THQ Nordic today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Frankfurt-based metricminds, effectively making it a 100% subsidiary of THQ Nordic GmbH. Since its incorporation in 2001, the studio established itself as a household name for creating cutscenes, trailers, motion capture, keyframe animation, facial animation and fully finished cinematics delivered in-engine.

Notable projects the studio has been working on include: Horizon (1 and 2), Dying Light, Borderlands 2, The Surge (1 and 2), EVOLVE, Batman Arkham Origins, Tarzan 3D, Darksiders III, The Remnant: From the Ashes, and many more (at this point, Crypto forces us to mention the fact that they also worked on Destroy All Humans! 2020, as well as Destroy All Humans 2 - Reprobed; no more probing... please?).

It feels like an entire age has passed since we heard about a full successor to the Borderlands franchise, with offshoots such as Tales from the Borderlands only causing more anticipation to build. In the time since Borderlands 2 came out, Telltale ceased to exist, making Tales from the Borderlands 2 no longer a project coming up. Gearbox too have gone through some.. interesting times.. lately, with CEO Randy Pitchford being accused of deviant activities caused via mishandling of company secrets and also massive annual bonuses at a time the industry was being blamed for underpaying the average worker.

Perhaps the tease of a new Borderlands announcement on Twitter earlier today was just what the company needed as a positive distraction, with timing between Borderlands 1 and 2, and time since Borderlands 2, all suggesting this is very likely going to be Borderlands 3. The highway exit marked number 3 is no doubt another piece of evidence towards this assumption being valid. We will know more on March 28, when PAX East officially kicks off, but no doubt this is enough to kick-start another discussion on whether Claptrap is cool or annoying (or both).

In wake of GeForce GTX 650 Ti launch, NVIDIA posted the latest WHQL-signed version of its GeForce software suite, version 306.97 WHQL. Recommended for Windows 8, the driver adds support for the newly-launched GPU, and is said to go well with Borderlands 2, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. New performance and stability improvements are said to cover a variety of games. 3D Vision profiles were added or improved for a large number of games.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 306.97 WHQL (International) for Windows 8/7/Vista 64-bit | Windows 8/7/Vista 32-bit

2K Games and Gearbox Software announced today the much anticipated Borderlands 2 is now available in North America and will be available internationally on September 21, 2012 for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC. The four-player cooperative shooter-looter already has critics raving, with review scores of 9 out of 10 from IGN, 9.75 out of 10 from Game Informer and a perfect 10 out of 10 from PlayStation: The Official Magazine.

"Borderlands 2 is a game made by gamers for gamers," said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. "The unique visual art style, all-new characters, loads of loot, 87 bazillion guns, and role-playing-shooting combine for a truly addictive experience, especially when played with three other friends. The initial response from the press has been fantastic and the game is poised to be one of the highest-rated titles in the history of 2K."

While working away on a new driver release (the Catalyst 12.9 beta which is expected next week) AMD has made available a fresh batch of Catalyst Application Profiles. The 12.8 CAP 3 can be found here and features the following:

- Borderlands 2 - New CrossFire profile
- Guild War 2: Resolves grass texture corruption observed when changing graphics settings in a CrossFire configuration
- World of Warcraft(DX9): Fix the flickering observed when view distance is changed to fair in graphics settings when CrossFire is enabled
- Depth Hunter: Resolves shadow flickering seen when running in CrossFire mode
- Dirt Showdown - Resolves flickering seen in CrossFire mode
- Stalker Call of Pripyat - Resolves flickering seen in CrossFire mode
- War of Roses - Fixes flickering seen in CrossFire mode

Following launches of its GeForce GTX 660 and GTX 650 graphics processors earlier this day, NVIDIA released the latest stable version of its GeForce driver suite. GeForce 306.23 WHQL was released for Windows 7/Vista and Windows XP. This is NVIDIA's first WHQL-signed driver launch after GeForce GTX 660 Ti was launched last month. Hence, it includes official support for GeForce GTX 660 Ti, GeForce GTX 660, and GeForce GTX 650. The company also notified that the next WHQL-signed drivers will remove support for legacy GeForce GPUs such as 6-series and 7-series.

GeForce 306.23 WHQL also adds GPU and game-specific performance improvements. Along with the latest patch by its developer, Total War: Shogun 2 will see up to 60% performance improvement with GeForce GTX 680. Performance is also significantly improved for games such as Batman: Arkham City, Dragon Age II, STALKER: Call of Pripyat, and Battlefield 3 (in SLI). SLI profiles were added or improved for a large number of games. The drivers provide early support for applications built with CUDA 5 Preview.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 306.23 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

A list of changes follows.

ASUS announced as many as five GeForce GTX 660 Ti graphics card models. The cards are based on the company's dual-slot DirectCu II cooling solution, and a PCB design that's similar to that of the GeForce GTX 670 DirectCu series. Among the five models are the GTX660 TI-DC2-2GD5, the base model that sticks to NVIDIA reference clock speeds of 915/980/6008 MHz (core/boost/memory); the GTX660 TI-DC2O-2GD5, with a mild level of factory-overclocking, at 967/1058/6008 MHz; GTX660 TI-DC2T-2GD5, or TOP variant, with 1059/1377/6008 MHz; and variants of the GTX660 TI-DC2O-2GD5 and GTX660 TI-DC2T-2GD5 that feature Steam coupons to Borderlands 2 game.

Based on the 28 nm GK104 silicon, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti packs 1344 CUDA cores, 112 TMUs, 24 ROPs, and a 192-bit wide memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory. ASUS' cards uses two 6-pin PCIe power connectors to draw power. Display outputs include a pair of dual-link DVI, and one each of HDMI and DisplayPort. The cards are 3-way SLI capable. The DirectCu II cooler uses a compound heatsink to which heat is fed by a number of copper heat pipes, which make direct contact with the GPU. ASUS plans 3 GB variants of the same models, in which six 2 Gbit memory chips make up 3072 MB of memory, with 144 GB/s memory bandwidth.

ZOTAC International, a global innovator and channel manufacturer of graphics cards, mainboards and mini-PCs, today unleashes a new generation of performance class graphics with the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 660 Ti and GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! Edition graphics cards. The new ZOTAC GeForce GTX 660 Ti duo introduces NVIDIA's latest architecture to value-conscious gamers seeking the best performance and features.

New to the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 660 Ti series is the exclusive Dual Silencer cooling solution that delivers temperatures 10-degree (Celsius) cooler and a 10dB noise reduction under full load for a superior gaming experience compared to competitors. The ZOTAC Dual Silencer provides the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! Edition with the thermal headroom necessary to push the limits and extract an extra 10-percent performance boost for higher frame rates and smoother game play.

Borderlands 2 is a big fall release for both 2K Games and Gearbox, timed to hit just when you might be getting sick of grabbing loot from a certain other game. And as a big fall release, it's getting a few special editions, because of course it is. Today 2K and Gearbox detailed the two special editions of the game and the goodies stashed within. The "Deluxe Vault Hunter's Collector's Edition" ($99.99) includes a Marcus bobblehead, a hardbound art book, sticker set, map of Pandora, digital comic download code, and bonus in-game DLC. If you want to go bigger, the "Ultimate Loot Chest Limited Edition ($149.99) includes those items, plus a scaled replica of a red loot chest, steel book case, creatures ID chart, lithograph postcard set, field notes from Sir Hammerlock, a cloth map of Pandora, and a numbered certificate of authenticity.

As previously reported on Shacknews, pre-orders of either special edition will get access to the "Borderlands 2 Premiere Club," which nets you downloads of the Gearbox Gun Pack for extra weapons, a Golden Key to open a chest with a rare item in the Golden Sanctuary, the Vault Hunter's Relic to boost abilities, and the already announced Mechromancer class. Pre-ordering the standard edition will get you the Mechromancer as well, and 2K again reiterated that it will be post-launch content.

According to Kotaku and Shack News, Borderlands 2 developer Gearbox Software is already working on DLC before the game is even released. What can you expect? A new character class. At a PAX East panel this past weekend, the developer showed conceptual images for a new Mechromancer class. The class will be available to everyone when the DLC hits 60-90 days after the game hits shelves, but it will be free to those that pre-order the game, according to Kotaku. Gearbox also detailed two special editions for the game. The first will be the "Deluxe Vault Hunters Edition" for $99, completed with a bobble-head doll of game narrator and weapons dealer Marcus Kincaid. The second will be the "Ultimate Loot Chest Edition," which offers a Borderlands 2-style loot chest, sans hydraulics. Finally, the Gearbox gang tossed out Easter eggs with codes inside, redeemable at a special website, that allowed attendees to compete to potentially insert their names into Borderlands 2 or Aliens: Colonial Marines as an Easter egg.

More and more publishers seem to be seeing Steamworks as the best viable DRM on the market and 2K Games is no exception. All PC editions of Borderlands 2 will use Valve's Steamworks suite as their DRM. Steamworks supports snazzy features beyond simple copy protection, Gearbox's shooter-RPG will also use it for multiplayer matchmaking, Steam Cloud storage, achievements, auto-updating, downloadable content, "and more." How Steamworks... works is that if you buy a boxed edition of Borderlands 2, you'll need to register the game with a Steam account, and launch it through Steam. The box will still contain a disc to install the game from, but you'll have the option to download it directly through Steam whenever you please. Digital distributors other than Steam will simply sell you a product key to activate on Steam. Steamworks was to be expected, really, as 2K Games has used it for PC editions of games it's published since Mafia II in 2010. It briefly dabbled in Games for Windows Live before then but, thankfully, that was a short-lived experiment.

Borderlands 2 is coming to PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on September 18. As ever, a selection of shiny things are on offer as pre-order bonuses.

2K Games and Gearbox Software announced today that Borderlands 2, the sequel to the multi-million unit selling breakout hit, Borderlands, will be available on the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system and Windows-based PC in North America on September 18, 2012 and internationally on September 21, 2012. Currently in development by Gearbox Software, Borderlands 2 is the sequel to the critically acclaimed four-player cooperative shooter-looter that combined intense first-person mayhem with role-playing gameplay. In addition, fans who pre-order the title from participating retailers will receive access to the Borderlands 2 Premiere Club, including rewarding in-game items and bonuses.