It sounds like Borderlands 4 truly may end up being “better” than Borderlands 3, as Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford previously said – or at the least, a whole lot bigger.
Speaking in a new interview with Rolling Stone, Pitchford explains how developers wanted to “free ourselves” of any constraints and make the world of Borderlands 4 as seamless as possible – and how modern technology allows for them to do just that and more in the looter shooter. “The key for us is really tapping into what the hardware technology enables in terms of moving data around,” he describes.
“We’re able to move massive chunks at very high speed from these new storage pieces that we have on these consoles and on PCs into memory that is accessible by the CPU,” continues Pitchford. “That’s all technical bullshit, I’m trying to be as simple as possible describing it, but what it comes down to is seamlessness. So now, as artists, we don’t have to engineer these spots where we have to make it narrow and get to a choke point.”
Now, devs can make the world in Borderlands 4 “wide and open and free.” Global creative executive officer Andrew Reiner details how this new freedom adds to the “awesome story campaign” and its non-linear fashion: “There’s a point in the game where you have the choice of going to three different story locations and picking at it the way you want, and you’ll go to new regions that are just massive. This is the biggest world we’ve created.”
Pitchford chimes in with the devs’ philosophy while producing the new Borderlands game: “Let’s not limit the player.” Instead, Gearbox hopes to do the opposite – and that’s why their mantra, which Pitchford says creative director Graeme Timmins came up with, makes so much sense – to have “less borders, more lands.” It’s a clever play on the Borderlands title, so here’s hoping it rings true come the fourth game’s release on September 12.
Thankfully, there’s not long left to wait now until players get their hands on the new Borderlands installment – September is only a couple of months away, after all.