Telltale Games does a great job taking well established worlds and brands and building new stories around them. This is no more apparent than with Tales from the Borderlands. Telltale took Gearbox’s world and many of their beloved characters and fleshed them out. The hope coming from the developers behind Tales from the Borderlands is that Gearbox might use their characters in a future installment in the main series.
In an oral history of the series in the Campo Santo Quarterly, various members of the team behind the Borderlands spin-off discussed how main protagonists Rhys and Fiona were designed to be reused in the main series.
“The hope was, with Fiona, with Rhys, we wanted to essentially hand back to Gearbox fully-fleshed out, heroic characters that they could then use in Borderlands 3 and beyond,” said Tales from the Borderlands producer Adam Sarasohn.
While the development team were aware of this plan, the voice actress behind Fiona, Laura Bailey, was unaware of Telltale’s idea.
“[I had] no idea,” Bailey said. “I would have been more nervous had I known it could lead to potential future games as well.”
It remains to be seen whether Gearbox might include Rhys and Fiona in Borderlands 3 or a future game, but Telltale is certainly hoping.
As for Tales from the Borderlands, unlike some of Telltale’s other projects that go on to spawn a second season, this looks to be the end of the road. Writer Nick Herman explained sales “weren’t great” by the end of its run, and that “internally it was perceived as a failure.”
Despite Telltale’s thoughts on the series, Anthony Burch, one of the writers behind Borderlands 2, The Pre-Sequel, and later episodes of Telltales series, said “I really hope they show up [in Borderlands 3] in some way.”
Hopefully Gearbox has a similar mindset and we will see Rhys and Fiona pop up somewhere in Borderlands 3.
