There are two protagonists in this adventure based off Gearbox’s Borderlands, and each are big time liars twisting the story. We choose which porkies we like best.
Fiona and Rhys are a con artists and Hyperion executive respectively, so lying comes naturally. In fact we ”never really play what actually happened,” teases Telltale.
“You’re playing this Big Fish version of what happened,” explained Kevin Bruner. Telltale can finally revisit its more comedic roots, like in Sam & Max or Monkey Island. They’ve diverted long enough into more serious and dark dramas with The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. Borderlands is already a parody rich universe.
”We’ve got all this pent up comedy in boxes around the studio that we’ve been wanting to unpack,” Bruner said. We don’t focus on the heroes of Borderlands - the Vault Hunters - as that would be a whole other affair. Instead Telltale and Gearbox writer Anthony Burch are working on more of a shorty story compilation, like with Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina.
”The cool think about Mos Eisley, or any kind of expanded universe stuff like that, is, let’s tell a story in this universe that’s not specifically about the world savers, it’s not about the badasses doing badass things - its about schmos trying to get by,” said Burch. They can dig deep into forces and characters behind the scenes.
“Borderlands can be more than just shooting people in the face repeatedly,” he added. “That it could be shooting people in the face repeatedly and then talking to them is a cool possibility for us.”
Tales from the Borderlands will have action in the form of shooting and other events. ”It’s a Borderlands game, there has to be crazy stuff going on,” explained Bruner. “We want to keep things cinematic, and have action sequences tell stories. We got better between Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, and I think we’ll get better as we move into Borderlands, because you have to have crazy, over-the-top action scenes, or it’s not a Borderlands game.”
Tales from the Borderlands is for PC and console. Check out the SXSW panel with Telltale and Gearbox below.
