Back in February, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford told Polygon that Borderlands 3 is definitely not in development at the developer. But that doesn’t preclude a different team from working on a sorta-sequel.
British retailer GamePointsNow has revealed that they somehow learned that Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, a new game that takes place between the first and second games, is in development for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 at 2K Australia:
Set on the moon of Elpis and Hyperions ominous H shaped moon base, the game sees Handsome Jack in the days when he was just a humble programmer called John, hunting a powerful alien artefact (what else!!). Players will be able to select one of Jack/Johns four lieutenants to play as in Athena The Gladiator, Wilhelm The Enforcer, Nisha The Lawbringer and Fragtrap, a militarised claptrap.
Since Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel takes place on a moon, the lower gravity and lack of oxygen will effect combat in a big way. Players will be required to keep track of how much oxygen they have left (Doom 3 featured a similar mechanic) and enemies can be instantly incapacitated if they’re deprived of their air supply. The reduced gravity also opens up the game to jetpacks and encourages players to blast their foes into the stratosphere with a well-placed grenade. And what would a new Borderlands game be without a few new weapons? This set of Vault Hunters will be outfitted with Moonraker-like lasers (naturally) and a “Cryo” freeze ray.
GamePointsNow was unable to narrow down a release date for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, but they guessed that a Fall launch seems most reasonable as the game is said to be in development for previous-generation consoles. And with Gearbox more-than-likely set to announce a new game at PAX East 2014, I’m pretty confident the Pre-Sequel is a real thing.
Lending further truth to the rumor is a Whois lookup for BorderlandsThePreSequel.com. The highly unusual domain was registered on March 24, just in time for this weekend’s PAX East convention.
