Few games have promised and then delivered as much mayhem as Borderlands, the loot ‘em
up from Gearbox Software. With a spin-off of the series on the horizon, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands,
we decided it was time to take a look back, so here’s the History of Borderlands.
In 2007, Gearbox Software had some interesting projects in the works.
They were in pre-production on a game based on the movie Aliens, wonder what happened to
that one, and were apparently in talks with director Michael Mann to make a Heat game.
The team was also deep in production on another title, a hybrid first-person shooter
and role-playing game called Borderlands. The team were familiar with making first-person shooters,
after working on expansion packs for Half-Life, as well as the PC port of Halo: Combat Evolved,
but wanted to combine their knowledge of making FPS games with their love of loot grinding in
games like Diablo to create a shooter “that would have loot coming out of every orifice”.
The game was revealed via the September 2007 Game Informer cover, and even during this first look,
the ambition was clear. The game was built for co-op in mind from the start,
with players taking control of one of the three playable characters:
Roland, Mordecai, and Lillith, and playing solo, with AI, or with up to three others online or in
split-screen co-op. There were vehicles to drive around the expansive wastes of the planet Pandora,
numerous skills to unlock, and to scratch that looting itch,
Gearbox boasted over 500,000 unique weapons which would be procedurally generated for players.
While the Game Informer article offered a few images of the game, the first trailer wouldn’t
arrive until almost a year later at E3 2008 (Borderlands First Trailer), and compared to
the whacky, colourful Borderlands we know today, the Borderlands of 2008 was… dare I say it,
a little generic looking. And it seemed that Gearbox knew it. Testers kept comparing the game
to iD Software’s Rage, and the recently released Fallout 3, and there was a clashing of themes:
the gameplay was ridiculous and over the top, but the visuals suggested gritty realism.
The team was 75% of the way through the project and didn’t have the money to reboot it,
so the team switched up the art style to look more like ink-lined comic books,
and scrapped the “boring” abilities from the skill trees, emphasising the whackier
ones. The new art style was such a hit, but an awful lot of work to implement,
so Gearbox employees from other games started helping out on Borderlands in their spare time.
Borderlands launched in October 2009, shoulder to shoulder with juggernauts like
Uncharted 2, Halo 3: ODST, and Modern Warfare 2, but was a surprise hit,
with Xbox 360 copies even selling out in many stores on the East Coast of the US.
Praise was heaped upon its gameplay, which was at its best when players grouped up to play together,
with players finding the loop of shooting enemies, gathering loot, and levelling up
intensely satisfying: there was always another enemy to shoot, another new gun to get,
and another skill to unlock. Each of the now four Vault Hunters offered their own unique powers
that would sing when played together with friends in co-op. Death didn’t necessarily mean the end
either, if you were downed in battle, killing another enemy would give you a second wind,
pushing you back into the fight. The new art style worked in its favour, making the expansive
world of Pandora visually appealing and more in line with the game’s over the top nature.
Less positively received was the game’s story, which was described as “thin” in
our review. Players would take control of one of four Vault Hunters who would scour Pandora,
an almost barren planet that had been picked over by one of the universe’s many corporations,
to find key fragments that, when combined would unlock a
Vault full of untold riches on the planet. Helping you out on your quest is Claptrap,
an… excitable robot who would unfortunately go on to become the mascot for the series.
Borderlands received four pieces of downloadable content, and while they offered the usual:
new missions, areas, weapons, and enemies, they also acted as a testbed for the developers to
try out new ideas. Borderlands sold 2 million copies in just two months,
high numbers for a new IP pushing its way to market during the busiest time of year, and while
a sequel was “a no-brainer” according to Gearbox, it took them a few years to actually announce it.
In August 2011, publisher 2K and Gearbox officially revealed Borderlands 2,
and while initial details were scant, Gearbox promised that the sequel would be bigger and
better than the first game, offering new character classes, weapons, enemies, and areas to explore,
as well as an “ambitiously crafted story”. At Gamescom that year, Gearbox offered a glimpse
of what that meant: the game’s weapon system had been replaced, the AI had been improved,
more voice acting had been added, and the quest and vehicle systems had been overhauled.
The thin story had been heavily criticised in the first game, so in order to create a better
connection between the gameplay of Borderlands and its story, the lead designer and the lead writer
worked more closely together for Borderlands 2. The goal was to make a story so ridiculous
that it would be beyond criticism, something to fit the nature of the gameplay itself.
One of the biggest changes came with the cast of playable characters, the four original Vault
Hunters were replaced with Axton, Maya, Salvador, and Zer0, with two more launching later as DLC.
But that didn’t mean the end of the original Vault Hunters, they returned as NPCs and quest
givers in the game, a nice nod for those who got attached while playing Borderlands 1. The new and
old heroes were teaming up against Handsome Jack, the charming president of the nefarious Hyperion
Corporation who brings his forces to Pandora hoping to open another Vault on the planet.
Gearbox promised a bigger, better sequel, and boy did they deliver. Fans loved exploring the
more expansive, exciting world of Pandora and all of the new opportunities for mayhem it presented.
Reviewers praised the writing, in particular new characters like Tiny Tina, but more from
her in a bit. But Borderlands 2 wasn’t without its controversies. Before the game launched, the
developers caught flak for referring to the Mechromancer’s skilltree as the “girlfriend
mode” for lesser skilled players, with its actual name being Best Friends Forever.
In the UK, Borderlands 2 was the most pre-ordered 2K game ever, and by 2014,
it became the highest-selling 2K game in history, selling well over 12 million copies by 2015.
It came as no surprise then, that Hollywood came knocking, with Lionsgate announcing a
film of the series in 2016. While it still hasn’t been released as of early 2022,
huge names like Jamie Lee Curtis, Cate Blanchett, and Jack Black are attached to star.
Borderlands 2 had a number of pieces of downloadable content,
including new Vault Hunters Gaige the Mechromancer and Krieg the Psycho. 2013's
Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep was a vast departure from the story of the vault hunters,
where Tina ran a tabletop game of Bunkers and Badasses–the Pandora
take on Dungeons & Dragons–and the Vault Hunters would father as a party to rescue Butt Stallion
from the evil Handsome Sorcerer. The pack was well received, later being released as a standalone
one-shot in 2021, and serving as the inspiration for the spin off game, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.
After the release of the wildly successful Borderlands 2, Gearbox began working with 2K
Australia to make a prequel that would bridge the story and explain how Handsome Jack rose to
power in the first place. The majority of production was conducted by 2K Australia,
but certain key team members like the writers of Borderlands 2 worked with them to craft the game.
In this new game, Hyperion employee Jack finds clues to a vault on a moon of Pandora,
and hires 4 Vault Hunters to crack it open for him. The 4 playable characters had all appeared
in previous games in one way or another, either as bosses or NPCs, including series mascot Claptrap.
Pre-Sequel offered a few tweaks to the known Borderlands formula,
like adding new weapon types, vehicles like the hovercraft, as well as low gravity areas and the
need to use O2 canisters for air, which would let you double jump when you had them equipped.
Pre-Sequel didn’t set the world on fire, with reviewers criticising the
story and some repetition in the late game. It was initially released for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC,
and was later brought to PS4, Xbox One and PC as part of the Handsome Collection, bundled with
Borderlands 2. 2K Australia was sadly shuttered in 2015, a few months after the game’s launch.
In 2014, Telltale Games began to release Tales from the Borderlands: an episodic adventure
game set in the Borderlands universe. The project came about when Gearbox and Telltale were sitting
at neighbouring tables at the Spike Video Game Awards in 2012. The two companies got to chatting,
and over a few drinks, the idea to set a Telltale game in the Borderlands universe came up.
While Tales from the Borderlands did have some action in it,
it was a far cry from the bombastic mayhem of the main series. However,
fans still praised the story, its two protagonists Rhys and Fiona, as well as
the choice-driven gameplay. When Telltale Games closed in 2018, the 5 episodes were pulled from
sale until 2K managed to obtain the rights and rereleased the series almost three years later.
After the release of Borderlands 1 and 2, Gearbox was a little tired of the series,
and so shifted its sights onto different projects, including Battleborn, a hero
shooter meets MOBA. Battleborn was not a success, partly because it received middling reviews,
and partly because Blizzard released its own hero shooter, Overwatch just a few weeks later.
Battleborn eventually closed down, but it turned out the experience working on
something new was just what the team at Gearbox needed.
As is the Gearbox way, the team wanted to go bigger and better with the third installment:
no longer just centered on the planet Pandora, Borderlands 3 allowed players,
via their ship Sanctuary III, to traverse the galaxy to find Vaults that were hidden on other
planets before the Children of the Vault could. After Handsome Jack’s defeat in Borderlands 2,
a new power had risen in the form of a cult loosely inspired by streamer culture
with its two leaders looking to grab the vaults for themselves.
Like with previous titles, Borderlands 3 offered procedurally generated loot,
and promised over one billion guns for players to potentially find. Co-op also received some tweaks,
thanks to the Level Syncing system, everyone could play together, regardless of their level,
and each would be matched by level appropriate enemies. And for those who hate squabbling over
loot, you could set your game so that each player would receive level-appropriate drops.
Borderlands 3 released in September 2019,
and received two season passes worth of content, including game packs, new skill trees,
and a new game mode which was basically a type of Borderlands Battle Royale.
Thanks to an exclusivity deal with the Epic Games Store, it was exclusive to that storefront on PC
for six months, leading to other games in the series being review bombed on Steam.
Borderlands 3 was eagerly anticipated, and the game even had a crossover with Fortnite.
It reviewed really well, expanding the Borderlands gameplay formula,
and offering payoffs for story beats that fans had been following for a decade.
As of the end of 2019, Borderlands 3 has sold over 8 million copies, and its success
helped the franchise hit over $1 billion. Which brings us to Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands,
which once again sees Tina in the role of Bunkermaster as she guides you and your party
through an epic high-fantasy adventure. Instead of choosing from a pre-made Vault hunter,
the game allows you to create your own character, and mix and match your skills.
Not only can you use guns in the game, but now you can use melee weapons like swords
as well as magic to fend off the hordes of enemies you’ll be up against. The majority
of the action is in first-person, but when traversing the overworld,
your characters turn into cute table top miniature versions of themselves.
The game also features a pretty high-profile cast, including Andy Samberg and Will Arnett.
Which was your favourite Borderlands game? Let us know in the comments, and make sure to subscribe
to GameSpot for more on Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, coming your way very soon. Thanks for watching!