Back in the mists of time of 2014, the original Tales From The Borderlands followed the classic Telltale episodic template, with a new chapter dropping every three or four months. Gearbox Software’s upcoming New Tales From The Borderlands, however, is going to be doing things a bit differently. As our PAX West team found out over the weekend, NuTales will still be split up into an episodic-style chapter structure, according to director of production James Lopez, but you won’t have to wait several months before you can play them altogether.
“We do kind of keep the idea of episodes, meaning that there are five episodes in this game, but whether you buy it on disc or buy it digital, it’s all released at the same time,” Lopez told our vid bud Liam after Gearbox’s big show at PAX West on Friday.
“And this was sort of a conscious choice for us because we had thought about doing an episodic release, but you know, the – not only has the industry kind of changed since then, but also the way people consume content in general has changed. You know, there’s a lot of shows now coming out where people just binge it all in a day or across a weekend, and you know, choice really matters to us. As [producer] Fred [Scheuber] mentioned on stage, choice is the number one feature in this game, and we don’t want to limit the player’s ability to decide when and how to play the game.”
Personally, this is great news as far as I’m concerned, as I’ve always tended to wait until episodic games have concluded before dipping my toes in. I know, I know, that’s not how they’re meant to be played, but listen, my memory ain’t what it used to be, and I was always perpetually worried about forgetting who had remembered what in the intervening months. So for me, this gets a big thumbs up.
This isn’t the only thing Lopez touched on in our New Tales Of The Borderlands chat, though. If you’re an RPS premium supporter, you can go and watch the rest of the interview in full right now if you wish, as well as all the other great RPS@PAX videos Liam and Rachel have been producing during the show. If you don’t currently support RPS but would like to, you can sign up here for £6/$8 per month.
New Tales From The Borderlands is out very soon, releasing on PC on October 21st, where you’ll be able to find it on Steam and the Epic Games Store for £35 / €40 / $40.