). He shared components of what he thinks are important to the company's employees, like aggressive profit sharing, milestone bonuses and discretionary merit based rewards. He also mentioned a crass, but wise, tenet of the studio's hiring process: "No drama, no dicks, no douchebags."

The borderlands, they're a-gettin' bigger. More specifically, Borderlands is expanding yet again with its third DLC pack, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, which Gearbox says was created based on player feedback (i.e. development began after the game's release). Today we get a better look at what it'll offer up, including mechs, skagg riders and really gnarly enemies bristling with grafted-on weaponry. New vehicles are also in the works, including a four-seater tank that gives each co-op party member something to do. 2K and Gearbox still haven't announced a release date or pricing for the expansion, but we'll let you know those details as soon as we do.

If you appreciated the handiwork of the National Entertainment Collectibles Association on the BioShock 2 props revealed a couple weeks ago, then you'll be pleased to know the company has revealed that additional video game-themed products are in the works. According to a Figures forum post, five franchises will receive replicas by early 2011: BioShock 2, Street Fighter, Gears of War, Dante's Inferno and Dead Space 2. Three other projects were mentioned, but not detailed: Assassin's Creed 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Borderlands (which includes an "articulated Claptrap with sound effects").

You can find a full list of the characters that the company will toy-ify on the Figures forum. Most of them are based on the aforementioned franchises' nightmarish enemies -- but hey, if you feel like lining your desk with Necromorphs and Unbaptized Babies, that's your prerogative.

[Via Big Download]

We wouldn't blame you if you're hesitant to trust your cold, unfeeling game console with your credit card information -- when that thing inevitably goes sentient, you just know its just going to go on an overpriced accessory-shopping spree. Fortunately, there's other ways to obtain content on the Xbox Live Marketplace; for instance, a recently added GameStop listing has revealed that Borderlands' two DLC packs, The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned and Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, will soon be bundled together in a retail package for the 360 and PC.

The bundle, which is set to drop February 23, will be priced at $19.99, which is how much the DLC would cost if purchased separately on the Marketplace. Only, now you're also paying sales tax, meaning you're buying an expansion pack and paying for a few pages of a public elementary school textbook. How nice of you!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Gearbox Software and 2K Games have revealed the name -- and first solid details -- for the third DLC expansion to Borderlands. Called The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, the new content is pitched as having "never-before-seen enemies in a huge new environment complete with tons of brand new missions."

New weapons and items are also promised, along with a previously confirmed raising of the character level cap from 50 to ... an undisclosed limit. Still, Gearbox states there will be "new challenges and opportunities for growth for characters from around level 34 to level 50." No release timetable has been announced, but we've contacted 2K for additional info. First screens in the gallery below!

The Borderlands crew at Gearbox Software is making the post-mortem interview rounds, and this time Aaron Thibault, Stephen Palmer and Matthew Armstrong stopped to chat with G4. The interview has some excellent insight into the making of the game: The team originally was finishing up the Halo PC port when they realized that Bungie had dynamically coded their guns, and wondered what you could do if you dynamically created guns from that code. "Halo meets Diablo" was the answer, and that was Gearbox's premise from the beginning.

They also talk about the famous art style change, and say that the current animated look actually helped players get into the game -- they could "make a certain leap of faith into an understanding that the crazier and wackier and more fun things can exist in this world." And they say that for future installments, they are taking player feedback into account: Both a mini-map and more levels are two things that they didn't quite expect such a call for, so it's a safe bet that we'll see those features in any future installments of the "important" franchise. Please?

If you haven't been paying attention to the end-of-year NPD reports, it may surprise you to learn that Gearbox's multiplayer shooter slash RPG, Borderlands, performed quite well in the gruesome 2009 gaming sales arena. How did it manage this feat? Well, we'd attribute it to the game's massive stockpile of collectible weaponry, which we found to be black tar heroin-esque in its addictiveness. However, Gearbox president Randy Pitchford chalks it up to choosing hardcore gamers as the title's target audience.

"Perhaps Borderlands can be a lesson for all of us -- that when making a videogame, we should not be afraid to identify gamers as the audience," Pitchford said in a recent interview with IGN. "I wonder if too frequently publishers and developers are so caught up with going after new, untapped audiences that they can forget to care for the largest, most loyal and reliable audience there is -- the current gamer," he added. Well, there go our hopes for a Facebook-based Borderlands gem-swapping casual puzzler.

The biggest issue facing most Borderlands players has to be the level cap. When you reach level 50, what do you do next? Sure, you could start up a new character and do it all again, but what if you have each class maxed out? Well, then we think the technical term is: you're boned.

That won't be the case for much longer, as Gearbox's Jason Reiss recently popped on the company's forums to guarantee the most-requested feature for the game was indeed in the works. Not only will there be new DLC, but Reiss also confirms there's another update coming that "solves a bunch of issues." That's like two for the price of one, right? Wait, our math may be a bit off -- moving on!

There's no timetable for either the update or DLC at this point, but Reiss says we can expect a full announcement "soon." And you can expect a post about it on our website when there's more info because that's how this relationship works.

Activision has announced that DJ Hero was "the #1 new intellectual property by revenue in the U.S. and Europe for calendar 2009, according to the NPD Group." Lest you sped through that proclamation, take note of the two key words: "by revenue" -- in other words, the total amount of money spent by consumers. Considering DJ Hero debuted at $120 for the standard turntable bundle and $200 for the Renegade Edition, it's no wonder that it managed to bring in the most money (though not necessarily the most profit, and certainly not the most units sold for a new franchise).

NPD representative Anita Frazier clarified for Joystiq the performance of last year's new IPs in terms of actual unit sales. As you might have guessed, DJ Hero wasn't quite #1 in that category, but managed a respectable 789,000 units in U.S. sales. Still, it was soundly outsold by other new IPs, including Borderlands and Dragon Age: Origins, which sold 1.11 million and 1.14 million units, respectively. Besting them all, however, was EA Sports Active, which amassed 1.2 million units sold.

And get this, if we consider new IPs that launched before 2009, then Wii Play and Wii Fit were technically the best-selling new IPs in 2009 in terms of unit sales and revenue, according to the NPD.

Finally, we should point out -- as did Frazier -- that NPD data only covers the U.S., despite Activision's claim that the group provided European sales data regarding DJ Hero.

It's not often we see a game that effectively mixes genres to create something entirely new. Borderlands did just that this year, taking the obsessive, loot-driven mechanics of a dungeon crawler and stuffing them within the friendly and familiar confines of a first-person shooter. Borderlands also oozes style and never takes itself too seriously. It's a fun adventure, full of charismatic NPCs and an experience akin to the kind of childhood adventures you'd embark on with friends, battling imaginary monsters and building forts in the back yard.