Top talent is leaving the studio, making room for "flesh blood" to lead upcoming projects.
What you need to know
- Several veteran Borderlands 3 developers are leaving Gearbox.
- They will reportedly be working on a new project together elsewhere.
- Gearbox has already begun shifting around team members to make up for the loss.
While Gearbox is hard at work on Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, it's lost several top talent that made up the Borderlands 3 team. Axios reports that multiple developers are leaving the studio, and all are apparently going to work on a new IP with each other, likely aiming to take on some of the best Xbox games in the business.
According to the report, seven senior members are leaving the company, including Senior Producer Christopher Brock, Lead Mission Designer Keith Schuler, Art Director Scott Kester, Creative Director Paul Sage, UX/Game Feel Director Chris Strasz, and Lead Character Artist Kevin Penrod. Most of them were working on the same project currently in pre-production before their departure.
Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford told Axios that the team is departing on good terms, and "their departure will cause minimal disruption in our current plans." The studio's attention right now if focused on Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, which is currently on-track for its 2022 release. The game is is inspired by the Borderlands 2's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC, and will be the first entry in the franchise that allows players to customize their own characters.
These departures come amid a tumultuous time in the games industry, especially with the lingering pandemic still affecting development and causing delays. It's unclear what the team's mysterious project will be or how far along in development it is.
Recently, companies like Ubisoft and BioWare have also lost veteran employees who moved around in the industry to work on new projects.
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