Look, I'll admit I'm looking forward to Borderlands 3. I've never played any of the games (Until very recently), but being a Destiny addict, I'm somewhat excited to see what the studio behind the big bang of the "Looter-Shooter" can do in 2019. But before this hype train gets moving too quickly to stop, I feel the need to point out something that has been weighing on my mind a little bit lately: I'm not sure exactly how much I trust Gearbox to deliver. Okay, look, hear me out for a minute. I know the Borderlands games have more than earned their reverence, and I'm sure the studio is putting their all into the highly-anticipated follow-up to their flagship franchise, however I feel it's important to take a look at the studio and perhaps reign in some of that hype.
It's been an interesting road for Gearbox Software. The success of Borderlands and its sequel and spin-offs speaks for itself on many levels, essentially creating an entire genre and the third game is perhaps the most anticipated game of 2019. But it's a little hard to ignore the Duke Nukem Forever in the room. For those of you that have forgotten (Don't worry - pretty much everyone did), Forever was in development limbo for longer than some have been alive until Gearbox took it over. When the game finally released fourteen years after being announced, it was as critically well-received as the end of a fountain soda when the ice has melted. But okay, that game famously got rebooted more times than the Fantastic Four before Gearbox acquired it. And it's also hard to forget Aliens: Colonial Marines (Trust me, I've tried...)
Everyone tried...
One might expect that a game with as many problems as Colonial Marines to have a story behind why it was so laughably bad, and oh fucking boy is there. Two players filed a class action suit against Gearbox, essentially over how bad the game was compared to the previews. Gearbox was simultaneously fighting in court with publisher SEGA, with the latter claiming Gearbox funneled money from Colonial Marines into other projects. CEO Randy Pitchford refutes that he put between $10-$15 million of his own money into the game. So who do I believe here? Well...
This fucking guy. Randy Pitchford is what happens when Cliffy B hits level 36 and evolves. Where did my sudden harsh tone come from? Perhaps from the time he left a flash drive chock full of child porn at a Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament in Frisco, Texas. Okay, to his credit (?), Pitchford claims it was merely "barely legal" porn and he only kept it to learn magic tricks, because of smart guy logic. While the worst incident I could find, it's far from the only. David Eddings, a former Gearbox employee who voiced Claptrap in the first two games, claims that he did not voice the iconic character in the upcoming third game because he asked to be paid for his work. This wasn't an issue in the previous installments since he was already working there and under the payroll, but left in 2017. This substantiates claims by Troy Baker that he isn't returning as Rhys because the studio didn't even ask him to, while Pitchford says otherwise. You know, that Troy Baker who is famous for turning down roles and never appearing in anything? This, to me, does not paint a good picture for a studio who has a public history of claims about misappropriating funds. At least we know Borderlands 3 won't have microtransactions, right..?
Okay, I know Gearbox is not an isolated incident of development studios with internal problems and troublesome figureheads. And I'm not saying to not be excited for the next entry - I myself am hoping that they will knock it out of the park and I'll have another looter-shooter to enjoy. But perhaps we shouldn't forget history and build ourselves up to be let down. Don't forget that it's 2019, and AAA studios as well as games as a service have a track record of failing to deliver at launch. This is the gaming community after all, I'm sure we can set our expectations with calmness and logic without forgetting the mistakes of the past, right?
If anyone needs to reach Casey, he'll be playing his copy of Mass Effect Andromeda that he pre-ordered.
