Varnell

@PezRadar @2K @bioshock @Borderlands @mafiagame @CivGame You what now??

This week I began my new journey at @2K as the Senior Director of Community and Content Strategy for their Core portfolio including @bioshock, @borderlands, @mafiagame , @CivGame and more! The team here is phenomenal and I'm looking forward to working with such a great group of people on some of the best-in-class player community experiences out there.

@Hellen__TK @Helldivers_NOW Previously on Helldivers, I was the squad miscreant. Running the fire resistant heavy armor and fire everything: Flamethrower, firearm, grenades, turrets, drones, even my hell pods made fire. It was great.

@Hellen__TK @Helldivers_NOW It changes how I play the game. It feels like some kind of Metalgear or stealth game. With that armor, I've walked right up to one of those medium bots. RELOADED my Senator and then one shot him in the face at point blank. It's wild.

I get the gut feeling that the Senator would bang against the Cyborgs

@Hellen__TK @Helldivers_NOW For Super Earth. The new stealth armor is amazing, too, from the Redacted Warbond. I'm running the Censor (or Scorcher), Senator, Good ol' Frag Grenade, and dropping in the Quasar. Auto-Cannon turret in a pinch. This is probably the most fun I've had in HD2. Blitz is lit.

@Helldivers_NOW Been using Senator, Deadeye, Antimaterial Sniper, Jump Pack, and the Disposable anti-tank launcher and I've been having a blast. Of course the armor for sidearms helps too.

@Hellen__TK @weakestmozemain @Ki11ersix @GearboxOfficial @EpicNNG Yeah, there's probably some influence here. Doom rocks!

@jythri @weakestmozemain @Ki11ersix @GearboxOfficial @EpicNNG pointed this out and I can't unsee it nor do I want to. Hope the cosmetics are in the same vein!

This was a good update week. Even though what changed in the game was a “Minor Update” it’s got me excited again seeing what’s to come. Nice work @GearboxOfficial crew

@Hellen__TK @GearboxOfficial I think we have a few positions that will post soon. We usually always have one or two in various disciplines. Looking for something specific?

@GearboxOfficial and/or @jythri haven't seen many updates to the Gearbox careers page.. Any chance there are any openings or upcoming roles?

@SilentNova___ @borderlandshub

@borderlandshub Hopefully they figure out a way to rip the bolts off our characters. Now that Timekeepers dead, feels fucked up to leave that plot hole

‼️Borderlands 4 Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned DLC Includes: 🎲New Vault Hunter, C4SH 📖New Main Story Missions 🗺️New Map Zone 🎯New Side Missions 🔫New Legendary Gear 👚New Cosmetics ➜ 4 Vault Hunter Heads & Styles ➜ 4 Weapon Skins ➜2 Vehicle Skins ➜ 3 ECHO-4 Drone Skins & Attachments ➜ 1 ECHO-4 Frame

@Sloppyfish2015 @Ki11ersix @GearboxOfficial Is perf on gunplay the main bug that's holding you back here? Or what else is frustrating you?

@Ki11ersix @GearboxOfficial Meh, until the bugs are fixed on xbox it dont think i can generally be exited for more dlc, i believe its something todo with the server tic rate, i play with my partner but because the tic rate is so bad, my rapid fire build is bricked

@Hellen__TK I love this passion. ** tries to turn down his 'corporate noise' volume knob**

Cam up with a little something today. I hope it helps any small/growing creators out there reflect on why you started this journey, and what it actually means to and for you. When I finally picked up content creation, it wasn’t to chase fame or flood an algorithm. It was a line in the sand. I believe that quality matters, that honesty matters, and that communities deserve better than shallow hype and corporate noise. I don’t speak for anyone - I speak on behalf of the people who show up, the ones who love these games and worlds enough to want them to be better. If that means being blunt, critical, or taking the heat so others don’t have to, so be it. Some causes are worth the scars. To that end, my channel and reputation are forfeit to ensure I sound off when those who support these games aren't being heard.🫡

@EpicNNG @Borderlands Mancubus is great, isn't he? :)

BREAKING: MANCUBUS SEEMINGLY SET TO RETURN IN DLC 1 FOR BORDERLANDS 4 via @Borderlands

@Ki11ersix @Hellen__TK @MattGoesBuck @Byrdman Well. I appreaciate you!

@jythri @Hellen__TK @MattGoesBuck @Byrdman Really do appreciate the coms

How we feeling about the new Borderlands 4 roadmap for 2026? I’ll say seeing it laid out we’re getting a good amount of content every quarter. That said I’m praying they learned from Bounty Pack 1 and are giving them a tad more juice. Overall happy to see a plan!!!

@Ki11ersix @Hellen__TK @MattGoesBuck @Byrdman We're actively working to pick back up the discussions. Holidsys hit and ... well. We have a lot to do. :) We've been busy.

@jythri @Hellen__TK @MattGoesBuck @Byrdman GREATLY appreciate this communication. Not sure what happened between launch and now but it’s been largely quiet with coms. Thanks for responding

@Ccrypto5 What areas were your favorites?

I really feel like Elpis was one of the most disappointing aspects of Borderlands 4 Getting to finally visit this area that was hyped up since the ending of 3s story and only being able to explore one area with no familiar locations was so disappointing Hopefully in DLC 🤞🤞

@SdotTheAvatar @Ki11ersix @Hellen__TK @MattGoesBuck @Byrdman Man, I hear this. A lot of folks want a real challenge. We're tuning, but there's a very wide range of what "challenge" means to players. We're looking at some new internal ways to gauge this. I think we'll get better in the coming months here.

@Ki11ersix @jythri @Hellen__TK @MattGoesBuck @Byrdman I would also say difficulty ceiling too. Anything other than purposely using a bad build/gear & the game has no challenge whatsoever

Okay - gonna engage this one as a fellow player and not necessarily an agent of Gearbox. :) I think I have an aberrant opinion here. So, what I'm about to say does not reflect any current thinking of Graeme or what we're planning. Good? Good! As a player with hundreds of hours in every BL we've released, I personally playing from near-start any time I swap characters. I like to feel the choices in gear and trees organically. Also, I just like the journey of play. I think for me, I worry that allowing a full "skip to 50" option (or even the skip we have in currently) is actually damaging my replayability of the game. For example - taking BL2 as a point of comparison -- my ideal second play of BL2 would have been to skip to the first time you get to Sanctuary and set my level to the average equivalent - like 8 to 10. It's when the game first opens up and I'm now making the most interesting choices for me. I love Claptrap, but I can only rescue his eye so many times. It sounds like you (and maybe others here) want something optimized differently. What I think I'm hearing is that after you've consumed the early content once, you want to try different characters, but want to skip to the end-game loot chase. That sound right? Thoughts?

Would also love a Level 50 Skip with the ability to play the story starting at that level. And give us a reason to replay story missions. Unique red text gear (even blues) from previous games made replaying side missions worthwhile. There’s some great side missions in 4 but I’m never going to do them again since there’s no loot there.

Thanks, killer. :) That's a good summary! I know we're tracking numerous of those issues, Graeme especially. Great news is that we're still very committed to working on the game! I think we will get to most of what you and others have listed. The hard part - we ALL want changes yesterday. :) We will get them as fast as we can, but being mindful that we'd also love to keep the game stable and improving in stability. This conversation helps set priorities!

Hey Randy, I think the main issues the game has right now are: 1. Lack of content. This is something the team is clearly working on, but not having an endgame at launch was rough. 2. New play through: people wanting to start a new character have several things that immediately hamper their experience: SDUS for Bank and Lost Loot should be shared account wide. Maybe even Backpack. Making people re-do Crawlers and Electi-Safes and so on to get SDUs just immediately turns players off since they did that already. 3. Dedicated Boss Drop Rates on new characters. The fix dropped yesterday basically makes BL4’s ENDGAME overly lucrative, more so than BL3 for dedicated drops. Instead I’ve proposed a FIXED 10% drop rate for all legendary items throughout the game. UVHM levels should only increase WORLD DROPS (and not by that much) and XP and Eridium gains. UVHM should also be the ONLY way to obtain Pearls. 4. Lack of a Dialogue Skip - makes second and beyond playthroughs soooooo sloooooow. 5. Make Boss icons Fast Travel spots. Once you’ve gone there normally, and that boss icon appears on the map: just let players travel directly to it. Otherwise we’re just running past enemies to get there. Value our time if we want to go farm. 6. Balance adjustments. LOTS of underperforming Legendary gear. There’s lots more and I’m glad to share my thoughts further if anyone would like to talk about it. I love this game. I called it a Masterpiece in my review, but the post-launch stuff, like on Wonderlands, has left fans disappointed and confused

@Hellen__TK @MattGoesBuck @Byrdman Good start. We agree! Hopefully, you'll be seeing more soon. I've worked on Borderlands for just shy of 17 years now. There's still a bunch at Gearbox who have been Borderdevs longer than me. We want to keep moving it forward.

Appreciate you taking the time to read through it and seeing value in it! We all want the same thing, some times that’s a heavy ask and sometimes it’s not. The comms go a long way and I think the whole team has been pretty damn good with the comms the last month. Even a like or retweet goes a long way.

@MoxsyOG Whoa! This one feels significant. Congrats! I remember that *mutters*25yearsago*mutters*.

Big 3 0 today 🥳

@Hellen__TK @MattGoesBuck @Byrdman Oh, I too have played some Warframe. Not a crazy amount, but solid...just north of 400 hours. Love my space pope!

@MattGoesBuck @jythri @Byrdman Warframe*