See if you have what it takes to go down in history as a legendary Vault Hunter as you search for secret alien treasure, blasting everything in sight in Borderlands 4, coming in 2025.
Wishlist the next entry in the iconic franchise now on Steam. Follow our social channels and sign up for the Borderlands newsletter to ensure you don't miss any future reveals for Borderlands 4.
In the Borderlands 4 Teaser Trailer above, which debuted as part of Gamescom Opening Night Live with Geoff Keighley, you'll get your first glimpse of an all-new planet, and the moments directly following the ending of Borderlands 3.
SPOILERS FOR BORDERLANDS 3'S ENDING BELOW
After a pursuit that took the Crimson Raiders across the universe, Lilith finally regained her stolen Siren powers—but Pandora's moon of Elpis was on a catastrophic collision course with the planet. To save all of Pandora, Lilith was determined to "run towards the fire" and launched herself at Elpis, teleporting the entire moon into unknown space and leaving behind the Firehawk emblem. Now we've seen where Elpis ended up—along with the cataclysmic aftermath.
Borderlands Franchise Sale
Don't miss big savings on the Borderlands series!*
For the first time ever, get all six Borderlands adventures in one Mayhem-fueled package, all at an incredible value. Borderlands Collection: Pandora's Box is a digital-only bundle available now on PC via Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation®4, and PlayStation®5.
This bundle includes all six acclaimed base games from the Borderlands franchise: Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition, Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Tales from the Borderlands, Borderlands 3, and New Tales from the Borderlands, as well as all of their add-on content.*
Experience the iconic franchise that defined the looter-shooter genre with its over-the-top firefights, absurdly varied arsenals, and thrilling interplanetary adventures perfect for solo and co-op play. If you've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to dive headfirst into the series, Borderlands Collection: Pandora's Box is the ideal way for newcomers and veterans to get every Borderlands game to date in one convenient bundle. With four looter-shooters and two narrative adventures to play through, you better be prepared for maximum Mayhem. [
Get 40 Golden Keys and more
To celebrate the debut of Borderlands Collection: Pandora's Box, you can snag a whopping 40 Golden Keys that grant you awesome in-game loot!
Claim 10 Golden Keys each for Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition, Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and Borderlands 3, as well as the Axton Vaultlander for New Tales from the Borderlands, by signing up to receive newsletters and digital marketing from 2K and Gearbox. Check out the instructions on the Borderlands homepage for full details on how to get your rewards.**
Borderlands players know that Golden Keys are precious, as they're the only way to open the Golden Chest found in each game's hub area. Opening the Golden Chest grants you a random assortment of powerful gear that's always appropriate for your current character level. To use your Golden Keys, look for the Golden Chest in the following in-game locations:
Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition: Fyrestone and New Haven
Borderlands 2: Sanctuary
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel: Concordia
Borderlands 3: Sanctuary III
Month of Mayhem events
In honor of Borderlands Collection: Pandora's Box and two Borderlands game anniversaries this September, we're kicking off the Month of Mayhem, a four-week celebration of all things Borderlands packed with reward giveaways and in-game mini-events!
Stay tuned to get your hands on Golden Keys and max-level Legendary weapons for the looter-shooter Borderlands titles, Diamond Keys for Borderlands 3, and the return of the Loot the Universe limited-time mini-event! Be sure to check out the dedicated Month of Mayhem article for the full schedule and details so you don't miss out on anything.
*Includes all available downloadable content as of September 1, 2023. Dual entitlement to New Gen and Current Gen versions of Borderlands 3 and New Tales from the Borderlands included for consoles. All other titles available for Current Gen and playable on New Gen via backwards compatibility.
**Requires a copy of Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition, Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Borderlands 3, and/or New Tales from the Borderlands. Users must opt-in to receive newsletters and digital marketing from 2K and Gearbox via a verified 2K Account or a verified SHiFT Account and log-in to your verified SHiFT Account in the game to receive rewards. Offer ends at 11:59 PM ET on December 31, 2025. Users will receive 10 Golden Keys each delivered in-game for Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition, Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and Borderlands 3 for up to 40 Golden Keys total if you own all four games. In-game loot granted by Golden Keys is randomized; weapons and gear shown above are for reference only. Axton Vaultlander will be delivered in-game in New Tales from the Borderlands. Please allow for up to a week to receive your in-game rewards. One redemption per SHiFT account. Void where prohibited. Terms apply.
The Steam Awards: Sit Back & Relax with New Tales from the Borderlands
Anu, Octavio, & Fran’s story isn’t the only one where your choices matter – don’t forget to support New Tales from the Borderlands in the Sit Back and Relax category for this year’s Steam Awards!
New Tales from the Borderlands out now!
Make Mayhem Your Business in this all-new, narrative-driven Borderlands adventure!
It's time to Make Mayhem Your Business! An extraordinary cinematic adventure awaits in New Tales from the Borderlands, out now on Steam!
On the war-torn planet of Promethea, three ordinary Meridian City citizens embark on a journey that will change their lives—and possibly the entire universe—forever. Anu, Octavio, and Fran will try to turn the tables on greedy corporations, survive the mayhem of a planetary invasion, and even risk life and limb in the face of a vicious vault monster on their quest to carve out a better existence.
Along the way, you'll make friends with an assassination bot, square off against a talking gun with legs, wield the power of a revolutionary new invention, and much more!
The decisions you make determine how your story ends in unexpected ways. Whether it's Anu's vision of a universe that markets more than weapons, Octavio's dreams of fame and fortune, or Fran's frosty plot for revenge—their success or failure depends on you.
We hope you enjoy experiencing this thrilling story; good luck taking Tediore's ruthless CEO Susan Coldwell down a notch. And if you're hoping to learn more about New Tales from the Borderlands, we've gathered all the goods for you right here!
New Tales Dev Diary #3 - The Art of Performance Capture
New Tales from the Borderlands features cinematic performances thanks to Gearbox's use of motion capture (or mocap for short). This is the first Borderlands game to feature full performance capture, recreating each actors' body motions, facial expressions, and spoken dialogue all at once! The result: stunning visuals and a deeper narrative experience.
Amélie Brouillette, Associate Producer at Gearbox Studio Quebec, oversaw much of the mocap work for the game as the Shoot Manager (cameras, not guns) across 11 months and a whopping 700 hours of filming.
To learn more about the painstaking work that went into bringing the characters of New Tales to life, we sat down with Amélie.
Meticulous motion capture Previous Borderlands games used mocap to bolster their animations, but that was solely reserved for capturing body movements, with actors dubbing in their dialogue later on. For facial animations, a program was used to match the mouth movements to the audio, and everything else had to be keyframed (i.e. animated by hand in a labor-intensive process).
But for New Tales, full performance capture was a literal game-changer. Accurately capturing body movements, detailed facial expressions, and audio as one complete package gave the Gearbox team the tools they needed to create a more immersive story.
But even with all that sweet, sweet data, the team still had to overcome technical limitations to bring the game to life.
"We could only have four facial cameras at the same time, so we had to prioritize what to shoot and when," says Amélie. "Each recording session has to be planned out in super intense detail. Does this scene have props? Will an actor touch something? If yes, what, when, and where? What's the height of that object? Will they look at something in the world, like a picture hanging on the wall? Where is the picture, and how big is it, and what is it a picture of?"
Save for any props present, the motion capture stage is a blank canvas. To help ground the actors in the scene, the animation team provided animated storyboards and layouts for each shot.
"These help the actors know where they should be, what they're doing in a given scene, and where the cameras are," says Amélie. "It's a rough blocking with all of the characters moving like robots, but it lets us know where they are and what they should be mindful of given the way the camera is framing the shot."
On top of all that, time is of the essence when shooting the segments of a scene as the system can only handle two minutes of data at a time.
Amélie estimates that roughly 98% of the game's roles used full performance capture, with some exceptions being the extras who populate crowded scenes and characters like Sponsorbot that are purely digital with no corporeal form to capture.
Once shooting wrapped on each episode the best takes were selected. Those were given to the animation team who worked to bring it into the game, polish the motion, and heighten movements to create the final experience.
Only in the Borderlands The Borderlands present some interesting challenges for full performance capture. The universe is full of danger and Mayhem, as exemplified by Tediore crony Brock, a talking gun with legs.
"We actually recorded both body motion and audio for Brock—we had a prop of Brock's gun body made of wood, and the actor was moving it and talking at the same time," laughs Amélie. "It was awesome. I really like Brock!"
Because some characters don't have faces, like assassin bot L0U13 and Tediore soldiers with full helmets, the performers and animation team had to employ different tactics to create emotions, including body language and screen displays.
The Gameplay Trailer above shows towering Eridian Guardians who wreak havoc on the Tediore forces that dare disturb their Vault.
"That Eridian shoot, my goodness... it was one of the most intense days for the mocap team," Amélie laughs. "We hired a stunt worker who specializes in stilts, with the director for mocap and the director of animation on hand to figure out how to capture the Eridians' movements in just the right way.
"That scene has people dying everywhere, including the Tediore soldier who flies through the air and lands spine-first on a spike. That was actually mocapped, if you can believe it. We had a guy—safely—jump backwards onto a pole with a mattress on it.
"I think for that one scene alone, we shot for an entire day."
With four possible responses at multiple points in the script, the team had to plan carefully around branching narrative paths and multiple conversation options.
"Usually, we would record the question from the main path, then one of the choices that we think is most difficult in terms of continuity," says Amélie. "Then we record the final part of the answer after those questions, constantly referring to a tool we used to chart out the many paths that the script takes.
"For the actors it was really challenging at the beginning, but after a day or two they had it down. Usually we shot four or five sequences in a row, then returned to the choices we didn't shoot initially.
"When going back to the alternate choices, we had to be very careful about a lot of things, but two in particular. First was the continuity: if, when you ask the question, your hands are in the air, then you move them during Choice A, you have to reset the position of your hands when shooting Choice B, and so on.
"Secondly, the same rule applied to props. If during the question you had a gun in your back pocket, and during the answer you pull it out, then each time you start with the question, you have to start from the same position of having the gun in your back pocket.
"I'm usually more of a macro-manager, but in those cases I had to very much be a micro-manager!"
Overcoming new challenges Perhaps the biggest challenge of all was having to shoot during a global pandemic.
"It was really tough working in this then-unknown area," says Amélie. "I had to work on two-thirds of the shoots from home with five screens in front of me, across a three-hour time zone difference, working with the team in Vancouver from here in Quebec.
"There was a screen for the script, one for a visual of all the actors, a window for chatting with the designers, writers, and animators, and so on. It felt like I was in a spaceship," she laughs.
Numerous steps were taken to ensure the continuous health and safety of the cast and crew, with everyone taking COVID tests every 48 hours. Scenes were also reworked and rewritten to fit safety guidelines.
"I even hired body doubles that were on call if any of the primary actors got sick. Fortunately, the planets aligned and none of them got COVID-19," says Amélie. "It was definitely a more complex plan; we shot with a very small-scale crew and avoided contact whenever we could."
Aside from the COVID protocols, Amélie and the team also took care to make sure the actors weren't drained by having to record a barrage of tough scenes.
"When I created the schedule, I added a highlight to denote the more emotional scenes," Amélie explains. "During those scenes, you don't rush. You take your time; you're looking at the actors, seeing if they need a break and if they're OK.
"What was amazing with that project is: the actors said that typically their contracts for shoots span one or two weeks, rarely a full year. Over the course of our 11 months of shooting, we really had a chance to develop a working relationship. They could come to me and say 'Amélie, can I take five minutes just to calm down?' or stretch, or the like, because it's really intense for them.
"They were super professional and always gave their best."
You can take the time to appreciate the magnitude of mocap work that went into New Tales from the Borderlands when it launches this Friday, October 21. We can't wait for you to experience this extraordinary cinematic adventure where you'll Make Mayhem Your Business!
New Tales Dev Diary #2 – The people of Promethea and Tediore
Get developer insights on returning to the besieged metropolis of Promethea and learning more about the Tediore corporation in New Tales from the Borderlands!
Everyone in the Borderlands is trying to eke out the best existence they can—and when you aren't a Vault Hunter or a psycho bandit, your life doesn't constantly revolve around violence. New Tales from the Borderlands gives you a closer look at the everyday lives of people on the megapolis planet of Promethea, which our heroes Anu, Octavio, and Fran all call home. And where there are people, there will be corporations to exploit them—corporations like Tediore, pursuing a new pipeline for profits under the leadership of Susan Coldwell. How do these otherwise average people get by in such a hostile universe?
Just as she did in New Tales Dev Diary 1, Lin Joyce, Head of Writing at Gearbox Software, is here to provide more insight into the making of New Tales from the Borderlands. Read on for details about how the team crafted the lives of regular people and corporate CEOs alike—from the bottom to the top of Promethea's capitalist food chain, if you will.
Promethea's everyday populace The people of Promethea just can't catch a break. During the events of Borderlands 3, Promethea's cities were besieged by the Maliwan corporation during its attempted takeover of Atlas, and everyday citizens were inevitably caught in the crossfire. Orbital lasers rained down from the sky, including the beam that took out a sizable chunk of Fran's Frogurts. Now, roughly a year after the dust from that skirmish has started to settle, another merger-turned-warzone seems to be just around the corner.
"You play the mainline Borderlands games as the Vault Hunters, and what I love about New Tales is that it begs the question, 'What happened for everyone else? What about them?'" says Lin. "This game is us saying 'Yeah, let's talk about that! What did happen for the rest of society? What is life like if you're not a Vault Hunter? What's the day-to-day?' A lot of other recent media is looking at that concept these days, like superhero shows asking 'What's it like if you don't have superpowers? What's that power dynamic?' This is our opportunity to poke at that question in the Borderlands universe."
Promethea's neon-trimmed concrete jungle is also a far cry from the harsh desert wastelands of Pandora that Borderlands fans are intimately familiar with. Population density and life expectancy are exponentially higher; citizens aren't forced to constantly fight for their lives, freeing up their time for thrilling activities like shopping at the mall, grabbing a bite at a taco truck, or updating their social media. Life is comparatively pretty good, even with the constant thread of corporate invasions.
"Personally, I really liked the idea of being able to take a closer look at a more metropolitan environment—something that's very different from Pandora, or one of the Eden moons," says Lin. "One of the opportunities there is that you can tell a small, focused story that has huge ramifications. What the rest of the city doesn't know is that what these three people are doing will change history for everyone; it's happening right under the city's nose."
How our heroes get along Speaking of those three people, Anu, Octavio, and Fran each have their own motivations for trying to effect change in the world around them. You'll get to know them better over the course of the game, but at a high level, Anu hopes to invent technology designed to help instead of hurt, Octavio dreams of entrepreneurial success to back up his natural bravado, and Fran just wants what Tediore owes her in the way of insurance money to fix up her wrecked froyo shop.
From the moment that Anu, Octavio, and Fran's paths converge early on in the story, their relationships will be monitored and evaluated by L0U13, a debonair assassination bot and Octavio's longtime buddy. As discussed in Dev Diary 1, the way your bonds are calculated based on your words and actions all happens behind the scenes—but at the end of each episode, L0U13's readouts will give you a snapshot of where things stand between our trio of lovable losers.
Along with an overall team bond score, you'll get further insight into how things are going between the three possible character pairings: "Brain 'N Brawn" (Anu and Fran), "Sis 'N Bro" (Anu and Octavio), and "Yogurt 'N Tacos" (Octavio and Fran).
"For me, the most challenging pair to write for was Fran and Anu, but that's the nature of the story," says Lin. "Fran and Octavio know each other already as employer and lone employee, so there's an assumed level of intimacy there. Similarly, Octavio and Anu have the family history as adopted siblings to pull from. But Anu and Fran meet for the first time in front of the player, so their relationship is starting from zero; there is no assumed intimacy or history to refer to.
"You can't call back to a moment that they had off-screen; everything is onscreen. Because of that, Anu and Fran don't have a ton of one-on-one experiences; there aren't a lot of moments where it's just the two of them alone, so a lot of their relationship-building happens in a group, with all the group dynamics that come with that. So that pairing was a little more complicated."
As for writing the dialogue of our three protagonists, each character holds a place in Lin's heart. "All writers approach the characters differently, but we had pillars for who these characters are, what their touchpoints are," she explains. "I consider myself a Fran stan, but Anu was the easiest for me to write, as she's the most like me. I rarely had to question what Anu would do—writing for her flowed naturally. Anu's pillars are my pillars. Often with Octavio I based his responses off one of my children, who has a lot of those same qualities. Funnily enough, he got his first job while we were writing New Tales, and I kid you not, it was at a froyo place."
A tour of Tediore Standing in opposition to our protagonists is the monolithic Tediore corporation, headed by the ruthless CEO Susan Coldwell. Though Tediore has been a part of the Borderlands universe since the very first game, players haven't had much visibility into this corporation's inner workings—particularly the cold-hearted capitalism currently coursing through its veins.
"Some fans were thinking that Tediore might've been 'one of the good ones,' but it's more like shades of gray," says Lin. "Susan Coldwell is an individual; she's the voice of the company. What we don't establish is how long she's been there. We know that Rhys Strongfork is still pretty new to running a company; he's not always been the CEO of Atlas, as we know from the existing Borderlands story. We know there's a lot of history with Jakobs as well, and with Maliwan. So I think this is just the first page that we're filling in for Tediore, but it's absolutely not the whole story."
Susan herself is the perfect foil to Anu, Octavio, and Fran: an untouchable elite who would loathe such commoners if she could even spare a moment to think of them. Her belittling, holier-than-thou demeanor stands in stark contrast to the southern charm of Wainwright Jakobs or the impassioned, expletive-laden yelling of Mister Torgue, for example.
"We looked at our CEOs and said 'Who do we have, and what's missing?'" says Lin. "Who else needs a seat at that table, what kind of personality, what kind of leader, what kind of business views? It wasn't necessarily just about putting a face to Tediore—it was about how we add to the spectrum of corporate CEOs that we've established, trying to fill in a component that we felt was missing and exploring it. But it's also asking the question 'Sure, Tediore markets itself as being for everyone… How much do they believe that? How much of that is marketing spin?' These are all questions we had fun playing with."
The very notion that any massive, universe-spanning corporation could have humanity's interests at heart may be flawed. "At a base level, the Borderlands corporations run weapons companies," says Lin. "Weapons are for very specific things, and it's generally not to keep people healthy. That created a critical talking point for us that New Tales allowed us to really sit with. What does it mean to live in a universe ruled by corporatocracy, where those corporations are all weapons manufacturers?"
New Tales Dev Diary #1 - The making of your underdog story
Get developer insights on New Tales from the Borderlands, including initial planning, design decisions, and more!
The stories of our daily lives unfold through some combination of free will, fate, a higher power, and the entropy of the universe—but how does a choice-based narrative adventure likeNew Tales from the Borderlands come into being? The Gearbox development team has carefully crafted the tale of Anu, Octavio, and Fran joining forces to make mayhem their business, but as the player, you're the one in control of how exactly their story will be told.
So how do the writers decide where to drop in all those conversational, comical, or soul-crushing decisions? How should those choices play into the ultimate direction that your story goes? And when is stone-cold silence appropriate?
Lin Joyce, Head of Writing at Gearbox Software and a bona fide PhD in Narrative System Design, has the answers to those questions and many more. In this first New Tales Dev Diary article, Lin shares a behind-the-scenes look at the overarching design of New Tales from the Borderlands and how this extraordinary Borderlands story came into being thanks to the combined efforts of the development team.
Charting a narrative course When you boil it all down, the story of New Tales is determined by two core elements. "On a game like this, there's always a narrative design component and the script component," explains Lin. "The narrative design element is looking at how the player is going to interact with the story and have a level of agency in the direction that the script goes. First you have to chart everything out, then you start plugging in the script.
"As a lead, you have purview over both the narrative design and the script. For any given scene, you have to think, 'What is the player's opportunity to impact this moment? What are the mechanics that filter into that?' But also, what story are we telling, and what are the characters saying? It was my job to be the custodian of the cohesive vision, so that we could delegate across our team of four writers, while making sure that the overall plan and outline for the story are being met."
How in the world does the script go from a blank sheet of paper to the cinematic thrill ride that unfolds between our three protagonists and everyone (or everything) they come into contact with? "As we're going through the outline and narratively designing it, a lot of it, at least for me, is letting the characters tell you where the path of the story should split," says Lin. "For the outline, there has to be a thread of consistency that you're tracking throughout to make a cohesive experience. But there are those moments where as human beings, we think 'What would I do in this scenario?'
"If as a writer I'm asking myself that question, the beauty of an interactive narrative is that I can answer it both ways, or all four ways, or however many ways, and see where that takes me. So anytime we get the question of 'What would Octavio do?' The answer is 'Don't decide—just let it go, play with that.' In that way it's really freeing as a writer to be able to examine all the possible things a character might do that are true to a version of that character. Some days I choose chaos, right? Other days I don't. They're both still me."
Of course, any story worth its salt sees its fair share of revisions during the creative process. "For a story-driven game, the story is the key mechanic, so we made sure that it stayed flexible until the very end of development," says Lin. "Whenever we had the first draft of an episode written, we'd turn it into a playable version of the script with text-to-speech programs reading each character's lines. Then we'd bring all the team leads in for a table read—not just the narrative team, but the design team, character art, cinematics, audio, on and on. It was fun having the other stakeholders shout out things they wanted to try for each conversation option. If no one was picking an option, we'd think "Maybe we've got to go rewrite that; no one seemed stoked about that choice."
Living with your decisions If you've played the original Tales from the Borderlands or narrative games like it, you'll be intimately familiar with the common sight of "[This character] will remember that" popping up in the corner of the screen after you've made a particularly impactful choice. But there are no such markers in New Tales from the Borderlands, with the developers making a conscious design decision to keep any ripple effects of your choices ambiguous. "If a game is telling you through its UI what it thinks is important, then it's also signaling what isn't," says Lin. "That can easily break immersion, or make players think to game the system."
Oftentimes, the temptation to quickly undo a conversation choice or desperate decision you made on instinct can actively take you out of the plot. "When I see that notification, I might think 'If this character is going to remember that, and I don't want them to, I now know to close the game, reload, and do it again,'" says Lin.
The same pitfalls apply when games tack a binary moral alignment onto the choices you make. "I might start off an RPG thinking, 'I'm going to pick the choices that are very true to me'—but the minute the game starts telling me that something was an evil choice, I'm like 'Don't judge me! Don't tell me I'm bad!'" Lin laughs. "You start to have this moral conversation with the game itself rather than its story. I might've learned more lessons about myself had the game not been intruding in that way. We want people playing New Tales to think, 'Yeah, I chose that. I don't necessarily know when and where to come back to play it differently because I want the 'good' ending.' There is no 'wrong' ending here; they're all justified based on your choices."
Uncertainty about the ramifications of each choice also encourages conversation, with everyone sharing personal moments and trying to decipher where their paths started to diverge. "Because we're not immediately telling you exactly where the tracking points between characters are, there's a lot to discuss with other players," says Lin. "We want people to play and experiment with the game and the story to learn a little bit more, and one of the ways to do that was to actually remove that prompt or that immediate feedback."
Silence can be golden Though it's not always an option, many conversations in New Tales include the choice to simply say nothing and let the resulting silence do the talking. "Silence can be a perfectly valid response to something—either you don't know the answer, or you want to signal to somebody that maybe they shouldn't be asking you that, right?" says Lin. "Sometimes silence communicates more than words could, but we took that on a case-by-case basis. 'Is silence appropriate here, and if it isn't, then what is?' As a player I don't often pick silence in narrative games, but writing for silence is often the most fun, because you have to make that silence meaningful and impactful any time that it's there. To all the people that never pick silence, I'll just say that we do have some pretty fun gems hidden in silent options."
A perturbed eyebrow raise or indifferent shrug might really say it all, so try not to overlook the ellipses route. And if you don't select a response—perhaps because you were indecisive or overwhelmed before time ran out—you'll always default to silence if it's one of the presented options. "In our testing, we would, to the level that we could, go in and let the game play itself," Lin explains. "Even if the player gave no input, we had to make sure that refraining from talking would still allow the story to be told cohesively. It's a fun test getting to sit back and watch the game roll. We don't want New Tales to be a solely cinematic experience—it's meant to be a game—but we did have to test for the scenario where someone wants to be as passive as possible."
Whenever you're taking a while to deliberate your ideal response in a narrative game, you're technically leaving the other party hanging. But it's worth indulging in some awkward silences to hear the totally tangential lines of dialogue that crop up when someone's patiently waiting for you to weigh in. "While the game is idling and waiting for your input, it's sort of a weird dance—those things do happen in natural conversations, but maybe less frequently than we have to put them in," Lin laughs. "We tried to use them as vehicles for humor; if you tap a button you'll launch into your response, so those idling lines can't contain any critically important information. Whether or not you hear them, the story will just keep moving on. So we often had fun thinking 'How can I make this entertaining?' What's the best joke we can put in here; how do we add dimension to that character while they're idling?"
Just as inaction can be a conscious choice during conversations, you're also encouraged to see what happens when you abstain from a Quick Time Event, or QTE. A life-or-death situation will probably result in a fatal Game Over if you forgo or flub QTE prompts, but some moments make it your prerogative if you want to purposely flop a QTE. "There are 'soft fails,' so you don't have to beat every QTE, and maybe in fact shouldn't," says Lin. "We wanted to prompt you to think 'Is it the right call to do this?' Often the game will allow for both scenarios—so 'failure' is often an option that leads to different results."
When New Tales from the Borderlands launches on October 21, it'll be up to you how your story plays out, including how often silence and resolute failure play into it. Until then, stay tuned for more Dev Diary articles about the making of New Tales!
First look at gameplay in New Tales from the Borderlands
Make the world a better place, get rich, and exact some sweet revenge in New Tales from the Borderlands! The Gearbox Main Theatre Showcase at PAX West featured a deeper look at our three heroes plus plenty of gameplay.
Nearly 20 minutes of continuous gameplay was revealed, showcasing how your choices influence how the story plays out. This section from early on in the story finds Anu, Octavio, and Fran in the sewers of Promethea, racing against Tediore to open a dormant Vault. They need to figure out a way past the Tediore guards using either stealth or good old-fashioned violence. Along the way they must also battle for honor and glory in a Vaultlanders duel, with QTEs deciding the winner of glorious plastic combat!
Eventually, our trio reaches their goal—a bona fide Vault, guarded by fearsome Eridian warriors—and all hell breaks loose. If you missed the live gameplay segment of the show, don't fret; you can watch a video of a playthrough up top!
In the character trailer below, which also debuted during the show, you can quickly familiarize yourself with our three lovable losers. There's Fran, who's royally ticked off at the notoriously cutthroat Tediore CEO Susan Coldwell; Octavio, who dreams of entrepreneurial recognition despite not having an ounce of success to his name; and Anu, who hopes to wield science for the betterment of the universe despite working on a gun manufacturer's gigantic starship.
Pre-order New Tales from the Borderlands before it launches on October 21, 2022 and get the Adventure Capital Pack featuring cosmetics for Anu, Octavio, and Fran, 10,000 in-game currency, and an in-game FL4K Vaultlander collectible!* Stay tuned for more insight into New Tales from the Borderlands in the coming weeks leading up to launch.
If you're at PAX West in-person and in the mood for a free, frosty treat, be sure to swing by Fran's Frogurts in Westlake Park from September 2–4 from 10AM to 6PM daily!
Oh, one more thing: during the Showcase we shared a SHiFT code granting the in-game HOT Loader Vaultlander so you can expand your roster of fierce figurines! Redeem the SHiFT code below here on Borderlands.com or via the Gearbox SHiFT site.**
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*Pre-order offer available through October 20, 2022. Digital pre-orders: Adventure Capital Pack will be delivered via game at launch. Physical pre-orders: Adventure Capital Pack will be delivered via code in box to be redeemed in game. Terms apply.
**SHiFT code expires 10/21/2024. New Tales from the Borderlands and SHiFT account required to redeem. The code may be redeemed once (1) per SHiFT account.
New Tales from the Borderlands coming October 21, 2022!
So you want to hear a story, eh? Say hello to New Tales from the Borderlands! This standalone, choice-based interactive narrative adventure is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store on October 21, 2022. Pre-order New Tales from the Borderlands now and get the Adventure Capital Pack (details below!)*
Earlier today, Gearbox Entertainment founder Randy Pitchford joined host Geoff Keighley during Gamescom Opening Night Live to debut the New Tales from the Borderlands announcement trailer.
This raucous adventure takes place within the perpetually war-torn metropolis of Promethea, where you'll control Anu, Octavio, and Fran on the worst day of their lives. Help these three lovable losers as they endeavor to change the world (and maybe even save it)!
Face down a planetary invasion, vicious vault monster, and cold-hearted capitalists in this cinematic thrill ride where what happens next is up to you! Meet a motley cast full of misfits, assassin bots, and talking guns in this race to the top!
It's time to fight back against exploitation and corporate greed. It's time to Make Mayhem Your Business!
AN EXTRAORDINARY CINEMATIC ADVENTURE New Tales from the Borderlands features three playable characters: altruistic scientist Anu, her ambitious, "streetwise" brother Octavio, and the fierce, frogurt-slinging Fran. With nothing left to lose and everything to gain, you'll claw and con your way through this thrilling journey full of gun-toting goons, otherworldly beasts, and delicious tacos.
Along with their unique perspectives, each protagonist has their own gadget to help out during exploration and intense situations alike. Anu can scan objects using her high-tech glasses, Octavio can pull up people's social media info and hack certain devices with his wrist-mounted ECHOdex, and Fran can punch her way through problems or freeze them solid using the built-in accessories of her hoverchair.
The decisions you make determine how your story ends in unexpected ways. Whether it's Anu's vision of a universe that markets more than weapons, Octavio's dreams of fame and fortune, or Fran's frosty plot for revenge, their success or failure depends on you.
The story takes place within a year after the events of Borderlands 3, with familiar faces and locales that fans will recognize—but you don't need to have played any previous Borderlands game to enjoy this self-contained story.
This five-part adventure is delivered all at once, so you can play it at your own pace when the game launches on October 21.
PRE-ORDER BONUSES There are two editions of New Tales from the Borderlands, both of which are available for pre-order now. The Standard Edition (Digital Only) includes the full game, while the Deluxe Edition (Digital + Physical) includes the full game plus the original Tales from the Borderlands so you can experience the previous narrative adventure set in the Borderlands universe!**
When you pre-order New Tales from the Borderlands, you'll get access to the Adventure Capital Pack, featuring cosmetics for Anu, Octavio, and Fran, 10,000 in-game currency, and an in-game FL4K Vaultlander collectible.* The in-game currency can be used to purchase additional cosmetics so you can customize each protagonist's look, whereas the FL4K Vaultlander will build out your in-game collection for epic plasticine combat.
Vaultlanders is a minigame where you battle to the DEATH (with small plastic figures). Throughout the story, there are surprise encounters where you’ll need to engage in plastic figurine warfare, attacking and dodging the enemy figurine via Quick Time Events. These battles are for keeps, as the victor takes the loser’s Vaultlander for their collection! As you play, you can acquire more Vaultlanders through glorious combat and by finding them hidden throughout the environment.
We can't wait for you to experience the unexpected twists, heartwarming emotion, and classic Borderlands humor of New Tales from the Borderlands when it launches on October 21!
*Pre-order offer available through October 20, 2022. Digital pre-orders: Adventure Capital Pack will be delivered via game at launch. Physical pre-orders: Adventure Capital Pack will be delivered via code in box to be redeemed in game. Terms apply.
**Digital orders of New Tales from the Borderlands (Deluxe Edition) on Xbox, PlayStation and PC: a digital copy of Tales from the Borderlands will be automatically entitled at time of pre-order or purchase. Digital orders of New Tales from the Borderlands (Deluxe Edition) on Nintendo Switch: a digital copy of Tales from the Borderlands will be automatically entitled at launch. Physical orders of New Tales from the Borderlands (Deluxe Edition): a digital copy of Tales from the Borderlands will be delivered via code in box. Terms apply. Tales from the Borderlands will be delivered for the same platform format and to the platform account associated with the pre-order or purchase.
