Gearbox's Randy Pitchford says Borderlands "ushered in a whole new genre" of looter shooters, and imitators get it wrong when they "twist it too far," unlike Gearbox: "We tend to commit to the bit"

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"Borderlands is the borderland between a role-playing game and a shooter"

Borderlands 4 trailer screenshot of Rafa around a bonfire
(Image credit: Gearbox)

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford is proud of Borderlands' legacy as father of the looter shooter genre, even if he says some of the more experimental games to follow in its influence "twist it too far."

Talking to GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2025, Pitchford described the Borderlands concept as something of a hybrid between a shooter and an RPG, which, in fairness, is pretty much exactly what it is.

"We didn't realize at the time that, because of the success of Borderlands, there would be a lot of other folks that wanted to jump in and do things," Pitchford said. "It's kind of exciting – in a few cases, some of the game makers I admire most started making shooter-looters too, and it's really cool, because it proved that it wasn't just a one-off – that Borderlands ushered in a whole new genre."

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Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick
Staff Writer

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.

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