Take-Two Interactive said yesterday that it plans to release 62 games through its 2024 fiscal year, ranging from "immersive core" games to independents—although I'm not entirely clear on how a multi-billion-dollar publisher can seriously claim to be putting out indie games. Anyway, we were left to guess about what those games will actually be, but Take-Two did reveal that one of them will be something—something brand new, apparently—from Gearbox.
"2K will also introduce two releases from new franchises this year, including one from Gearbox," Take-Two president Karl Slatoff said during the earnings call. Slatoff was discussing Take-Two's 2022 fiscal year, which actually ends on March 31, 2022.
That is, admittedly, very little to go on, but it comes less than two weeks after Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford semi-teased some sort of activity on the Borderlands front—possibly including, as he put it, "Borderlands adjacent games," which could be seen as a nod to the new franchise Slatoff referred to.
Pitchford was similarly cagey in the wake of Take-Two's announcement, tweeting "hmm..." in a reply to a VCG report about the new franchise, and then suggesting that Gearbox has already put "years of work" into the project.
By “quickly” you mean “years of work”?May 19, 2021
Take-Two and Gearbox have a longstanding relationship—2K Games has published all the previous Borderlands games, among others—but even so, a partnership on a new series of some sort is a little unexpected because Gearbox is now owned by Embracer Group, a rival publisher that acquired the studio in February.
At the time, however, 2K Games said the new ownership would not have an impact on its role as the publisher of Borderlands games, "or any other projects we are currently working on with the studio." Given Pitchford's tweet implying that this project is well into development, my guess is that a deal with Take-Two was already in place at the time of the Embracer acquisition.
A Take-Two rep declined to comment further, but 2K Games will be taking part in Geoff Keighley's big Summer Game Fest, which is set to take place on June 10. Perhaps we'll learn more then.
