Steve Jablonsky announced on his social media channels that he is scoring the Borderlands movie. The composer is best known for his work on the Transformer movies but also worked on a wide range of other blockbuster movies and video games.
- Movies: Transformers Franchise, The Island, Red Notice, Ender’s Game, Friday the 13th, more
- Games: Gears of War 2 + 3 + Judgement, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, and more
Steve mentions that he has been playing the Borderlands games for years now and is over the moon by this opportunity. This means he is familiar with the work and while the score for the Transformers movies doesn’t check the Borderlands vibe check, you should listen to his work from the Netflix movie; Spenser Confidential, you can definitely imagine this in a Borderlands game.
I did an interview with former Gearbox Software in-house composer, Raison Varner, about what defines Borderlands sound. For me personally, it was that Firestone soundtrack by Jesper Kyd in Borderlands 1 that set the tone.
Our general formula is something like: “Hybrid score/song writing approaches combined with heavy synth work and ethnic instrumentation.”
In terms of executing on that, we have a finer set of guidelines, but they are all flexible. They’re just a tool to help everyone conceive of what a BL space is so that they can more purposefully branch out from it when they need to.
What I really want from our composers is to hear their voice within that Borderlands space.
Raison Varner
I’m still looking forward to the upcoming Borderlands Movie, which is set to be released on August 9, 2024.
