For those who’ve read enough gaming news, you’ve probably noticed that the word “quietly” gets thrown around rather a lot. A game “quietly” launches, a studio “quietly” lays off staff, a publisher “quietly” delists a title. Half the time, it just means no one was being attentive. But within the case of Borderlands Mobile, that is the rare instance where “quietly” is doing precisely the work it’s alleged to. There was no press release. No trailer. No social media posts from 2K, Gearbox, or Zynga. A brand new game in a franchise that has sold over 90 million copies just appeared on the iOS App Store today prefer it was a flashlight app someone forgot to take down.
The sport, currently titled Borderlands Mobile, is a free-to-play experience developed by Zynga’s NaturalMotion studio, the mobile game arm of Take-Two Interactive. We first spotted it on Wario64’s feed, but a Zynga spokesperson provided a press release to GameSpot confirming that the studio is conducting a “limited-time test” and that Borderlands Mobile is only a working title. Gearbox is involved in a creative guidance role, consulting on the franchise’s design, history, and lore. An identical statement was provided to Forbes, which also noted that the sport appears to be set after the events of Borderlands 3.
From what early reports indicate, the sport features the franchise’s signature cel-shaded art style and includes modes like Campaign Missions, Tower of Terror, and Circle of Slaughter. Only the Siren class is playable in the meanwhile, with other characters listed as “coming soon.” There’s a companion system tied to real-world timers, and as a free-to-play title, microtransactions are expected, but details on how they’ll work remain unclear.
I actually have to confess, I’m a bit of interested in this one. I do play games on mobile, and as someone who has spent over 220 hours with Borderlands 2 and considers it among the finest games I’ve ever played, the concept of a bite-sized Borderlands experience on the go is at the very least value testing. I’ve already seen how a serious franchise can translate well to mobile with The Division Resurgence, which genuinely surprised me with how much of the PC experience it managed to capture on a smaller screen. If Borderlands Mobile can pull off something similar, it may very well be definitely worth the download. In my review of Borderlands 4, I noted that it felt just like the franchise overcorrected after the frustration of Borderlands 3, leaning too serious and losing a few of the series’ soul in the method. A mobile spinoff that doesn’t take itself too seriously could actually be a fun change of pace for the franchise. That said, I don’t have an iOS device, so I’ll need to wait until it hits Android to try it for myself.
The soft-launch approach is sensible for a limited test, but you’d think a franchise this big would at the very least put out a tweet. There’s no word yet on when or if Borderlands Mobile will come to Android, or if it’s going to ever get a correct wide release.