Gearbox Software have been having a mad couple of days. They surprised us all with the resurrection of Duke Nukem Forever on Friday at the Penny Arcade Expo, and now studio head Randy Pitchford has been on the interview trail, talking about the studio’s plans aside from the Duke.
During the PAX Gearbox panel, Pitchford talked about the noticeable lack of Aliens lately (the game was first announced way back in February 2008): “Here’s the thing. This game is based on Aliens. It’s a 20th Century Fox property and Sega is the publisher. So there’s some fingers in this. We haven’t really been able to be super free to be talk about everything we’ve been doing.” On the plus side, we can at least expect it sometime in the next fifteen or so years: “I know it’s been awhile since the announcement first happened that we’re in for Aliens. I promise you it will not take as long as Duke Nukem Forever. We’re not going to let this dream die, it’s going to happen.”
What about the studio’s WW2-themed Brother in Arms series? “It was our first original IP. So we’ll be taking care of that one…We’ve got a lot of action right now, but we’re not ready quite yet to bring it out. We want to make sure we know we’ve got it right before we tell you what we’re doing,” says Pitchford. “We’ll deal with Baker and his men in future games for sure,” adds Gearbox co-founder Brian Martel. “”But we also may do some other things that maybe treat the game in some different ways and take some different directions.” The World War II theme isn’t so common anymore, but I for one could do without another modern warfare shooter.
Also at the panel, Pirchford confirmed that the “unannounced project” still listed on their website, and described as “‘look-at-our-line-up-and-imagine-something-even-bigger’ kind of big” is nothing to do with Duke. “That is one of the unannounced Gearbox projects,” he confirmed.
If you’re a fan of last year’s Borderlands, you’ll be glad to know that there’s even more content on the way too. The “Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution” pack is confirmed to be released on September 28th in the States (and hopefully the day after here), and will be accompanied by a free patch that raises the level cap to 69 – even if the previous “Secret Armoury” level-raising DLC has not been purchased – and rebalances the game accordingly. A game of the year edition is also coming out in the US, containing DLCs 1-4 and a foldout map of the game’s territories, but there has been no European announcement as yet.
Klart
the “unannounced project” still listed on their website, and described as “‘look-at-our-line-up-and-imagine-something-even-bigger’ kind of big”: my guess is “Borderworlds”.