Greetings, Vault Hunters! In this episode of Echoes From The Borderlands, we are talking about Borderlands DLC? What if (and hear me out) host Joel Watson was joined by Creative Director Matt Cox, Senior Project Producer Anthony Nicholson, and Lead Technical Sound Designer Jesse Lemons to talk about Borderlands 3 DLC: Bounty of Blood?! What if, indeed.
Don’t you hate it when you finish a game’s main narrative and the game just sort of… ends? But what if the end wasn’t the end, and more game content could simply be downloaded?
Speakers
- Joel Watson – Creative Producer
- Matt Cox – Creative Director
- Anthony Nicholson – Senior Project Producer
- Jesse Lemons – Lead Technical Sound Designer
Hidden Morse Code
- “Get in loser, we’re going shopping” – Mean Girls
- “I solemnly swear I am up to no good” – Harry Potter
Topics
- 00:00 – Intro
- 01:45 – Why do we do DLC?
- 02:50 – What is the main seed for a DLC to come to fruition?
- 05:40 – When does the development of DLC start?
- 07:30 – How did the number of DLCs establish?
- 09:00 – Is the Bounty of Blood DLC a What if Borderlands was a Western?
- 11:30 – How close is the original pitch of Bounty of Blood to the finalized product?
- 13:13 – Did you originally start with established characters?
- 15:00 – How did you balance the tone in Bounty of Blood if the main mission was serious and the side missions are goofy?
- 15:45 – How does the tone affect the music?
- 24:15 – What were the gameplay goals for Bounty of Blood?
- 29:20 – What were the story inspirations for Bounty of Blood?
- 32:05 – Pandora’s Box Advert
- 32:38 – Why is the Narrator talking to the player?
- 34:40 – What inspired the reveal of the company?
- 36:30 – How is Gehanna different than other planets?
- 38:10 – Is there a problem with the villains being right?
- 40:40 – How do you handle the nuke explosion in sound design?
- 46:10 – How did you tackle sound design for the beasts?
- 48:50 – Were there specific visual goals for Bounty of Blood?
- 49:50 – Let’s talk about familiar elements and give them a new twist
- 50:45 – This is the only DLC that doesn’t have existing characters
- 53:00 – How did Rose come to life?
- 56:00 – Juno’s arc is that a classic western trope?
- 57:47 – Matt did you write the songs?
- 1:00:05 – What makes Bounty of Blood unique as a DLC?
- 1:03:40 – How was the development of Bounty of Blood impacted by the pandemic?
- 1:06:30 – Hidden SHiFT Code: KSKJB-TCFJR-W9JFW-Z3TBB-W3FXW
- 1:11:40 – Any special celebrations after finalizing completing Bounty of Blood?
- 1:14:00 – TRIVIA
- 1:15:40 – Marcus Impression
My Reactions
- 09:00 – SHOCKER! Matt is not a fan of Westerns?!
- 11:20 – Interesting to hear that they wanted to create a new major Borderlands character with Rose. Juno comes as an afterthought in Matt’s sentence but fans have been curious about getting to spend more time with Rose.
- 13:30 – Eden-5 and Eden-Prime were considered as the planet instead of Gehanna.
- 14:00 – Dr. Slagtooth as the villain instead of Rose. Would we have also gotten more Dr.Zed references if that happened? Devil Riders were the Slagtooth gang.
- 14:10 – Interesting to hear about the tone of Borderlands 1 and Borderlands 2 and how that impacted Bounty of Blood. I wonder how that impacts future games.
- 16:10 – If I remember correctly, Bounty of Blood was Raison Varner’s last work for Gearbox Software.
- 20:30 – Great to see Matt Cox reexperiencing the creation of Bounty of Blood during this conversation.
- 25:00 – I wonder if we will see more Metroidvania elements in Borderlands 4.
- 34:10 – I didn’t expect to meet the narrator in Bounty of Blood because the main game has Marcus narrating the intro but it’s not like he ends the story as well.
- 34:40 – The Jakobs reveal surprised me.
- 39:20 – The bomb exploding was impressive
- 42:40 – It is always amazing to see how some audio effects are being made with common household stuff.
- 59:00 – Matt / Wandermine does have some really cool tracks
- 1:03:18 – Sorry, I didn’t notice there was a little theme playing when jumping on the jetbeast.
- 1:08:22 – yup, I’m definitely guilty of going frame-by-frame on trailers and analyzing the heck out of each element.
- 1:16:15 – Randy Varnell spoiler for a future episode
Behind the Scene Heroes:
- April Johnson
- Dakota Warren
- Robert Fernandez
- Hannah Terry
Music
Wandermine – Get out of my head
