Borderlands 3 Isn't Trying To Be Like Destiny Or Other Live-Service Games

Many consider Borderlands and Gearbox the pioneers of the looter-shooter genre, and to an extent, this is true. However, a lot has changed since the last Borderlands game released in 2014. The looter-shooter genre looks a lot different thanks to the likes of Destiny, Tom Clancy's The Division, and more. However, just because the looter-shooter genre has evolved and changed around it, doesn't mean Gearbox is drastically altering the Borderlands experience to chase the trends. At its core, Borderlands 3 is simply more Borderlands, and this means it's not interesting in making a Destiny-esq experience or copying any other live-service game.

During an interview, Game Revolution asked Gearbox senior producer Anthony Nicholson if there was any internal or external pressures to make a live-service game, such as Destiny, which Nicholson replied to with the following:

"That was never anything that we were interested in. Like I said, what we wanted to do was take the core foundation and take the core gameplay that we have and that we know works and expand on that. We know what we're good at and we know what the community and fans love from the Borderlands series. We didn't want to try to be different or tricky with any of that stuff. We wanted to take those things and build on those and change up the different styles of stuff like skill trees. Like we know that was fun and cool but how do we make skill trees bigger, better, and longer."

Nicholson continued:

"We appreciate all of the [loot shooter] games that are out there. Like we play all games. And we love the industry for all of those different things. We just really want to focus on our own lane and what we're good at and try to do what we think is best for us."

The producer did acknowledge that Gearbox certainly learned some things from the live-service titles and looter-shooters of the past couple of years, however, most of what has shaped Borderlands 3 are large industry trends and shifts than any specific game. For example, Gearbox know players want a lot of content. So Borderlands 3 has that.

Meanwhile, the team also understands not everyone can play every day, and how sometimes this means playing with friends who play more often can be difficult, which is why it added loot instancing so players can play with each other no matter how little they've played compared to their friends.

Borderlands 3 is in development for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and is scheduled to release on September 13, priced at $59.99 USD. At the moment of publishing, there's been no word of any additional ports.

For more news, media, and information on the madcap looter-shooter, be sure to peep all of our previous coverage of the title by clicking right here. As always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think of the news or hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ to talk all things Borderlands.

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