Borderlands 3 Finally Announced at PAX East 2019: Everything We Know So Far

Borderlands 3 is official. At PAX East 2019, Gearbox Software officially unveiled the Borderlands 3 with a gameplay trailer. The much awaited looter shooter sequel to the highly popular Borderlands 2 was revealed showing off new villains, returning characters, and fresh character classes. Much like the past games in the series, Borderlands 3 sports the same cel shaded art style and wide sprawling locales as well as a ton of vehicular combat. Lighting looks vastly improved over past games.

Borderlands 3 enemies include giant dinosaurs, robots, and flying insects to name a few. Furthermore, Gearbox promises over a billion guns in the game such as a ridiculously over the top gun with mechanical legs. Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford stated that the game has been in development for over five years.

And yes, there won't be a battle royale mode either.

"Battle Royale games are fun but that's not what we're making," Pitchford said at the Borderlands 3 reveal.

No release date for Borderlands 3 has been revealed yet, though it will be out on PS4, Xbox One, and Windows PC. More information regarding platforms, editions, and storefronts should be available on April 3, Gearbox confirmed during its PAX panel.

Amusingly, it appears that the Borderlands 3 leak was pretty accurate barring the return of Handsome Jack. Pitchford confirmed he won't be returning.

Borderlands 3 gameplay and classes

• Four new vault hunters
• Abilities have been reworked, everyone now has multiple action skills instead of one
• Flak the Beastmaster is a homeless-looking android. He can summon multiple creatures to help him fight. The AI for this is what delayed announcement last October. So hopefully it's fixed now.
• The female seen in the UE4 demo last year is a Valdof character who is the gunner class. She can summon a bear mech on which other players can ride. Summons the mech like in Titanfall. No word on how this works indoors.
• The older male is like Batman. He's the stealth/assassin character. He's rich and uses gadgets for his action skills.
• There's a black female Siren character. She's melee oriented like Brick was. She will have several siren abilities like phase-lock, phase-shift, and a ground pound skill.
• NPCs can revive you now if you're close enough and go into FFYL (fight for your life, a mechanic in the series that allowed players to continue if they kill an enemy who downed them)
• Guns are reworked. You'll have changeable gun parts of various rarities/stats. You'll be able to alter the type of gun, the firing rate, the reload speed, the stability, and element as you find new parts.
• All elements returning except Slag, Laser, and Ice. New elements are rumoured and the only lead says "nuclear" is one of them.

Borderlands 3 story and location

• Takes place 5 years after the end of Borderlands 2/Borderlands The Pre-Sequel.
• Tannis is not what she seems.
• Rhys is back as CEO of Atlas. Atlas is back as a manufacturer. Gorty is back to help the player find multiple vaults in the game. Not just one vault this time. Tina is back as an adult. No word on the others but you can expect cameos from everyone like in Borderlands 2.
• Writing is more like Borderlands 1 than Borderlands 2.
• The bad guys are The Calypso Twins. One is a female siren (as only females can be sirens) and the other is a male who somehow has siren powers. Either he figured out a way to give anyone siren powers or the bond between twins allows him to share his sister's powers. They're rumored to be ex-Atlas employees.
• The Calypso twins rule The Children of the Vault, a cult mob that will replace Bandits/Scavs as the default human mob.
• They will have their own weapon brand.
• All brands returning except Bandit/Scav.
• You'll start on Pandora but leave shortly into the game on Sanctuary 3, the Crimson Raider's ship. It will be the hub for multiple planet locations.
• We're going to Promethea.

Is Borderlands 3 PC an Epic Games Store exclusive?

This wasn't addressed during the game's reveal. Prior to this, Borderlands fans came across a tweet from Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford that said he was "excited to support the Epic Games Store." Some of them felt this to be a hint that Borderlands 3 on PC would be exclusive to the Epic Games Store and asked Pitchford if this was the case. And his response raised more questions than answers.

"What's wrong with that? A PC is a PC - who cares which store you get your games from? I'm just curious to learn the mind-set. I am a customer on lots of different PC platforms," tweeted Pitchford.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the game is eventually announced. Epic Games has shown an appetite to snag big budget PC games such as Metro Exodus and The Division 2 away from Steam and while Borderlands 2 continues to be played by plenty on Steam, it would be a poor decision on Gearbox's part to make its sequel exclusive to any single PC game store. Safe to say it would be on both platforms.

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