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Play Borderlands over Hamachi LAN

Credit to: Kraytos @ Deviantart.com

Have you ever wanted to play Borderlands with your friends, but they just can’t manage to host anything? I have the FREE (and not crappy) solution to that!

Preface: A bunch of my friends live on their college campus, so they have no access to Port Forwarding (which usually works perfectly with correct settings) and no other configurable things besides local access. This is a PAIN when it comes to playing Borderlands, because it requires five (count em, FIVE) ports be forwarded.

The solution: Hamachi and a little shortcut editing!

What is Hamachi? Taken from their website it is as follows:

LogMeIn Hamachi² is a hosted VPN service that securely connects devices and networks, extending LAN-like network connectivity to mobile users, distributed teams and business applications. You can easily create secure virtual networks on demand, across public and private networks.

Required Software:

• Hamachi2 ( https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi2/download.aspx )
• Borderlands ( either from Steam or from another retailer )

Download and install Hamachi, and then create a network (or join your friend’s network if they have already done this and you are trying to join)

Create a network

or join a network

Then, here comes the part that took me forever to find on the internet: You have to DIRECT CONNECT with Borderlands. Since there isn’t a dev console in Borderlands, you have to edit your target shortcut, which is very easy to do! First, create another shortcut of Borderlands on your desktop, then Right Click that new shortcut and click “Properties”

Edit the properties of the shortcut

Then go to your Hamachi window and copy the Hamachi address of whoever you are trying to connect to (Right Click > Copy address). Then simply paste their address onto the end of your target, like so:

Right Click -> Copy Address

The end result of your new target should look something like this:

Edit the TARGET path of your shortcut. Simply append the Hamachi IP to the end of your target

For yours, replace the “x.x.x.x” I have listed below with the Hamachi IP address you copied:

"C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe" -applaunch 8980 x.x.x.x

Note: The above target is because I bought Borderlands on Steam. If you bought it elsewhere, yours will look something very similar, but not exact. Basically, as long as you follow this guide for your target value it’ll work:

"{INSTALL PATH}" {hamachi_IP}

Then have your friend (or whoever is hosting) start Borderlands and hit “Host LAN Game.” Then, once their game is up and running, run your custom shortcut. Its as simple as that!

Happy Borderlanding!