Interview with Gearbox's Randy Pitchford and Andrew Reiner
Feature
There was no indication as to which of the developers we would be interviewing prior to the event, so when we arrived at the 2K offices in Sydney, it was a huge surprise to see Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford and Global Creative Executive Andrew Reiner present. After all, just a few days earlier they had been presenting at PAX East in Boston. After a brief run-down of the game from the amazing duo, we were able to get a hands-on with the game, before having the chance to sit down with both and discuss all things Borderlands.
Hooked Gamers: Welcome to Sydney
Randy: It's great to be here
Hooked Gamers: I'll get right into the questions.
When designing new playable characters, such as the new Vault Hunters in Borderlands 4, how important is it to match their look with the special abilities that they possess?
Randy: So you know, a lot of things will go into those kinds of decisions, but it doesn't always start from how they might look. Sometimes it starts from a feeling that we're trying to get, or a gameplay experience that we're trying to mess around with.
Yeah, like we did Krieg, we get started simply with "What if we did a melee class kind of vault hunter" and it was like, "Hey, wouldn't it be fun to do a psycho as a playable?" And those two things kind of collided. At first they were separate ideas, and they were on the whiteboard and we kind of joined them together as one idea.
Hooked Gamers: OK. So with regards to the characters and with the co-op in mind, what's the major challenge in ensuring that they all synergise with each other?
Randy: Well, one of the things that was important to us with this game is that you know, we used to have this idea that people wouldn't play the same character together in a co-op game. Like in Borderlands 3, one person would pick Moze and someone else would say "I won't play Moze. I'll play Amara, or something". But in fact, that's not the way it always happens. Sometimes players would play the same character. So in this game, we thought "How can we make it so that it doesn't matter what the combination of characters are in co-op?" There's a way to individualise the character towards your play style and also for different types of utility in a co-op game setting. So you'll find more diversity per character in terms of both play style and also frankly cosmetic than you've ever seen before.
Hooked Gamers: And do you both have a favourite character within the Borderlands universe? Either playable or non-playable.
Randy: Oh, the whole freaking universe. My favourite character is Ellie. I love her attitude. When it's time to deal with something, she'll f*****g deal with it. But she's a sweetheart and she has a positive outlook on everything, and I just really love her. She speaks to me.
Andrew: Claptrap. I'm a big Star Wars fan and you know for these guys over here at Gearbox to create a droid that is genuine and unique and just hilarious. And yeah, I just found everything I laughed at and I think he's amazing. He's a good one.
Hooked Gamers: And do you have a favourite from the upcoming Borderlands 4?
Randy: Oh, from Borderlands 4. I don't know if I should. Yeah, that's tough.
Andrew: I'll give you a couple things that are really cool.
Randy: There's one that I'm thinking of, but I I don't know if I want to talk about it.
Andrew: I'll go with Vault Hunters. Vex - her Dead Ringer ability is incredible. Harlowe - I'm also digging.
Randy: I've been playing a lot of Harlow lately.
Andrew: You can, you might have seen in the trailers, you can bubble up enemies. There's various functions with that.
Randy: She uses tech to do something similar to when Maya used to grasp, similarly to the phaselock ability. But she can also slam them to the ground or smash them into other enemies. It's more like a Amara style phaselocking, like phase grasp, and there's some other builds with her where you can just bubble a guy, you kill him, and then the bubble hops to the next guy automatically and you could chain that. I'm kind of digging the Gravitar lately.
Andrew: Yeah. Bubble up an enemy in the air with this crazy tech. It looks amazing. And then you can have Rafa turn on those cannons and just shred those enemies just like that.
Randy: But I think Amon might be my main when it comes out.
Hooked Gamers: You mentioned before during the little presentation about combining the weapons from different manufacturers? What was the thought behind that?
Randy: There's a couple of things. One is that we made these interesting manufacturer traits, and it kind of sucked that we could only have those traits on certain weapons. So it's like, OK, we got to come up with a concept that makes us comfortable swapping that stuff around. And the other thing was how we had to do it with Borderlands 1 because we didn't have enough memory to make a full set of things for each manufacturer. So we just kind of had it all mixed and matched to get the variety that we wanted.
With the licence part conceived, it just kind of all fit into place and it made it really fun to go for it. Some weird things can happen with them. It's like the Tediore guns can have different behaviours. Like you can throw them and it becomes a turret or it starts running around, or it's a drone now flying around - all kinds of weird stuff with some of the Tediore parts. And then you combine that with a Hyperion part and now it's a deployable shield. That's interesting - I’ve got cover where it doesn't exist.
Andrew: We had someone in a previous session that was throwing out knives that would create singularities. I don't even know how that science works, but it's awesome.
Hooked Gamers: And I did have another question about the weapons. What's your favourite weapon or weapons manufacturer?
Randy: Oh, right now I'm all about the Rippers. I used to be more of a finesse player and now I'm just throughput. I just want as many bullets flying out of me as possible. I just want to hold the trigger down.
Andrew: I like Tediore. I like throwing stuff. We saw a gun yesterday that was walking around, and you can go and pet it, and if you pet it, it explodes.
Hooked Gamers: Borderlands has been known for three things - the guns, the visual style and the humour. You mentioned before that characters such as Claptrap have always been hilarious. Is Borderlands 4 going to retain that humour?
Randy: It's funny, there's funny bits.
Andrew: I think it's funny. I think it's funnier.
Hooked Gamers: From what we've seen, what I've seen, it's a bit darker.
Randy: It is, it is, and we're not trying to machine gun you with jokes, like we used to do, or like we did in Borderlands 3. But I think it makes the comedy better because it's done with a more surgical kind of feeling. But Borderlands has always lived in a weird space between drama and comedy. It's not a comedy, and it's not a drama, and it's somehow both, but neither. And we're flirting with that balance - we want the comedy to be stronger and hit harder.
Andrew: Yeah, I don't want to direct what you're playing today, but there is that Claptrap mission that has some of that humour in there that has instant heart and I just think it's a great mission.
Hooked Gamers: Borderlands 4 takes place on Kairos. How would you describe the planet and what's the main differences between that and, say, Pandora and the other planets that we have visited?
Randy: Kairos is the most beautiful place that sucks. Because everything will kill you.
Hooked Gamers: Like Australia!
Randy: Haha. Yeah. There are some stunning views and vistas and just unbelievable environments, but it's also f*****g dangerous and deadly and bad. It's awesome. But it’s cool too, because the place is legendary. So, for these vault hunters to finally be there, for them this is like the culmination of their entire life's work. And they're in the shit. And some of the characters are joyful, they just can't believe it and they’re having a great time. Others like Amon are like "I'm here for business, man. This is the culmination of my life journey". He's got his own take on things.
Andrew: I think you nailed it. It's breathtaking, it's alive, you'll see critters scurrying about. But as you're looking at a little creature that is similar to a squirrel - but alien, you'll see a Panther coming running at you. You know, these Manglers that just want to eat you for lunch, you know? You'll come across pockets of civilizations, settlements with people that have somehow found their way in the world. And then other places that are far darker, far more dangerous.
Hooked Gamers: Yeah, I noticed in the preview, as soon as you come into that first little section, it's got that little farm and you get the sense that people are trying to get by.
Randy: Yeah, some of those vibes. One of the things that was important to me when we were getting started, was that we were really playing with how alien it could be and it was getting really, really weird. So to balance that, we made some things to make it feel familiar. You know it's an alien planet, so we could make the grass purple, but to make it feel familiar there's some green vegetation, so it feels grounded. Some of the creature designs we started moving towards things that you could at least make allegories to on Earth, because there's a lot of weird stuff. And if it's too weird, there's just nothing to grasp onto. So finding that in the design of it so it just feels right, but also interesting and like no place you've ever been before - that was where we wanted to dial that in for the sweet spot. And it's been a joy to craft it.
Hooked Gamers: It has been an absolute pleasure to meet you both and to chat about one of my favourite game series. Enjoy your time here in Sydney.
Randy: Get back to the game, man. Use the time you've got.
