Movies
We Really Only Know One Thing About ‘Borderlands 3’
29
Mar
Mar
We Really Only Know One Thing About ‘Borderlands 3’
Well that’s Borderlands 3, I suppose. Gearbox Software gave an…interesting PAX East panel today, and people that tuned in to largely to see the first glimpse of Borderlands 3 were also treated to the rules of a tabletop game described in extensive detail, a malfunctioning trailer that then had to be sort of described by people on stage and, my personal favorite, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford making his way through a surprisingly lengthy card trick. Welcome to the world of video games, ladies and gentlemen. But we did, at the end of the day, get to actually see a trailer for Borderlands 3. You can watch it below, and I promise there will be no card tricks lengthy or even brief:
So, you know, it’s Borderlands and it looks like Borderlands. We have some stylized cel-shaded folks bopping around in colorful environs with vaguely western and post-apocalyptic influences. There was a big city and a tenor saxophone, both of which I can get behind. Overall, this thing falls a little more into the realm of teaser than full reveal, I’d argue, because there really isn’t any information in the trailer at all beyond the fact that this is definitely Borderlands 3. Which looks fine, don’t get me wrong, I just still have some questions.
There is a single piece of information we can glean from today, and it didn’t come from the trailer so much as Randy Pitchford’s opening statements for the presentation: this game is not a battle royale. The line drew applause, though that was before the card magic. It definitely would have been possible to get some battle royale into the Borderlands universe, so I’ll count this as genuine information.
Aside from that, I’d really like a release date or a release window: at first, I was assuming this would come this fall, but the spare announcement makes me think we’re not quite ready for that yet. Expect to hear more at E3: if we don’t, then this thing is definitely not coming out in 2019. Beyond that, I’d like to know to what degree this will be a live service or shared world game: the loot shooter mechanics of the Borderlands series are an obvious fit for something like Destiny, but it would be pretty Borderlands to stick to its roots and keep this as an experience that can be enjoyed offline. I thought we’d have answers today, but it looks like we’ll have to wait.
