New Game from Borderlands Studio Coming This Year

Borderlands development studio Gearbox Software will release the first game in a new franchise later this year, Take-Two announced during its fourth quarter earnings call Tuesday.

Though details about the game are scarce, Take-Two says it will be one of two new franchises set to debut in 2021 from studios in its portfolio.

Take-Two owns 2K Games, which remains the publisher of the Borderlands series despite Gearbox's acquisition by Embracer Group in February. 2K said at the time that its relationship with Gearbox remained unchanged; it remains the sole publisher for Borderlands games and will publish select other games it was already working on with Gearbox.

In the days following the acquisition, Gearbox co-founder and head Randy Pitchford said being bought by Embracer would allow the studio to take risks on new IP.

"We have so many new IP concepts that are in our incubator, that are ready to explode," Pitchford told VentureBeat. "We could wait for the right publishing partner who's willing to make a bet, rather than only take a risk on something they know Gearbox has done before. Those publishers that have taken risks on us for what we want to see next have always been rewarded. But for some reason they can't be comfortable with that kind of risk. Now we get to take that risk."

Gearbox is set to appear at E3 later this summer, which would give it a chance to reveal whatever it's working on.