While Gearbox is putting the finishing touches on Borderlands 4, fans are busy trying to revive an MMO that time—and the publishers—forgot…
Back in 2014, established Chinese studio Shanda Interactive Entertainment started developing Borderlands Online, an MMO spin-off meant only for the Chinese market. Gearbox clearly wanted to tap into China’s booming PC gaming scene, but the project was scrapped in 2015 when Shanda exited game development entirely. All that’s left now are some screenshots and a pretty weird trailer. In true fan fashion, a few die-hards dug up an ancient build from virus-laden, long-defunct Chinese sites and are now working to make the long-lost Borderlands game playable—even though, if it had released, nobody outside China would have ever been able to touch it…
In an Eurogamer interview, EpicNNG, the lead on the project, explained why he jumped into this wild quest to restore a 10-year-old unreleased game he admits probably isn’t very good. Even he’s not convinced the final result will be worthwhile. He just wants to play it, and hopes the project will unite people while everyone waits for Borderlands 4 to drop in a month and a half.
“I’m a superfan of this franchise. I’ll do anything to get my hands on stuff like this. I’m not stopping at Borderlands Online. Borderlands is what started my video game addiction and pushed me to want to be a developer. It’s been a massive challenge. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s like trying to escape a maze blindfolded. I hit the ceiling of my abilities, and coming to grips with that was tough,” said EpicNNG.
Reverse engineering a piece of software with no servers, no original developers, and zero documentation isn’t easy for even the best coders. If you want to check out the project, you can watch his YouTube plea for help. At least, they’ve already found de_dust2 hidden in the files. Counter-Strike? That’s just suspiciously Chinese…
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