Players might have noticed something fishy recently as Gearbox tweaked the rate to find the perfect balance, which was done quietly in order to avoid influencing players’ opinions with numbers. Between April 9 and May 13, 2015, Gearbox futzed with the legendary drop rate to see what felt best to the community. The developers found that the previous rates made legendaries feel dishearteningly rare, while anything over a 3x boost felt excessive, diminishing the joy of finding that orange glow. Three times the previous rate is apparently the sweet spot (one might say “the Goldilocks zone”) for legendary items.
Gearbox is currently developing the next entry in the Borderlands series, described so far only as “the big one.” There are no details about the game itself yet, such as what it will be called or when it will come out. Publisher Take-Two Interactive president Karl Slatoff did confirm during an earnings call, however, that it would only be coming to the latest generation of consoles, leaving the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to wallow in their own growing obsolescence. Given how little the gameplay fundamentals have changed over the course of the Borderlands series thus far, it seems likely that this higher drop rate for legendary gear will carry over into the new title, so get ready to be legendary.
