During game developer Gearbox’s presentation at PAX East Indie Showcase in Boston, the company unveiled the first trailer for the long-awaited Borderlands 3, the latest installment in the decade-old first-person shooter franchise.
Fan-favorite characters like Lilith and Maya are returning for more bloodthirsty fun. A mustached Rhys graces the screen. There’s a sneak peek of the game’s “baddies,” the Calypso Twins. Even Brick jams out on the sax. Watch the epic trailer here:
It was never really an issue, but no one should worry about a lack of gun type variation—Borderlands 3 claims to have more than a billion guns, including walking guns with legs and mecha-suits. Holy skag sack! Full of new characters, endless loot, slick-lookin’ enemies and a rich, biodiverse world to romp about, it looks as though Borderlands 3 will return to its rightful throne in the gaming community.
In a tender moment during the live-streamed PAX event, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford said his team’s “deepest wish is to just show [us] a worthy successor.” The trailer isn’t particularly revelatory with respect to game’s plot, but its action-packed scenes and Gearbox’s promise of more in-depth updates on April 3 will keep fans hyped up this spring.
Before the trailer dropped, Gearbox teased fans with a cryptic animation sequence dubbed “Mask of Mayhem.” The teaser ignited subreddits and editorials into a speculative frenzy, but the trailer answers some of those theories—a group of fans think they've found the holy grail: the release date.
After seeing the trailer and the teaser, what more could Borderlands fans want?
Though nothing in the trailer screams reinvention, a bigger, more beautiful Borderlands 2 endowed with a captivating storyline would be pretty cool. It is too early to tell what the exact architecture and mechanics of the game will be, but I’m just glad they didn’t ride the MMO (massively multiplayer online) or battle royale gravy train, sticking to what fans love about the Borderlands franchise.
With so many loot-based shooters on the market now, it will be interesting to see how Gearbox, the forefathers of the genre, will fare against new competitors. Similar games like The Division 2 and Anthem, previously in wage of war themselves, have enjoyed relative success, but even the smallest wisps of anything Borderlands-related has captivated the attention of everyone in the loot-shooter community.
Although it has been seven years since Borderlands 2 debuted in 2012, Gearbox can probably rest easy with the amount of hype surrounding the “Mask of Mayhem” teaser after one day, and the buzz generated by the Borderlands 3 trailer. By the looks of the fanfare, the years-long development period has paid off.
We might not be on Pandora this time around, but I’m so down for whatever post-apocalyptic world they want to hurl us into. Let’s just hope Gearbox’s release plan for Borderlands 3 doesn't goad us on forever like Kingdom Hearts III.
