Then, about 40 minutes into the
demo, it happens. The demo skips
ahead and we’re introduced to
Sanctuary III. It’s Borderlands 3’s new
hub – a safe zone where players can
chat with NPCs, shop, pick up quests
and test weapons. It’s also a
spaceship. From the bridge, we can
see the place that has defined the
series up to this point: the planet of
Pandora and its moon, Elpis. And
then we leave, warping out of the
system and arriving somewhere new.
“I think that the desire to leave
Pandora has been around for a long
time,” says Carl Shedd, lead lighting
artist. “It’s funny, it’s a neat split. You
have purists who are like, ‘I know it
was desert, but it felt like home’. I
played the Game of the Year edition
recently, and it felt so familiar to be
back home. But the narrative and
design teams wanted to experience
what it would mean to be planet
hopping. And the first time that I saw
the warp, I had that, ‘Holy shit, this is
kinda cool’ moment. And I’ve gotta
be honest, when I saw Pandora out
the window, it felt really nostalgic.”
Sanctuary III arrives at
Promethea, one of a number of
planets that will be available in the
full game. If Pandora was a
murderous backwater, the region of
Promethea shown is a murderous
sci-fi city, bathed in cool purples at
night, and giving way to a rich orange
as the sun rises. An asteroid belt
orbits the planet, causing frequent
eclipses as the space rocks move
past. “That was something that came
from Randy [Pitchford, CEO of
Gearbox],” explains Shedd. “He said,
‘Man, this is infinite space. We don’t
have to have a sun, we don’t have to
have a moon. Think of crazy shit.
Have some fun’.”
CROSSING BORDERS
Despite the “crazy shit” mandate,
Gearbox still wants Borderlands 3 to
maintain the series’ style and
aesthetic. “The challenge came from
finding ways to introduce players to
unique environments without
alienating the feel of the wasteland,”
says Shepp. “I feel like there was a lot
of trepidation from everybody in the
art team. We’d have a concept for this
planet and that planet, and we’d look
at those and go, ‘That’s really pretty
but it just doesn’t feel like it belongs
in Borderlands’. So I think the
challenge was trying to invent
environments that felt new and felt
fresh, but we all felt that yes, this is a
natural place that would exist along
with the humour and gameplay. I’m
happy with where we’ve landed.”INTO NEW LANDS
After the presentation, I get to play a
section of the game – starting just
after the Vault Hunter arrives on
Promethea. The reason for
Borderlands 3’s planet-hopping
journey is to find new Vaults –
ancient locations full of advanced
weapons (or, sometimes, just big
prisons containing a giant tentacle
monster). Racing you to their location
is the Children of the Vault, a new
cult headed up by Tyreen and Troy
Calypso. On Promethea, they’ve
inserted themselves into a war
between weapons manufacturers
Atlas – now headed by Tales from the
Borderlands’ Rhys – and Maliwan,
allying with the latter. Working with
Atlas, my job is to secure the city.
On stage, Pitchford describes the
Calypso twins as “like the douchiest
kind of live streamers of the future
you can possibly imagine”. I get a
sense of that when they call to taunt
me during a mission. “Superfan,”
Tyreen enthuses. “So, what do you
think of our first corporate sponsors?
I gotta say, so far selling out rules.”
“We knew we wanted to have
these twins, right from the get go,”
says Paul Sage, creative director. “And
then, a little later on, we said, ‘OK,
we’re going to double down on this
cult idea’. But internally, we were like,
‘I don’t know, man, it’s just still not
hitting’. It wasn’t until we hit on this
thing where they became unlikable
streamers that we were like, ‘Oh,
that’s actually what’s making this
magic again’. That’s what’s really
bringing them forward into people’s
minds. It’s kind of that punch-in-the-
face factor. They’re not just evil for
evil’s sake. They’re just people I really
don’t like that are horrible.”In helping Rhys, I get plenty of
opportunity to tangle with Maliwan’s
army, as well as the bandits following
the Children of the Vault. And I have
to say, that slide manoeuvre that felt
so underwhelming at first? It’s a
game changer. I’ve always enjoyed
the Borderlands series because of its
tone, style and ridiculous loot, but
pure combat has always felt simply
functional. My time with Borderlands
3 , though,suggeststhatit willbea
legitimatelygreatshooter.Movement
is more fluid and dynamic, and the guns – which are more
varied and absurd – feel better than ever.
“We’ve been trying to push the envelope as far as that’s
concerned in every sort of facet,” says Kevin Powell,
systems designer. “And so yeah, better guns, systems feel
better, and we have a lot of quality of life changes with
the sliding and mantling.”
Beyond the pure feel of the gunplay, more work has
been put into creating exciting combat arenas. “We
definitely want players to interact with the environment a
little more,” says Powell. “And so you notice if you shot a
pipe, there was some oil that came out, and if you shot an
explosive barrel or had a fire elemental weapon, you can
light that puddle on fire. Various elemental things can
interact with things in the world in different ways, and so
we really wanted to push that concept ... There’s a lot of
destructibility throughout the game. Of course, we have
ridiculous weapons that explode everywhere so it’s cool
to kind of see things fly everywhere and stuff like that.”
The main attraction, though, is still the guns, and the
procedural generation system that ensures no two players
will be wielding the same arsenal. Guns are an important
part of the Borderlands universe, to the
point that each different manufacturer,
as well as being an entity within the
story, also has its own design
philosophy and weapon parts. “Our
gun team has done an amazing job of
pushing that concept of these are the
guns and they do ridiculous crazy shit,”
says Powell. “I believe in the previous
Borderlands there were around 300 or so weapon parts,
and then in this one we have over a thousand. If you can
imagine, there’s a lot more variation that can happen
when you generate those weapons.”
“We have a fully formed weapons team this time,
that includes concept guys, content art guys, game
designers,” explains Shapp. “And they’ve been
incredibly efficient, they’ve always been ahead
of everyone on schedule. So they’ll show up
to our review meetings and they’ll always
have the best stuff. It’s kind of a nice shot
in the arm, to be reminded what this is all
about. Those guys have put in a lot of
time and effort and heart into trying to
really expand those manufacturer
differences. They really put effort into
making sure they weren’t intermixing
parts between manufacturers. They were
like, ‘This is Tediore, and this is Tediore’s
parts. This is Malawan, and this is
Malawan parts’. I think for us, we’re
getting closer and closer with every
evolution to where our imaginations
thought we were ten years ago.”
In the demo, despite earning a
unique boss weapon that inflictedRIGHT: Bandits are
as varied and wacky
as ever.
MAIN: Enjoy irony?
Kill Maliwan troops
with their own guns.