Borderlands is a funny old series—one I have plenty of affection for, clumsy story aside. Its formula hasn’t changed much in the past few years, ignoring the industry landslide of looter shooters all becoming live service games in favour of your bog-standard ARPG model, sans some expansion packs and class additions along the way.
Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, naturally, has a lot of affection for it too. So much so, in fact, that he appears to have said too much and all but-confirmed a new Borderlands game is in the pipeline with details coming soon, stopping short of a wink wink, nudge nudge.
In a recent interview with TheGamer, Pitchford opens with an “Oh man,” like he’s been busted vandalising public property in a Simpsons episode, adding: “I don’t think I’ve done a good enough job of hiding the fact that we’re working on something … And I think people that love Borderlands are going to be very excited about what we’re working on.”
Dear reader, I try not to put words in people’s mouths as much as possible, but this seems like a pretty clear-cut overshare to me—a new Borderlands thing is in the pipeline, and is going to be announced properly soon. Considering how little Borderlands has messed around with its base formula, though, I’d be surprised if it’s anything out of the ordinary.
That being said, there’s a small, fearful part of my old fogey heart that wonders if we’ll be finally getting the ancient, ill-fated Borderlands Online that was briefly announced and then obliterated in 2015. Mind, as the public, $200 million loss tailspin that was Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leauge proved, looter shooters are a risky and expensive investment—if Gearbox is suddenly rocking up to the proper live service machine, I deeply fear for the future of the series.
More likely we’ll be getting… I don’t know. Borderlands 4? Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands 2? It would be a very interesting time for the series to start making brave and exciting choices, in the same way it’d be interesting to see your mate (who has never tried to do a backflip before) suddenly announcing, loudly, “hey, watch me do this backflip!” in the middle of a crowded bar. Whatever happens afterwards is bound to be painful, fascinating, and would probably rack up a large bill.
We’ll be finding out soon, though, according to Pitchford: “These are fuzzy words, but sooner rather than later, we’re going to be talking about what we’ve been working on, and I can’t wait.” Let’s just hope it’s not a movie franchise, because I think that ship might’ve sunk before it left the docks.
