This was originally posted by Botman over on the old forums. I’m porting it over here so we don’t lose it.
Here’s how to enable the console on the PC version of the game and some console commands that you can use:
To enable the command console window in the game, you will need to edit the DefaultInput.ini file used by the game. Run the game at least once, create a character in the game, exit and save your game, then exit the game from the main menu. Open Windows Explorer and browse to the “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Borderlands 2\WillowGame\Config” folder. In that folder you will see a “DefaultInput.ini” file, open that file in a text editor (like Notepad). Find the “[Engine.Console]” section and add the following line right after it:
ConsoleKey=Tilde
This will use the Tilde ‘~’ key (the key above the Tab key and to the left of the 1 key on QWERTY keyboards) to pull down the console window so that you can enter console commands.
You might also want to enable the “single line console command window” (useful when turning off the HUD and taking screenshots). Do this by adding following line (just below the “ConsoleKey=” line):
TypeKey=Backslash
This will use the backslash key ‘’ (the key between the Enter key and the Backspace key on QWERTY keyboards) for the single line console window. The single line console window will automatically close itself when you hit Enter after typing in a console command (this prevents the console window from being captured in screenshots generated from the console window).
NOTE: You can use other keys instead of ‘Tilde’ or ‘Backslash’ but keep in mind that if you use any key that is also used by a function in game (for example, W, A, S, or D), those keys will activate the console instead of executing the proper function in the game and you can get into a situation where the game will not allow you to continue (for example Training dialogs that wait for the ‘Enter’ key to be pressed). So be careful what keys you pick here to make sure that there isn’t something already bound to that key in the game’s “Key Binding” screen in the “Keyboard / Mouse” Options menu.
When you get done you should have something like this (if you added both lines above):
[Engine.Console]
ConsoleKey=Tilde
TypeKey=Backslash
Now save the file and exit from the text editor. Start up the game, select ‘Continue’ from the menu and you should be able to pull down the console using the ‘~’ key (or bring up the single line console using the ‘’ key).
The following console commands can be used in game:
Stat FPS - Displays the current FPS (frames per second) in game.
ToggleHUD - Toggles the HUD on and off (useful for screenshots where you don’t want the HUD to be displayed).
FOV - Allows you to adjust the FOV beyond the range available from the Video Options menu. Note that some rendering issue may occur with very large or very small FOV settings.
Exit - Allows you to quickly exit the game.
Quit - Same as ‘Exit’
Gamma value - Allows you set the Gamma value (brightness) beyond the bounds of the Video Options menu. Value is a floating point number (for example, 2.5).
SetRes HxV - Allows you to set a custom screen resolution to a value other than what is offered in the Video Options menu. H is the horizontal resolution. V is the verical resolution (for example, “setres 1024x768”).
Shot - Take a screen shot.
Screenshot - Same as ‘Shot’
TitledShot - Takes a “tiled screenshot”. A tiled screenshot is created by taking screenshots of smaller areas of the screen (scaled up at a larger resolution) and then stitching all the smaller screenshots together into one very large high resolution screen shot. This allows you to take screenshots at a resolution higher than what you can render with your graphics card. The “TiledShot” console command takes 2 optional arguments. The first is an integer number that is a multiplier of the current screen resolution. For example, if your current screen resolution is 1024x768 and you use “tiledshot 2”, the screenshot resolution would be twice that size (2048x1536). The default value for the multiplier is 2. The second optional argument is a value to use to overlap the smaller screenshots that will be stitched together to form the larger screen shot. This overlap is required for post processing effects (like Depth of Field). As the multiplier gets larger, you should increase the value of the overlap to improve the quality of the screenshot. The default value for the overlap argument is 64 pixels.
NOTE: When using the ‘TiledShot’ command, you should first turn off the HUD using the ‘ToggleHUD’ command and you should run the ‘TiledShot’ command from the single line console window (so that it automatically closes itself before taking the screenshot). Otherwise, you will get elements of the HUD or console window broken up and scattered throughout your tiled screenshot (since the HUD rendering and console window rendering don’t support the tiled shot feature).
Also see this UDN page about the TiledShot command:
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TakingScreenshots.html
If you wish to run the game without the Launcher, you can right-click on the “Borderland 2” game in the Steam client, select ‘Properties’ and click on the “Set Launch Options” and add “-NoLauncher” and when you click on Borderlands 2 in Steam, it will run the game immediately instead of always displaying the launcher.
but good to know