Publisher 2K tease back in april that it brought back Telltale’s Tales from the Borderlands series but this time it will be developed in-house by Gearbox Software. Afterward, During Gamescom’s Opening Night Live event, Gearbox officially revealed the sequelis not a direct sequel to the Telltale saga and is more of a spiritual successor to the series, which is evident in its official title: New Tales from the Borderlands.
That new trailer gave us a look at the new protagonists – selfless scientist Anu, her wise older brother Octavio and local business owner Fran – as well as a glimpse into the birth of Tales from the Borderlands this time. Sure, it’s a new cast and a whole new story in the Borderlands world, but it’s obviously going to play and feel familiar. When talking to the team, it’s clear that this is Tales from Borderlands with some added Gearbox edges.
Gearbox Software’s executive producer, James Lopez, told me: “As someone who has worked with Tales before, I am acutely aware that it is an important lovely piece of work. “People who have played it love it. Instead of trying to follow those footsteps, we try to note the route those steps took but then try to do something different. Use the formula, use what works, but do it Gearbox style. ”
That’s why this game looks more like Borderlands 3 in visual style than the first Tales from Borderlands and that’s why it has updated, better animations.
Lopez said Gearbox is working with the developers from the first game to ensure its spiritual successor remains original to the series. The authenticity and dedication to making New Tales from the Borderlands feel at home are evident in its first gameplay demo, which debuted at Pax West in September. In it, we see The trio of Anu, Octavio and Fran try to escape danger in a sewer teeming with Tediore troops, who want nothing more than to take them down. What immediately stood out for me was how well this gameplay of Tales from the Borderlands is, from the actual gameplay to the moment to the writing.
Jokes abound, with some hitting harder than others, depending on your tolerance for Gearbox’s trademark Borderlands humour. And the gameplay closely resembles Telltale’s first and only gameplay in this universe, meaning your primary input comes from choosing dialogue choices and seeing how they affect the characters. characters and the world around you as well as the overall story.
As you’d expect, when it’s time to choose a dialogue, you’ll see options pop up on the screen and a red bar below them to indicate how much time you have left to choose one. However, don’t expect to see the “Fran will remember that” message pop up after you’ve made your decision, because unlike in Telltale’s game, the team has removed the onscreen markers. so. Instead, you will have to decipher how that choice affects those around you based on what they do and say afterwards.
As for why the team chose to drop those notifications, it was to enhance the impact of each choice.
“There is an immediate impact; there’s an immediate joke associated with your selection,” says Gearbox Studios Quebec producer Frédéric Scheubel of the demo’s first dialogue choice. “Which choice you make… will have its own sequence that will play out differently. And some of those choices will have a mid-term and even longer-term impact, affecting the ending you’ll see, so keep an eye out and see how the characters will react. If you object to them, they will react. We felt that every choice mattered, so we shied away from the suggestions we had previously in Tales from the Borderlands. ”
He continued, “Instead of acting like ‘this choice is the important choice’, all the choices could be important and could have led you to these circumstances later on.” In addition to reactions and death moments, there are two other ways to capture how your choices affect gameplay. In classic Telltale fashion, at the end of each episode, there’s a summary of what you’ve done. There will also be an NPC killer bot that follows the trio around, acting as a Greek Chorus character for the party.
“If you say something particularly harsh to someone, he’ll call you about it,” Lopez said. “He won’t criticize you. He’ll just go, ‘that’s pretty harsh.’ There is a mechanic too, where he will measure the cohesion of the whole group. When you get those moments where he calls these things to you, it’s an opportunity to say, ‘do I like this? Do I want to go back and make my relationship higher? ‘”
Lopez said the dialogue choices shown in the Pax West demo are just some of the hundreds in the final game, and all of them will help determine which of the five endings you can get be when the credits appear. On the topic of dialogue, Lopez said Anu, Octavio and Fran have clear archetypes, but players are not required to follow those archetypes. After all, it’s your story, and when you go against each character’s archetypal path, Lopez says you’ll see and hear the characters react to it.
An interesting aspect of New Tales from the Borderlands was shown in its first game demo as Vaultlanders, one of the game’s many minigames. It starts with you choosing a Borderlands-inspired minifigure that doubles as a collectible found and earned throughout the story, from the fighting game-style character selection screen. The game then plunges you into an action-packed, humorous war with button clicks and fast-paced events. In this case, winning the battle gave Octavio a mini-image of Zane Flynt, which fans might recognize as one of the playable characters from Borderlands 3, a game that takes place one by one. years before the events of this game.
The rest of the demo plays out as you’d expect – jokes, fast-paced events, tough dialogue choices, and plenty of peril in the Borderlands – and well worth a look if you’re excited. with what’s in store in New Tales from the Borderlands ahead of the October 21 release.
Does this game performance get you excited to play New Tales from the Borderlands next month? Let me know in the comments below!
