At the 11th hour, the original Borderlands underwent a massive artistic revamp to shed the dour color palette already seen in many an Xbox 360 shooter and put on its now-familiar cel-shaded look. That last-minute change ended up costing parent company Take-Two $50 million.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said as much in a recent interview with David Senra, which you can see below, where he recalled how the company were gearing up to release Borderlands, a game that was due to finish development two months later – until another executive walked into Zelnick’s office and said, “We screwed up and the art style is not appropriate and it’s not differentiated, so we want to remake the game.”
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Borderlands first reared its head in 2007 with a style that wasn’t too dissimilar to the grimy worlds of Gears of War or Fallout. It then disappeared from public view entirely until being re-announced with a whole new look in 2008, eventually came out in 2009, and then went on to spawn a best-selling franchise from then on.
Zelnick remembers the decision to take a knife to the looter shooter’s whole look cost Take-Two a mere $50 million and pushed back its release schedule by more than a year.
“I dug in and did my homework,” Zelnick says. “In the end of it, I supported the decision. And that title became Borderlands. Had we not done that, Borderlands wouldn’t have been a hit. And that was a nonobvious decision. And I pretty much can assure you no one else in the business would have done it.”
While Borderlands’ risky pivot seems like the obvious choice in hindsight, Zelnick’s not convinced any other major publisher would’ve pulled the gun because “it was insane” and a different executive might have said, “The game is done, put out the game, move on to the next thing – I’m not spending $50 million bucks to remake the goddamn thing in another art style.” The new look wouldn’t have been a sure thing, either, he adds.
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