Borderlands 3's Zane shares a drink with himself in this colorful trailer

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The first character trailer focuses on Zane the Operative

Gearbox is rolling out Borderlands 3 character trailers this summer to help quench your thirst for new details, and the first one is all about Zane the Operative. The new "Friends Like Zane" trailer focuses on his backstory and personality, and gives us a brief look at some of his abilities in action. 

Earlier this year, dataminers uncovered what looks like the full Borderlands 3 Zane skill tree in an old version of the Borderlands 3 Twitch extension, and while his final abilities are subject to change, the abilities shown in the trailer certainly line up. For the unaware, Zane can equip a second action skill by sacrificing his grenade slot, and many of his passives augment those action skills. He can summon a Digi-Clone of himself, place a barrier, or deploy a sentinel drone. We see Zane's shield early on in the trailer, but his Digi-Clone - that is, his drinking buddy - is the real star. 

Alongside today's trailer, Gearbox shared a preview of some of Zane's skills in a blog post. Again, many of these abilities echo the datamined skill tree, but some specifics remain to be seen. Here are a few of the most interesting skills and augments that have been confirmed: 

  • Double Barrel: Zane's Digi-Clone receives a copy of your equipped weapon, and swapping places with your Digi-Clone increases gun damage for you and it. 
  • Seein' Red: using an Action Skill activates all of Zane's Kill Skills. 
  • Distributed Denial: Zane's Barrier gains the effects of your equipped Shield Mod, and this will also benefit allies near the shield. 
  • Salvation: after killing an enemy, Zane's guns gain lifesteal for a few seconds. 

The previous Borderlands 3 trailer featured all four Vault Hunters performing a delightfully deadly dance routine, not to mention a gun that fires tiny bullet-riding Psychos. 

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.