Timing can be tragic.
I’m glad to know that Borderlands 4 is on its way. Sure, the Borderlands sense of humor has worn a bit thin for me over the years, and sure, I think Claptrap is among the greatest torments ever inflicted on an undeserving humanity. When it comes down to it, though, I’m as much of a sucker for a bajillion procedurally generated guns as the next guy. Another Borderlands sequel is one I’ll welcome.
But damn, it sure seems like that Gamescom teaser was meant to coast in on a bigger wave of good will, yeah?
It was a fine teaser, don’t get me wrong. I want to know why that moon came out of that wormhole, and what the deal with that planet’s big, shatterable cloaking field is, and what those alien glyphs at the end mean. That’s compelling stuff! I’m compelled!
But for a game that we basically already knew would be coming, it’s a reveal without much substance. Culminating those wordless 80 seconds with the slow turn of the franchise’s trademark bandit mask has the raw confidence of something conceived as a mic drop. That’s a teaser built for an audience that’s already hungry for more.
Unfortunately, if you’re dropping a mic after a performance like the Borderlands movie debacle, a lot of people are just going to hear a dull thud.
That’s not to say that people aren’t interested in more Borderlands. If you add up the views from the official Borderlands channel and the uploads from Gamescom and gaming news outlets, the teaser’s already been watched a couple million times. But those views are coming from commenters who are getting 12,000 likes for joking that it’s “Gearbox’s apology letter for giving us the Borderlands movie.”
We’ve seen how potent movie and TV adaptations can be for amplifying a game’s grip on the public consciousness. Following the well-documented Netflix boost enjoyed by League of Legends and Cyberpunk, the Fallout TV series managed to increase daily player activity sixfold. If Bethesda had been able to announce a new Fallout game in the weeks that followed, Todd Howard probably would’ve had a shot at canonization. (I don’t know how Catholicism works.)
The Borderlands 4 reveal should’ve been a moment of triumph for the team that’s making it. Instead, it’s drifting in at low tide.
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