For better or worse, the Borderlands series has made a name for itself for its sense of humor. However, there’s been a question of whether Borderlands 3 would be able to retain this brand in 2019 where meme humor isn’t as new. According to its producer, Gearbox may have found a good middle ground as he claimed that Borderlands 3 humor may be edgy, but it won’t be insensitive.
Producer Chris Brock talked about finding the balance with the game’s humor during an interview with PCGamesN at Gamescom 2019. Here, he mentioned how they’re much more careful with the jokes in the game now. But, despite this, the team is still doing its best to retain the edgy humor of the previous games.
ALSO: Epic Games Store MechWarrior 5 tweet receives backlash from Fortnite mech haters
“We talk about it and think about it a lot more,” mentioned Brock. “I think in the past, we’ve just kinda done stuff. But now we say ‘OK we have this joke and we want to run in by the studio.’ And the studio’s huge now – we have people 400 people in Dallas and 100 people in Quebec. So we go ‘how does this joke land with everybody?’”
As part of the interview, Brock points out how Gearbox’s team is quite diverse, and as such has a diverse studio culture as well. As a result, he stated that everyone working on Borderlands 3 wants to represent that. Brock stated that, as a guide, the team needs to “be edgy, be funny, don’t be cruel, don’t be insensitive, be understanding, be sympathetic.”
With humor being such a big part of what makes the series unique, any changes to it are bound to worry fans. Whether or not Gearbox does find the right balance with Borderlands 3‘s humor, or whether the jokes fall flat remains to be seen. Fans will just have to see for themselves if it is possible for the game to retain its brand of humor, while still remaining sensitive and sympathetic, when it launches on PC (via the Epic Games Store), PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on September 13.
