Borderlands 2 “Badass” Bug Infects Xbox 360 Consoles During Online Play

Popular game Borderlands 2, has a hidden “badass” mode for skilled players – but with a catch that delivers a double whammy. This special hidden mode can only be activated on modified Xbox 360 consoles which allow them to run unofficial games, such as backups, development software or pirated copies. It gives players an advantage over others in online play by letting their characters gather special weapons and armour, which allows them to become much more powerful than those created in the normal mode.

The catch is that when the character dies in the game, it’s permanently deleted, including all achievements using it. This is ok if people know about this mode and want this nailbiting challenge. However, a bug in the game means that there’s a double whammy: when unmodded Xbox 360 consoles join a server running a character in badass mode, their characters also get put into badass mode – but it’s done silently, with no warning at all. This allows malicious gamers to deliberately set up servers with a badass character in order to destroy honest gamers characters. As these characters can have taken many weeks or months to build up to their current level, deletion is an absolute nightmare for those honest gamers – and no doubt a laugh for the dishonest ones. Gearbox Software warned about this problem on October 22 and a fix has been prepared, but it’s taking time to roll out to all consoles, so gamers must engage in safe play practices, avoiding strangers.