Last night, I completed Borderlands’s single-player story mode, using Mordecai the sniper. And while the gameplay is so addictive that I plan to continue playing multiplayer Borderlands with friends, I have to agree with reviewers that the ending is lame.

There’s now an interview online in which Randy Pitchford calls Borderlands 2 a “no brainer”. They’re not yet actually working on a sequel – first they’ll be knocking out a bunch of DLC. But when they do, here are a bunch of things I’d like to see from the game.

10- Destructible Environments

Imagine that a nearby explosion could knock bottles off tables and topple shelves. Imagine that an incendiary grenade could set a hut on fire. How about if you could destroy entire buildings Red Faction style? Yeah. It’d be cool.

9- The Ability to store items

So you find this awesome shotgun that shoots rockets. But you can’t use it for another 4 levels. You’ve got to carry it around with you. Or maybe your favorite weapon just became obsolete, but you’d love to give it to your friend the next time he’s online. You’ve got to carry it around with you.

If Borderlands gave you a personal locker of some kind, it would make inventory management that much better.

8- Vehicle Improvements

Going into the Dahl Headlands, vehicles begin to seem like a huge deal. There are bandit rocket car patrols and even a vehicular boss battle. But after that, things fall off. Vehicles become primarily a way to get from A to B quickly. Borderlands 2 will need more vehicles. Maybe single-seater motorcycles, three and four-seater cars with multiple turrets, maybe a couple APC or tank vehicles. A couple water vehicles and maybe a helicopter would be nice. An armored mini-mech like the kind that appeared in Butcher Bay would be phenomenal.

The randomization of weapons in Borderlands is wonderful. If they could work the same randomization into vehicles, it would be awesome. Vehicles with dual side-mounted shotguns. Vehicles with ram plates and wheel spikes. Vehicles with tank treads. Vehicles with mine-droppers and smokescreens. This alone would make me want to buy the game.

7- Character quick start

After finishing the game last night, I wanted to start a new game with a Soldier just to see what he played like. I had to sit through the entire intro, and then do the stupid tutorial over again. They need to provide a way to start a new character quickly. After the 4th time, that intro and tutorial gets OLD.

6- More than 87 Bazillion Guns

The diversity of weapons in Borderlands was fantastic. You know they’ll need to ramp it up for the sequel. Maybe a few new weapon categories like speargun or chain gun. Maybe a flamethrower or sonic weapon. Grenades that leave behind acid puddles for 5 minutes. Go even crazier.

5- Creature Diversity

While it’s true that there were multiple kinds of Scags and multiple kind of antlions, I wish that there were more than six or eight creature types in the game. How about doubling that? Fifteen or so seems doable. And I love the fact that each creature has a different critical hit spot – that needs to stay. I liked the game’s two or three unique bosses, and seeing more of those would be great too.

4- More humor

One of my favorite moments in the game is when Nine Toes is introduced – the still image overlay to the right is hilarious. But how many of those are there in the game? Six or eight? And how many are funny? That’s the only one I can think of. Programatically, adding more would be super-easy. The only investment is paying a comedic writer to come up with the stuff. Borderlands does humor very well – I loved the conversations and voice recordings of the insane archaeologist Tannis – there just needs to be more of this humor in the game.

3- Different characters

In a sequel, you wouldn’t want the same four characters. Roland kind of bugs me, and Lilith is annoyingly arrogant. If any character remains, it should be Brick. He is quite simply awesome. Mordekai would be my second choice for a carry-over, but I think keeping only Brick would be best. Other characters might include a different Siren – perhaps with different and more diverse Siren powers.

A PC psycho character might also be a lot of fun. His ability could be brief bouts of increased fire rate and unlimited ammo. He could eventually gain skills that would let him leap from one vehicle to another, Mad Max style.

I’d also like to see more diverse skill trees. Perhaps branching ones like the skills trees from Champions of Norrath, where the skills branch out and sometimes rejoin.

2- Better QA

I’m not sure if it was only the PC version, but Borderlands was super-buggy. Online play required router configuration, Gamespy connectivity stinks, voice chat doesn’t work, and the PC interface feels like a bad console port. Also, sometimes when I pick up a weapon it equips itself. It’s intermittent, and I HATE it. Borderlands 2 will need better quality assurance.

1- Better Story

The number one thing I’d wish for from a Borderlands sequel would be more story. Hunting an alien vault on a new world should be fascinating and magical: hunting down small clues to the aliens’ existence, finding ruins with incredible artifacts, and seeing others’ amazed reactions.

I’d also like to have seen more of an ending. I’m fine with being able to continue playing after completing the game, Oblivion-style, but perhaps a better explanation for the chick who magically guided you through the game, a cutscene showing the amazing vault, or maybe the automatic awarding of an orange-level loot item. Just something more satisfying.

I’m sure that Borderlands 2 will have lot worth playing, I just thought it would be fun to create my own feature wishlist.