Quickly earning a reputation as the face of the looter shooter genre in the years since its release, Borderlands really has become one of gaming’s most recognisable franchises. From its cel-shaded art style to its masked psycho poster child, the foul-mouthed, tongue-in-cheek sci-fi universe is now a staple of modern video game culture. It’s not stopping there though, with the series quickly morphing into a multimedia sensation in its own right, spinning off into comics, novels and even a tabletop game.
This month, that journey reaches its biggest milestone yet, with Borderlands finally making its long-awaited jump to the big screen courtesy of Hostel and Thanksgiving director, Eli Roth. Reimagining Pandora and its vault-obsessed locals for a brand new audience. And while the film did not review particuarly well, it’s still a major step for any franchise.
With the Borderlands movie now in theaters, there’s likely to be a lot of new and returning fans looking to dive back into the games and reacquaint themselves with where it all started. So, we decided to put together a quick timeline of the series to get you caught up on how it all fits together.
Jump to:
In total, there are currently seven Borderlands games and spin-offs that are canon to the series, and two smaller, non-canon titles: Borderlands: Vault Hunter Pinball and Borderlands Legends.
While it’s the simplest answer, the best place to start is arguably Borderlands 1, although if you don’t care about the story, any of the three mainline games are a good introduction.
All three entries in the trilogy are relatively similar in style, scope and gameplay, and better yet, they’re all available on modern consoles and PC. That being said, there is a great overarching story that runs through the Borderlands saga, and if you’ve just come off the movie and want to follow it as intended, starting from the beginning is the best way to play.
These blurbs contain mild spoilers for each game, including characters, settings, and story beats.
The game that kickstarted it all. The very first Borderlands launched in 2009, telling the story of Lilith, Brick, Roland and Mordecai: a group of four “Vault Hunters” that venture out on the treasure hunt of a lifetime. Arriving on the volatile planet of Pandora, they seek out a legendary bunker known as The Vault, which is said to house unimaginable treasures.
As expected, their expedition quickly turns into a chaotic maelstrom of carnage, with the group facing off against a militia known as the Crimson Lance, contending with the planet’s savage wildlife and taking down hordes of bloodthirsty bandits. From the moment Borderlands hit shelves, it was a huge hit, launching the looter shooter genre into the stratosphere through its compelling gameplay loop of killing masses of enemies, discovering a near-limitless supply of guns and building your chosen character.
The game was also supported heavily after release, getting a further four expansions that took the game from zombie-themed islands to a tongue-in-cheek riff on Mad Max’s Thunderdome.
Developed by 2K Australia with the assistance of Gearbox Software, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel may have launched after Borderlands 2, but it fills in the gap between the first two Borderlands games. The story follows a group of new Vault Hunters, Athena, Wilhelm, Nisha and Claptrap, as they head out on a mission to find a Vault on the moon of Elpis.
The Pre-Sequel was, in a lot of ways, a bunch more of the Borderlands fans knew and loved. Set in a new locale with fresh classes to master and learn, it offered more guns, boss fights, quests and enemy encounters to plough through while the world waited for an inevitable Borderlands 3. However, its main selling point was further fleshing out the story of Borderlands 2, with the game featuring the second game’s main antagonist, Handsome Jack, in a leading role.
Alongside featuring many of the second game’s main bosses and characters years before their roles in the sequel’s story, it also offered a full view of Jack’s descent into madness, establishing the iconic foe’s origins. Much like the other games, 2K Australia added several expansions after the game launched, including the Holodome Onslaught and Claptastic Voyage maps, as well as two playable characters: the Doppelganger and the Baroness.
The official sequel to Borderlands, Borderlands 2 launched in 2012, bringing players back to Pandora with a new squad of ambitious Vault Hunters in tow. The tale begins with our heroes, Maya, Axton, Salvador and Zer0, heading to Pandora to search for a new Vault. However, it quickly becomes apparent that the planet’s overlord, the sadistic Handsome Jack, doesn’t take kindly to brave adventurers seeking fame and fortune by uncovering the latest fabled Vault on Pandora. While riding a train across the untamed planet, Jack attempts to have them killed, leaving them stranded in an icy wasteland.
Left for dead, the team set out on an adventure to discover the truth behind Handsome Jack’s schemes, attempting to stop to him and find the Vault in the process. Borderlands 2 was essentially a bigger, more expansive take on the original game, offering plenty of quests, new classes to master, a charismatic main villain to take down and, somehow, even more guns to find and collect.
It’s still regarded by many as the best Borderlands to date, offering a fun story, memorable combat encounters and a healthy dose of the series’ trademark sense of humour. Much like the first game, it also came with a bunch of post-release support, including four additional campaigns, two bonus playable characters, and several Headhunter missions.
The first full spin-off of the series, Tales From The Borderlands was Walking Dead developer Telltale’s take on the Borderlands universe, offering an episodic, story-focused adventure set on the surface of Pandora. Unlike the mainline entries, Tales doesn’t centre on a team of super-powered, gun-obsessed Vault Hunters. Instead, it follows a crook and a corporate lackey who unwittingly stumble into a grand adventure.
Set after the events of Borderlands 2, we follow Rhys, a Hyperion employee lobbying for a higher position in the company, and Fiona, a con artist working with her sister, Sasha. After Rhys attempts to one-up a colleague by intercepting a deal to acquire a vault key, he learns the key was a fake in a con set-up by Fiona, entangling the two together and setting off a chain reaction of events that put them on the trail of a brand new Vault.
As with all of Telltale’s games, Tales From The Borderlands focuses primarily on a branching, cinematic story with moral choices that can change the direction of the narrative. In the years following its release, Tales From The Borderlands has been acknowledged as a key piece of the Borderlands canon, with original characters from the game even popping up in Borderlands 3.
Gearbox Software’s most recent entry in the Borderlands franchise, from the outside, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands doesn’t look like a Borderlands game. Subbing out futuristic desert wastelands for a sprawling fantasy kingdom, while Wonderlands may have plenty of dragons, goblins and unicorns, it’s very much still a Borderlands game in everything but the setting.
Acting as a fully-fledged version of the beloved Borderlands 2 DLC, Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands once again has you entering the world of Bunkers and Badasses; the Borderlands equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons. With Tina as your very enthusiastic dungeon master, you’ll battle against a range of fantasy monsters, embark on some heroic quests and battle your way to the monstrous Dragon Lord.
As with all Borderlands games, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands boasts a metric ton of guns to find, classes to master and enemies to kill, while also incorporating new ideas to complement the shift in setting, such as an overworld area you traverse between missions and the ability to use spells. It also has its own helping of expansions to dig into, with four separate DLCs featuring new dungeons, bosses and gear.
Seven years after the release of Borderlands 2, Gearbox Software returned for an official third entry, launching Borderlands 3 in 2019. As always, the threequel brings a fresh new cast of Vault Hunters into the fray, introducing players to Amara, FL4K, Zane and Moze, and sending them out on a chaotic new adventure.
This time around, players are tasked with stopping a pair of murderous siren twins named Troy and Tyreen, who are venturing across the galaxy and harnessing the power inside the vaults for a mysterious cause. In a franchise first, players are tasked with travelling to multiple planets to take them down, teaming with an array of familiar faces such as Lilith, Rhys, Maya, Brick, Zer0 and, of course, Claptrap.
As always, you can expect plenty of looter shooter chaos to ensue, with a heap of guns to find, enemies to eviscerate and new character classes to master. There’s also plenty of DLC content to jump into when you’re done, with Borderlands 3’s additional content offering four new campaigns, takedown missions and even designer and director cuts that resurrect a bunch of content left on the cutting room floor.
Gearbox Software’s official follow-up to Tales From The Borderlands, New Tales From The Borderlands is currently the last game on the chronological timeline. Bringing in a slate of fresh characters instead of opting for a continuation of the original Tales game, New Tales has three protagonists: Anu, Octavio and Fran.
The story follows the group’s adventures after stumbling into a vault and finding a precious artefact, which inadvertently puts them in the line of fire of the Tediore corporation and its ruthless CEO, Susan Coldwell. With the relic now in their possession, the trio begins to uncover its true powers, all the while attempting to evade Coldwell as she hunts them down.
Much like the previous game, New Tales From The Borderlands is focused almost entirely on weaving a branching story that adapts and warps based on your choices. You can expect plenty of dialogue options, QTE fight sequences and tough decisions that will impact the outcome of the adventure.
- Borderlands (2009)
- Borderlands Legends (2012)
- Borderlands 2 (2012)
- Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (2014)
- Tales From The Borderlands (2014 – 2015)
- Borderlands 3 (2019)
- Tiny Tina’s Wonderland (2022)
- New Tales From The Borderlands (2022)
- Borderlands: Vault Hunter Pinball (2023)
In terms of games, Borderlands 4 appears to be the next major release on the horizon. Gearbox Software revealed the sequel exists and is currently being worked on after the studio announced it was being acquired by Take-Two earlier this year, with Gearbox head Randy Pitchford telling us in an interview that “It’s the greatest thing [the studio has] ever done.”
Although that’s all we have to go on for now, It seems as though projects in the Borderlands universe could be more frequent going forward. We learned recently that the franchise will be a big focus for Take-Two following the acquisition, with Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick noting in a investor’s call that the company sees a lot of “potential growth opportunities” for the IP. We’ll have to wait to see exactly what Zelnick means by that, but it appears we could be trekking to Pandora a lot more in the coming years.
Callum Williams is an IGN freelancer covering features and guides. When he’s away from his desk, you can usually find him obsessing over the lore of the latest obscure indie horror game or bashing his head against a boss in the newest soulslike. You can catch him over on Twitter at @CaIIumWilliams.
