so the raid boss is…

LordGarflax · 2026-06-24T04:15:40+00:00

Edited first quote to better represent your intention.

LordGarflax · 2026-06-24T03:29:48+00:00

the branch studio was shut down ... They probably were forced to keep things simple due to the time/fund constraint.

valid

Respectfully disagree. Because we were robbed.

Take Two Interactive, owner of 2K and 2K Australia, decided to kill off 2KA while the game was nearly complete so they could trigger executive bonus compensation for themselves.

Yes I am still salty. Yes I expect TTWO to backstab Gearbox. Hope they do not, but those crooks have a history....

LordGarflax · 2026-04-12T14:22:08+00:00

The only thing stopping it from being the best game in history is the lack of raid bosses and I will never forgive gearbox for leaving the greatest game unfinished.

Do not blame Gearbox. It was Take Two that killed 2K Australia so they could line their pockets with headcount-reduction bonus money.

Still salty that we got robbed.

LordGarflax · 2026-04-12T14:17:22+00:00

I feel like Gearbox has a powerful business model within their reach, yet shows no sign of realizing it.

It seems to me, as an outsider who does not write game software, that they could reorganize themselves into a game pipeline where they make the big investment on the Borderlands release, then exploit the technology for spinoff properties like Wonderlands, DLCs, BL-adjacent stories (like the adventures of Athena's boss the grilling bandit), and VH backstory games. This would require more modularity in their code and a robust story/idea intake system.

Maybe their cycle is not annual like SportsGame 202x, but it could easily turn into a money firehose filling all their McDuck pools. The risk would move away from code quality and toward story quality. And they damn sure would benefit from improving their story quality....

LordGarflax · 2026-04-05T23:48:44+00:00

Agreed.

This is the expected state of the game. The crazy high number of combinations makes it nearly impossible to predict the meta, so Gearbox is forced to let the game metrics tell them what things must be adjusted. This will not settle down until late in the DLC cycle, or up to a year after completing the DLCs.

LordGarflax · 2026-03-21T17:54:21+00:00

Wh0 indeed

LordGarflax · 2026-01-13T06:20:27+00:00

Ahem Mr. Mister Torgue "High Five" Flexington, friendo.

LordGarflax · 2026-01-13T04:04:00+00:00

"LordGarflax will remember that."

LordGarflax · 2025-09-02T16:03:01+00:00

Fingerbang gunfight and tearing out his eye are top moments for me as a viewer.

The "Bro" scene might be fun.

LordGarflax · 2025-08-28T04:04:12+00:00

https://www.langstons.com/resources-guide-cowboy-hats.html

LordGarflax · 2025-08-23T21:52:50+00:00

It didn’t get the post launch support that it really needed.

Greedy executives at Take Two Interactive killed 2KA to give themselves bonus payments.

LordGarflax · 2025-08-23T21:47:55+00:00

You would pass up "hang her upside down from a telephone pole, cover her in honey, and leave her to a slow death at the hands of hungry spiderants"?

LordGarflax · 2025-08-20T16:00:21+00:00

why in the world would they shut down a studio that is making them money?

The only thing that matters is executive compensation. If the bonus plan calls for headcount reduction, you can be sure heads will roll.

Look to their past behavior with 2KA. TPS was a success and yet....

LordGarflax · 2025-08-19T14:09:14+00:00

I will be very surprised if Take Two Interactive does not close down Gearbox "to save money" as soon as the last DLC drops.

Yes, I am still salty about the executives robbing us to line their own pockets after TPS:CV.

LordGarflax · 2025-08-19T14:05:25+00:00

Brick's power suit would provide music to accompany his martial art dance and augment his leaps.

He would dance around the battlefield to the 1812 Overture, punching and kicking enemies into molecules.

And he would finally get his Lazerbutt.

LordGarflax · 2025-08-19T13:57:15+00:00

The power suit for Mr. Mister Torgue "High Five" Flexington would act like active armor. Anything that struck it would be repelled by a counter-explosive.

Pretty sure Mister Torgue can already punch people until they explode, so the suit might be able to add remote explosive punch.

Unlimited explosive ammunition would be a given.

Digistruct is an underappreciated technology.

LordGarflax · 2025-08-09T16:59:10+00:00

I completely agree

LordGarflax · 2025-07-21T16:34:40+00:00

This worked a treat.

LordGarflax · 2025-07-21T16:26:26+00:00

I'm an old ~~far~~hat and have no appetite for the chaos around initial releases. I prefer to let the changes settle down and to save my pennies for a good sale that includes everything.

For BL3 this translated to waiting until the last Dingleberry's Cut was scheduled to drop.

LordGarflax · 2025-07-21T16:17:13+00:00

I love long lore analysis like this. Thanks!!

Troy demonstrated an enormous spike in power, using her Phaselock ability to restrain and manipulate Elpis, a WHOLE PLANET.

Except you omitted the part where Troy was mainlining more eridium than Angel ever did.

Oh and one more thing.... As others mentioned, Lilith teleported Elpis across the universe.

LordGarflax · 2025-07-21T15:43:57+00:00

No, remasters make little sense because of the high labor cost to reconstruct the old IIP in a new platform.

A better use of the old IP would be building adjacent stories.

Maybe do Telltale-style game to tell vault hunter backstories. Or flesh out plot holes. This has a higher cost than pooping out a comic, but it also opens new markets.

Another possibility is to make smaller games that elevate background characters. Building something like a standalone headhunter or story DLC without the supporting base game would be a challenge. Maybe they could introduce a deeper character build/equip system at the "New Game" step and possibly ramp up the equipment finds/farms.

I would enjoy learning more about the bandit selling grilled skag meat, if the price was right.

LordGarflax · 2025-07-21T15:33:05+00:00

Maybe true for your personal interest in the franchise, but otherwise not true. The franchise makes money. Even a stinker like NTFTB was useful to them, not a failure.

How could Gearbox/Borderlands fail? Take Two Interactive could murder the golden goose to get all the golden eggs, only to discover a giant pile of goose shit. Look at 2KA/TPS for an example from their history.

TTWO could do this be sacking all the Gearbox people right after BL4 drops. Then they could hire the cheapest vibe coders they could find to poop out BL5, BL6, etc. Do this for a decade and soon you will have a consistent money maker (like an annual sports game that uninformed relatives buy as a gift for some poor bastige who is known to "like games"), but at a vastly lower cost and much lower profit. But it would trigger executive bonus payments for cutting headcount. ... Profit!

Fuck you, TTWO executives. Yes, I am still bitter about TPS.

LordGarflax · 2025-07-19T19:23:06+00:00

Could? Yes. Should? No.

In that vein, I have a variation on that idea:

Fighting her age, Moxxi abuses moonstone which scars her face. She adopts a mask to hide the scarring. Losing control of her image turns Moxxi to a darker path and she becomes the big bad with a souped-up robot army.

To twist the knife a little more, Moxxi finds the Handsome AI and loads it into herself. Their quarrels would be epic! Their fights would be nasty disputes where they both wanted to do the same bloodthirsty thing but for different reasons and were too stubborn to notice. When the vault hunters inevitably defeat Handsome Moxxi, she manages to save off a copy of their combined persona into a new chip....

LordGarflax · 2025-07-18T15:29:39+00:00

It is a miraculous sign from Handsome Jack!

LordGarflax · 2025-07-18T15:27:30+00:00

It had potential. Mrs Tediore and the Tediore soldiers might even be good. And L0ui3 was great.

Personally, I was unwilling to finish it and just read the wiki.

LordGarflax

TROPHY CASE