Borderlands – Tales from the HQ is a series of animated shorts based on Gearbox Software and 2K Games’ popular shooter, and it’s coming to YouTube in December 2013. The content is a product of the game-maker’s partnership with the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California that kicked off earlier this year. Over the past eight months, students involved in the school’s “Borderlands Cooperative” have worked with limited in-game assets while on deadline to develop this series of shorts set within the game’s universe.
What’s neat here is that the project started out with the goal of developing a single short film, but the scope had to expand when more than 100 students got involved. One film became three, and the trio of projects was ultimately chosen from a pool of 14 storyboarded concepts. The finished content won’t be live until next month, but you can get a sense of what to expect in the video below, which showcases student Leslie Harwood’s episode, Bride of Frankentrap. Take note that it’s not the finished piece.
Here at DT Gaming we’re big fans of any initiative built around encouraging young people to step up and make amazing things in the interactive entertainment/video games space. This seems to have been a fruitful partnership for all parties, and we look forward to seeing next month what the Academy of Art University students came up with.
