Borderlands playable character Fl4k and his lovable pet.

Borderlands 3 interview — How the writers envisioned twin ‘livescream’ villains and multiple planets

Borderlands 3 has some big shoes to fill as it tries once again to be the violent first-person shooter that makes you laugh out loud. From the beginning moments where you reassemble the sassy Clap Trap robot companion to the cuddly teddy bear Balex, voiced by Ice-T, Borderlands 3 will make you chuckle.

I know this because I played a few hours of Gearbox Software’s Borderlands 3 at game publisher 2K’s offices in Novato. Then I spoke with the writers Danny Homan and Sam Winkler, who had to bring the world beyond Pandora and the dialogue of the twin villains, Tyreen and Troy Calpyso, to life.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.