"The art style...is the glue to everything," Gearbox's Mikey Neumann explains above the gentle hum of a crowded meeting room during E3. "It allows us to embrace what our game actually is, and man, when we had that epiphany, when it all came together, we were like, 'shit man, that's what this game is, this game is about having fun.'"

Neumann, whose job title today is "a guy who can get you things," is talking about the radical change that the studio's shooter-RPG Borderlands recently underwent, shifting from a gritty realistic aesthetic to something a bit more... stylized.

It was a risky move, especially considering that the game is nearing completion--it's hitting PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in October--and this is the first time that Gearbox has demonstrated the new art style, in real time, to most of the gaming media.

And though the game's not out until October, it needs to be completed much sooner than that due to the need for testing. "You can subtract two and a half to three months for certification time," he says. "Subtract three months off of October and you're...now."

That's why the team at Gearbox is already thinking about the future of Borderlands and dreaming up ideas for downloadable content. While some will be tasked with squashing the bugs that crop up during certification, others will have a bit more creative freedom.

"During cert, if you have a lot of level designers who have nothing to do--which is pretty common, you pull level design and art off first--they're gonna be making cool shit," Neumann notes hypothetically. "That cool shit, that tends to be what DLC ends up being. It's the stuff we couldn't add to the game because we're making it during cert."

Of course, those were far from the only subjects broached during our chat, with Neumann's full answers going into much, much more detail. So, instead of summarizing any further, I present Mikey Neumann. He can get you things.

Shack: It's the last day of E3. Doing well?

Mikey Neumann: Actually, yeah. It's been interesting. The first day, I walked in, it was slow. We had people come through. Wednesday, it got a little busier. Thursday, which is generally the quiet day, has been absolutely nuts. People have been begging to get in all day, which is fantastic.

We definitely gained word of mouth while we were here. It's tough, it's really hard to get noticed [in the chaos of E3]. Somehow we did, which is really, really awesome.

Shack: You think that stems out of the new art style?

Mikey Neumann: I think it stems out of a lot of stuff. We did that trailer, the E3 trailer, just before E3, and I think the art style is instantly grabbing. We wanted to make a trailer, even if it was just 15 seconds, that said "I want to see that at E3."

I think the art style is absolutely perfect at drawing people in, and then from there it's do they like what they see? The art style helped us embrace a little zanier, a little kookier side of ourselves.

There's not a lot of [E3] demos you can go to where midgets get lit on fire and their face melts off. And yet, it feels totally natural in our world. I think people really respond to that sorta... wackiness. The fighting is hardcore, it's actually real combat. You're shooting stuff, and it's dangerous and it can kill you, but we're not taking ourselves too seriously. In the land of people taking themselves way too seriously, I think it comes as a fresh air.

Shack: I'll say this much. I played the Van Helsing movie game--this goes somewhere, I promise. There was this part in it where I was in a small room full of midgets, just hacking them to bits. So the use of wee little midget enemies in Borderlands, it's cool, I haven't seen it in a while, but I've seen it before.

Mikey Neumann: Wow.

Shack: But dynamically-generated foes with baby arms? Have not seen that before.

Mikey Neumann: That's awesome. So there's something for everybody!

The baby arm, actually, does not come up that often. That was interesting. I've seen the baby arm maybe three times during E3? So I'm glad that you got to see it. You missed him throwing a grenade with it.

It's funny, the band of psychos, the midget psychos, they take enough damage and you leave them alone, they actually try to kamikaze you. They pull a grenade off and run at you. When it's like, baby-armed dude holding a grenade and running at you, it's pretty much... it's gaming bliss, really.

We're gonna get sued by every major organization. Dude, the people that are all about baby arm protection?

Shack: PETA might not come after you. I mean, the dogs come at you unprovoked, right?

Mikey Neumann: Yeah, a lot of the creatures, the initial stuff is pretty violent. Some of it's not [laughs]. PETA is welcome--it's more promotion. Throw red paint on someone walking out of the office, whatever.

Shack: One of the things that really grabbed me was the use of brighter colors in Borderlands. A while back, I was talking with someone about why Mirror's Edge was so refreshing and different. Part of it was the controls, obviously, but another thing was, with so many dark and gritty games, the look is so clean. That dark and gritty style can be kinda depressing--I'm not always drawn to it when I want to relax after work.

Mikey Neumann: I think Borderlands actually went through the same thing. Last time we were here, it was dark and gritty. Those games are fun to play, I have nothing against them, but I think as you play them, you start getting a little more depressed. You don't have the same kind of fun [as] when the game is laughing with you, if that makes any sense. Borderlands is definitely a game we want to laugh with you. We want you to enjoy the same things that we thought were funny and fun and different and new.

The art style, again, is the glue to everything. It allows us to embrace what our game actually is, and man, when we had that epiphany, when it all came together, we were like, "shit man, that's what this game is, this game is about having fun."

Really, as developers, when you have an epiphany that the game's supposed to be fun, you simultaneously feel like the biggest genius in the world and biggest idiot that has ever existed. Like, how did we forget this? How did we forget games are supposed to be fun? And we do! Walk the show floor! We forget!

Shack: As a gamer, I don't want to be, "oh, I need bright colors and purple shit to enjoy a game," but I see it in the Borderlands demo, and I'm like, "alright."

Mikey Neumann: It's self-aware. The fact that you can make Brick pink or purple, or the car pink or green or whatever--it's whatever a player wants to do, and then they sit down with their friends.

I didn't even know the colors were in the game [initially]. I can't remember what I said, but I was like, "go get a car, let's jump in." Then this pink car arrives. There's a lot of surprises like that in the game.

Read on for more on Borderlands' multiplayer mode plus talk of a demo and DLC.