Telltale Games revealed the first details about its plans for Tales from the Borderlands, the upcoming episodic adventure based on Gearbox Software’s “looter shooter” series that was revealed in a late 2013 trailer (via Polygon). The game follows two characters – Fiona and Rhys – as they relate differing accounts of the same story in flashback. If you’ve ever seen Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashomon, it’s a little like that, only instead of a court case flashing back to different perspectives on a brutal crime, you’ve got two greedy (read: typical) Pandora natives lying and cheating their way to… something. The particulars of the story aren’t yet clear.
What is clear is that you control each character separately as she or he relates the tale of what happened from her/his particular point of view. You’ll also approach puzzles differently as each one, since Fiona is more capable as a smooth, fast-talking grifter and Rhys has a technological advantage with his hack-capable robot arm. The game won’t feature the sort of FPS-style shooting that made Gearbox’s entries so famous, but there will be plenty of action-driven set pieces, similar in functional approach to what we’ve seen in The Wolf Among Us series.
The game will also feature the series’ trademark focus on comedy. Telltale’s most recent critically acclaimed efforts have embraced a more dour tone, but don’t forget that this is the studio behind successful episodic adventure game takes on Back to the Future, Sam & Max, and even a Monkey Island revival.
We’ll surely be hearing more soon. Check out Polygon’s original report for some additional details, including quotes from notable figures at Telltale and Gearbox. We’ll share more as soon as we know it.
