SAN FRANCISCO, March 29 — Is this Borderlands 3? Developer Gearbox isn’t confirming directly, but the characters featured in a teaser make the case for it.
A teaser for what appears to be well-anticipated action game Borderlands 3 introduces a pair of new antagonists, plus new characters, new enemies, new vehicle and weapon models, and a bunch of returnees from previous franchise outings.
Introduced as merely a Borderlands Teaser with the tagline “Mayhem is Coming,” several elements seen in the untextured concept fly-through line up with previous purported leaks.
That would make the teaser’s first two characters, the Calypso Twins, the Borderlands 3 antagonists, with glimpses of four new player-characters not long after.
Those correspond to goateed stealth operative Zane, cloak-wearing humanoid robot Flack, a muscled, superpower-wielding woman thought to be named Amara, and the helmet-wearing mech-commander Moze, as surfaced through a December 2018 post to Imgur.
Already seen in previous Borderlands games were human tank Brick, skinny sniper Mordecai, sassy superpowered Lilith, bar owner Moxxi and cheeky one-wheeled robot Claptrap from Borderlands 1 and Borderlands 2, as well as posh game hunter Hammerlock and plus-size mechanic Ellie from Borderlands 2, and near-naked corporate accountant Vaughn (Tales from the Borderlands).
Then there are two new vehicles in a modified buggy, continuing the series’ off-the-wall “Mad Max” aesthetic, and a giant-wheeled monocycle.
Morse code and braille sprinkled throughout the video urge viewers to “like follow and obey,” and “count the Sirens,” the second instruction a reference to six superpowered women that can inhabit the Borderlands universe, with Lilith, Amara, and the female Calypso being three of them.
Another set of five-character codes are sprinkled through the video, compiled as C35TB-WS6ST-TXBRK-TTTJT-JJH6H, for fans to input into Borderlands 2 as a Shift Code for a complimentary character code and keys for random equipment.
Borderlands lore expert and YouTube user SupMatto, who was a vector for an armful of Borderlands 3 leaks borne out by the teaser, provided a breakdown and reaction that can be seen at this link.
Franchise developer Gearbox Software, which in recent years has also established itself as a publisher, is to deliver a main theatre presentation at the PAX East games convention on March 28.
It’s expected to show a roster of upcoming titles from its own studio division as well as external partners.
The show begins at 2pm Eastern Time at the Boston expo, 6pm UTC, streamed live through Gearbox channels on Amazon’s Twitch, Google’s YouTube, and Microsoft’s Mixer platforms, as well as the official PAX Twitch channel and via community co-streamers on Twitch and YouTube. — AFP-Relaxnews
