Gearbox Software and 2K Games have announced that Borderlands 2 and Borderlands the Pre-Sequel are getting an ULTRA HD Upgrade pack.
Recap
The folks over at The Triple S League have “received reports from two independent sources that localization work on Borderlands 3 has begun“. They also mentioned new content for the legacy games. While I personally like the idea of bringing new content to the older games to hype up Borderlands 3, I also don’t find this an efficient or effective way of promoting the next installment in the Borderlands franchise.
Some fans speculated that because only a few people played Tales from the Borderlands, Gearbox Software would need to explain some of the new story elements from that game. While this is plausible, I still don’t find it an efficient or effective way of doing things.
We have seen in the past that marketing put out a comic book-style infographic explaining the timeline. That said; we have seen that GBX added a new side quest to Borderlands 2 in the past to expand upon the lore so it crosses over into Tales from the Borderlands.
New Content
After the rumor that new content is coming, Gearbox Software & 2K Games announced Borderlands 2 VR. At first, this announcement was seen as the new Borderlands content that “we were expecting”. However, recent developments show that Gearbox is actively working on something on Steam. When you check SteamDB you can see that the Borderlands 2 and Borderlands the Pre-Sequel files have gotten several updates.
You can find multiple MCarlson test files. If we check MobyGames we do find a Michael Carlson that worked on previous GBX releases as a programmer or technical director. He has worked on Borderlands and Battleborn.
Other files we can find have code names like; Ailanthus and Mancana, and these are both trees. In case you didn’t know Gearbox likes to name their projects after various flora. Trees are big projects, Bushes are smaller projects, and Flowers are DLC. With Battleborn I have even seen a code name that refers to an apple.
If we look at previous GBX titles we see Borderlands is named Willow (tree) and Battleborn is named Popular (tree). Project 1v1 is named Mahogany which is a competitive tree, which is fitting for a competitive game. Other known projects that have been mentioned on the Nerdvana Podcast are:
- Madrone (Tree) Nerdvana Podcast
- Hawthorn (Bush) Nerdvana Podcast
However, these code names don’t explain the “Carcosa content” which can also be found in the SteamDB. If you are familiar with H.P Lovecraft, you might recognize the name Carcosa as it was referencing a fictional city that originally was used in a collection of stories named ‘The King in Yellow. Speculation leads to believe that Handsome Jack could be this “King in Yellow” due to the Hyperion color scheme. The fictional city Carcosa had a supernatural setting and Halloween is coming up soon, are these two events connected?
The city of Carcosa is located in the Hyades Cluster and if you dive into Greek Mythology you learn that Hyades are the daughters of Atlas. Borderlands also has the Atlas corporation, they discovered the alien technology and started reverse engineering it to outperform their competition. The Atlas corporation found the Eridian Tech on the planet Promethea, this location was also hinted at in the Borderlands 3 Easter Eggs that were hidden in Battleborn.
Conclusion
I know some community members have been diving deeply into this. Is this rumor true? I don’t know, but it seems things are starting to add up and therefore I’m reporting on it. I don’t think it’s Gearbox adding VR support to the PC version, because only BL2 VR was announced so that wouldn’t justify new content for BLTPS.
If 2K Games wanted to update the community about story events I think they could have released a story trailer bringing the players up to speed. Some might say playing is believing, but if you have to rely on that then your core message is probably off. All in all, I still like the idea of new content.
Let me know what you think in the comments or on my Twitter poll.
