Borderlands (series)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Guinness Book of World Records credits the first Borderlands game with the ability to generate more than 17 million different guns. Borderlands is a video game series from Gearbox Software, published by 2K, that mixes first-person shooting with a hunt for randomized treasure. Its games unfold on a dangerous planet named Pandora, where bandits, wildlife and corporate soldiers all chase the same prize. Players know that prize as the Vault. How did a shooter come to borrow the habits of a role-playing game? What is actually inside the Vaults? And who are the oddballs, from a small yellow robot to a megalomaniacal CEO, that players meet along the way?

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• 2. Doom Meets Diablo

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  Game designer Matthew Armstrong supplied the spark. He proposed taking the mechanics of a first-person shooter like Doom and mixing in the randomized loot of a role-playing game like Diablo. Once Gearbox had built that hybrid, it needed a reason for players to keep searching. The studio chose Vaults on the planet Pandora, and it compared the thrill of finding new loot to opening a Pandora's box. Gearbox even called the first game a "role-playing shooter."

  Pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles and rocket launchers all come out of the loot system. So do shield generators, grenade modifications and class modifications. Foes drop this equipment, containers hide it around Pandora, and quests hand it out as rewards. The numbers on each piece, such as a gun's damage, its accuracy and its elemental attacks, are generated procedurally. A color code tells the player how rare something is. White marks the most common gear, while purple and orange mark the rarest and most powerful. The later games expand that variety further.

  Creatures that spit corrosive acid or flame show that foes get the same randomized treatment. Some scavengers arrive with extra health and armor, and other enemies show up as more powerful variants. Vending machines scattered across the maps buy and sell gear. Nearly all of them stock one rare item for a limited stretch of in-game time, after which the inventory rotates.

  Borderlands 2, Borderlands 3 and The Pre-Sequel add something called SHIFT codes. Players can pick these up through social media or other promotions. Each code grants golden keys, and a key can be used once to claim an item of exceptional quality that suits the player's level. The remaster of the first Borderlands received the feature too.

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• 3. Playing With Friends

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  Up to four players can team up in Borderlands, Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel. Every extra player raises the difficulty of the enemies, and the quality of the loot drops rises with the number of players.

  Each Vault Hunter comes with a different skill tree and at least one unique ability. Quests and defeated foes pay out in-game money and experience, and the experience feeds that skill tree. As the player levels, the loot drops grow stronger. The enemies on the map climb in level at the same time. After finishing a game, a player can start a replay with the same character at the level they finished. This New Game Plus style mode lets that character keep leveling up to a fixed cap while the game grows harder.

  A player who runs out of health or tumbles into a bottomless chasm respawns at the most recent checkpoint and loses some money. Travel works through waypoint stations. Once a player reaches one, they can teleport to any previously visited map. Otherwise they must walk to certain points at the edge of a map to enter a new area. Some maps even let the player spawn an armed vehicle to cross large distances or face stronger enemies.

  Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel introduced the Badass Rank system. Completing challenges, such as killing a number of enemies with one weapon type, earns Badass points. For every 100 points, the player can redeem one of several small buffs, such as extra gun damage or shield capacity. Picking the same buff again with the same character gives weaker rewards. The buffs are shared across all of a player's characters, so a brand new character starts with them and gets more benefit from new ones. Borderlands 3 swapped this system for one called guardian.

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• 4. Pandora and Its Vaults

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  Every game in the series draws Pandora with a comic book look that many people mistake for cel shading. In fact the games use fully realized hand-drawn textures, and the engine adds noticeable outlines on top. The world is also played for laughs, and the series owes part of its commercial success to its sense of humor.

  Pandora was believed to be rich in minerals, so several interstellar megacorporations sent colony ships there. On arrival they found little of value beyond undecipherable alien artifacts left by a long-extinct race called the Eridians. Native lifeforms made colonization too dangerous. Many corporations left, abandoning a workforce of former prisoners who had been coerced into employment. Those workers took over much of the planet as bandits and raiders.

  Study of the Eridian artifacts then revealed the mythical Vaults, filled with untold treasure and guarded by extremely powerful and ancient monsters. Corporations and military forces came back. So did Vault Hunters hoping to find the Vaults themselves.

  The first Borderlands begins shortly after the Dahl corporation leaves Pandora. Four Vault Hunters arrive and follow a mysterious entity called the Guardian Angel, who lives within Pandora's communication network, the EchoNet. She sends them after the pieces of the Vault Key and warns that the Vault opens only every 200 years. Soldiers of the Atlas corporation return to claim the planet and the Vault. The hunters fight them off and find the Vault. When it opens, it releases a giant monster called the Destroyer. The hunters push it back inside, and the Vault closes.

  On Pandora's moon Elpis, a low-level Hyperion programmer named Jack finds another Vault in The Pre-Sequel, which takes place between the first two games. He hires six Vault Hunters, seizes the Hyperion space station Helios, and secures the Vault. Inside lies only an artifact in the shape of the Vault symbol. When Jack touches it, he sees visions of the imminent release of a creature called the Warrior. Power begins to drive him mad, and Lilith punches the artifact into his face, disfiguring him forever. Jack puts on a mask, becomes Handsome Jack, and swears vengeance on the Vault Hunters.

  In Borderlands 2, Handsome Jack uses Hyperion's resources to stop six new Vault Hunters from reaching another Vault. Roland and the earlier hunters help them. They now lead a resistance called the Crimson Raiders from their base, Sanctuary. The Guardian Angel turns out to be Jack's Siren daughter, dying from overuse of her powers. Jack had used her to trick the earlier hunters into opening a Vault, because he wanted Eridium, a special alien mineral. The new hunters kill Angel as an act of mercy and to disrupt his plan. Jack then kills Roland and captures Lilith, using her to finish charging the Vault Key. He summons the gigantic Warrior, hoping to control Pandora and beyond. The hunters defeat it, leave Jack to die, and discover that the Vault Key holds a map to Vaults across the galaxy.

  Tales from the Borderlands picks up after Jack's death, when his absence leaves a power void on Pandora and Hyperion. A Hyperion lackey named Rhys and a con artist named Fiona get caught up in the sale of a fake Vault Key. They discover the Vault of the Traveler, which is controlled by an Atlas prototype robot named Gortys. Along the way, Rhys accidentally downloads an AI copy of Jack's personality into his cybernetic mind. Jack takes over Helios, but Rhys and Fiona crash the station into Pandora and wipe out his personality for good. They later help defeat the Traveler, another giant Vault monster.

  Borderlands 3 follows seven years after Borderlands 2 and Tales. Lilith and the Crimson Raiders were forced to destroy Sanctuary to stop a doomsday plot by Colonel Hector, a former Dahl commander. They now travel between planets aboard a new spacecraft, Sanctuary III, to find the Vaults across the galaxy. The Calypso Twins, Tyreen and Troy, claim the Vaults as their own. They build a cult called the Children of the Vault from Pandora's remaining bandit factions and partner with the Maliwan megacorporation. The twins hope to absorb the power of the Vault monsters and open the Great Vault, which turns out to be Pandora itself. They do not know that it still holds the Destroyer, a being intent on destroying the universe. The Crimson Raiders stop the twins and kill the Destroyer, but Maya and Lilith pay with their lives, though Lilith's fate is ambiguous.

  Borderlands 4 leaves Pandora behind for a new planet, Kairos. A dictator known as the Timekeeper rules it.

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• 5. Faces of Pandora

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  David Eddings voices Claptrap, the small yellow robot who has appeared in every Borderlands game as a non-player character. Jim Foronda took over the role in Borderlands 3. Claptrap also becomes a playable character in The Pre-Sequel.

  Dameon Clarke plays Handsome Jack, the megalomaniacal CEO of the Hyperion Corporation. Players first meet him as the principal antagonist of Borderlands 2. The Pre-Sequel casts him as a non-player character whose rise to power the player helps along. Borderlands 3 brings him back in flashbacks. Jennifer Green voices the Guardian Angel who guides players through the first game, and Brittani Johnson portrays her in the video.

  A crowd of vendors and quest-givers wanders through several games. Colleen Clinkenbeard voices Patricia Tannis, an erratic researcher. Michael Neumann plays Scooter, a garage owner and mechanic, and Jamie Marchi plays his younger sister Ellie, also a mechanic. Brina Palencia is the bartender Mad Moxxi. Ashly Burch voices Tiny Tina, a 13-year-old demolitions expert. Chris Rager plays Mr. Torgue, who founded a gun company, and J. Michael Tatum plays the gentleman hunter Sir Alistair Hammerlock. Catherine Moore voices the junk dealer Janey Springs, Ric Spiegel plays the shady surgeon Dr. Zed, and Bruce DuBose plays the gun merchant Marcus Kincaid, who also narrates the opening cinematics.

  Because every main game supports four-player co-op, the series treats its player characters as having witnessed each story together. Several of them show up later as non-player characters. In the first Borderlands, Oliver Tull voices Roland, a stoic soldier. Markus Lloyd takes over the role in Borderlands 2. Colleen Clinkenbeard returns as Lilith, a "Siren" with magical powers. Julio Cedillo voices Mordecai, a sniper with a pet bird of prey, and Jason Liebrecht plays him in later games. Marcus Mauldin voices Brick, a strongman brawler.

  Borderlands 2 adds Axton, a renegade soldier voiced by Robert McCollum, and Maya, another Siren, voiced by Martha Harms. John Swasey voices Salvador, a short-statured and short-tempered "gunzerker." Michael Turner voices Zer0, an enigmatic masked assassin. DLC then adds Gaige the "Mechromancer," a girl with a flying killer robot, voiced by Cherami Leigh. Jason Douglas voices Krieg, a deranged wanderer with a split personality.

  All but two of The Pre-Sequel's player characters had already appeared in earlier games as non-player characters. Lydia Mackay voices Athena, a renegade assassin first met in a DLC campaign for the original Borderlands. Stephanie Young plays Nisha Kadam, a bounty hunter who eventually becomes Jack's girlfriend. Bryan Massey voices Wilhelm, a cyborg mercenary obsessed with transhumanism. Players end up killing both Nisha and Wilhelm in Borderlands 2. Two more playable characters arrive through DLC. Dameon Clarke voices Timothy, a body double of Handsome Jack, and Kenneisha Thompson voices Lady Aurelia Hammerlock, Alistair's sister and a big game hunter.

  Borderlands 3 offers four new Vault Hunters. Zehra Fazal voices Amara, a Siren. Marissa Lenti voices Moze, a rogue Vladof soldier who pilots the mecha Iron Bear. Cian Berry plays Zane, a black ops operative with a variety of gadgets, and Sung-Won Cho plays FL4K, a robot beastmaster. The Calypso Twins are voiced by Elisa Melendez and Max Mittelman. Borderlands 4 gives players Vex, a goth Siren, Harlowe, a cheery scientist, Rafa, an exosuited soldier, and Amon, an axe-wielding warrior.

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• 6. The Main Games

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  Borderlands arrived in 2009 with four playable characters. The game awarded experience points for kills and objectives, and it paid bonuses for difficult actions such as headshots. Each level-up granted skill points for character specialization. About 4.5 million copies had sold worldwide by 2011, an unexpected success for Gearbox. Reviews were positive, with aggregate Metacritic scores from 81 to 86 depending on the platform. Four DLC packs followed: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, and Claptrap's New Robot Revolution. A remaster, Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition, reached PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on the 3rd of April 2019. The Nintendo Switch version followed on the 29th of May 2020.

  Borderlands 2 came out in 2012 with a story written by Anthony Burch. It was one of the best-selling games of 2012. By February 2014 it had sold 8.5 million copies, making it the best-selling game in the history of its publisher, 2K Games. Its Metacritic scores ran from 89 to 91 depending on the platform. Gearbox released five DLC campaigns that continued the story: Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty, Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage, Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt, Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, and Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary. A PlayStation Vita port arrived in 2014, with the full game and some DLC but only two-person multiplayer.

  Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel was announced in April 2014 and developed by 2K Australia. It launched in October 2014 for PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC, and a Mac version came later that year. New mechanics included oxygen tanks and a boost jump.

  Borderlands 3 was revealed at PAX East on the 28th of March 2019, though Gearbox had been developing it as early as 2015. It was released on the 13th of September 2019 for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. More than five million copies sold within five days, and the total reached 8 million by the end of 2019, making it the best-selling game in the series.

  By November 2022, more than 77 million copies of Borderlands games had been shipped, including 26 million of Borderlands 2. Series net revenues passed US$1 billion, which makes Borderlands one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time.

  Borderlands 4 was released on the 12th of September 2025 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and Windows. A Nintendo Switch 2 version was scheduled for the 3rd of October 2025. The game had sold 2.5 million copies by the 22nd of September 2025. It is the series' first "seamless" open world, with no loading screens.

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• 7. Spin-Offs and Collections

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  Borderlands Legends reached iOS devices on the 31st of October 2012, timed to the release of Borderlands 2. It plays more like a strategy game than a role-playing game, from a top-down perspective. Players control all four of the original Vault Hunters at once.

  Telltale Games developed Tales from the Borderlands with help from Gearbox. Its five episodes were published between November 2014 and October 2015. Fiona and Rhys narrate the story in a somewhat questionable way, and Telltale set out to keep the series' gunplay and offbeat humor.

  Borderlands Online was meant to be a China-exclusive online shooter for PC and mobile devices. It was developed by 2K China and Gearbox and was to be published and operated by Shanda Games. The game was slated for 2015, but it was cancelled in November 2015 when 2K China closed over profitability concerns.

  Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is a standalone game set in a high-fantasy version of the Borderlands universe, shortly after the Dragon Keep DLC for Borderlands 2. It keeps four-player co-op and procedurally generated loot, with extra focus on magic and melee weapons. Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford said the concept had been in development for more than ten years. Ashly Burch voices Tiny Tina again, and the cast adds Andy Samberg as Captain Valentine, Wanda Sykes as the robot Frette, and Will Arnett as the Dragon Lord. It was released on the 25th of March 2022 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X/S. Months earlier, on the 9th of November 2021, Gearbox released the Dragon Keep campaign alone as Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep: A Wonderlands One-Shot Adventure.

  New Tales from the Borderlands, released on the 21st of October 2022, follows three new playable characters. Anu is an altruistic scientist, and her brother Octavio is seeking fame and fortune. Fran owns a frozen yogurt store and uses a hoverchair. The trio search for a vault key while fighting Tediore, a weapon manufacturer that has invaded their home planet, Promethea. The game came out for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, and Nintendo Switch.

  Zen Studios built Borderlands: Vault Hunter Pinball as one of three pinball tables based on Gearbox games. It arrived for Pinball FX on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in February 2023, and on Windows in April 2023.

  Several bundles gather the games together. Borderlands: The Handsome Collection reached PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows and macOS in March 2015. It packages Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel, remastered by Iron Galaxy Studios and Armature Studio respectively, and it lets players import saves from the original games. A Switch version came later. Borderlands Legendary Collection bundled the first three games for Nintendo Switch in May 2020. Borderlands Collection: Pandora's Box gathered every game up to 2023 except Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, plus their DLC. It arrived on the 23rd of August 2023 on Steam, PlayStation and Xbox, and on the 25th of July 2024 on the Nintendo eShop.

  A Borderlands mobile game ran as a limited test from the 9th to the 28th of April 2026.

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• 8. Beyond the Games

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  Jesper Kyd, Raison Varner, Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan of Sonic Mayhem wrote the soundtrack for the first Borderlands. It was published in 2009 as Borderlands: Original Soundtrack, with 27 tracks. The same four composers scored the sequel, whose 2012 album carried 23 tracks. Several DLC campaigns got their own soundtrack albums.

  On the 12th of December 2013, a free mobile app called LootTheWorld launched for iOS and Android. Users scanned barcodes and QR codes to earn items for Borderlands 2, which transferred to their game through a ShiFT account. The app was available only in the United States and shut down on the 18th of October 2015.

  IDW published Borderlands: Origins, a four-issue comics miniseries, in print and digitally in November 2012. Mikey Neumann wrote it and Agustin Padilla drew it. It tells how the original four Vault Hunters came together and sets up the events of the first two games. The same pair made Borderlands: Fall of Fyrestone, an eight-issue series published between July 2014 and April 2015. It follows the events of the first game, and its last four issues are titled Tannis and The Vault. A video game art book, The Art of Borderlands 2, is also available.

  Pocket Books published three Borderlands novels by John Shirley. They cover the origins of Roland and Mordecai and their adventures after the first game. Borderlands: The Fallen came out on the 22nd of November 2011, Unconquered on the 25th of September 2012, and Gunsight on the 1st of October 2013. Anthony Burch, the writer of Borderlands 2, wrote a later novel based on Tales from the Borderlands. Borderlands: Debt or Alive was published by Titan Books in June 2024.

  Gearbox revealed a card game, Borderlands: Tiny Tina's Robot Tea Party, alongside Borderlands 3. It is designed for two to five players and takes 15 minutes a game. Players collect cards to assemble a specific Claptrap model, while action cards played by rivals can sidetrack them. Gearbox, XYZ Game Labs and Nerdvana Games publish it.

  Lionsgate had been developing a Borderlands film since 2015 as a tentpole movie. Avi Arad produced it with Erik Feig, and Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford and Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick served as executive producers. Eli Roth directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Craig Mazin. Cate Blanchett plays Lilith and Kevin Hart plays Roland. The cast also includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Haley Bennett, Edgar Ramirez, Olivier Richters and Janina Gavankar. The film was released on the 9th of August 2024 to mostly negative reviews.

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