In what seems to be an extraordinary easter egg that has reached core game design, it turns out that four new Vault Hunters in Borderlands 3 (Fl4k, Zane, Amara, and Moze) were designed at least to some degree to match a reference in a Borderlands 2 expansion.
If you may recall, in the Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep expansion, during the intro the core Vault Hunters are playing a D&D style game called Bunkers and Badasses. During the game, they each describe their Vault Hunter for the game. When reflecting on that intro, you can see almost direct influences on the new Hunters in Borderlands 3. Some Reddit users put this together but it was “EndlessArgument” who really drew attention to it via this post which we’ve transcribed below:
Tina: Welcome back to yoursest favoritest game evah, Bunkers and Badasses! I hope you’ve got your characters ready, because this time, it’s gonna be off the chizza fo rizza!
Brick: I already told you, I’m Siren, and her name is Brick!
Lilith: Brick, this is a new game, you have to make a new character.
Brick: Fine. She’s a new siren. Her name is Brick. Happy?
Lilith: I…ugh. We’ll come back to that later. What about her powers?
Brick: What do you mean? She’s a siren.
Lilith: Yeah, but last time, Tina and I made up the powers for you. This time you were supposed to think of them on your own. Remember? We told you? Like, 5 times?
Brick: I don’t remember that. You remember that Mordy?
Mordy: Glances up from a thick sheet of paper. Huh? What’s goin’ on?
Brick: See?
Lilith: Sigh. Still, you need to have some sort of powers. Sirens have powers. And they can’t be the same as last time!
Brick: Alright, then she punches people.
Lilith: Your rare, mystical siren…punches people?
Brick: Yeah!
Lilith: Brick…sirens are, like…spellcasters. You can’t just punch people. Remember the spell grenades from last time? Stuff like that.
Brick: Then I cast fist!
Lilith: …y’know what? I can work with that.
Lilith: I’m next; I made this really cool beastmaster character! And the best part is, when the pets get defeated, they just go back into digistorage so they can never, ever die. Ever. Cool, right?
No response.
Lilith, mumbling: I thought it was cool…
Lilith: Alright, Mordy? You’re up. Mordy?
Mordy, looking up: Huh? My turn? Awesome! Alright, what I’ve got here is a triple multiclassed assassin/beastmaster/defender with double point slots and –
Lilith: Woah woah woah! What the hell mordecai? I thought you thought this game was ‘boring’.
Mordecai, defensive: Yeah, I mean…it’s not so bad. And I had a few days when I was waiting for that target on Septembrion to show up, so I read through all the source, books, and-
Lilith: Wait, all of them? Some of those are super expensive! I’ve never read through all of them!
Mordecai: Hey, it’s not like I’m spending it on anything else! Hell, I thought you’d be happy I wasn’t spending it all on booze!
Lilith: No! It’s just…surprising, that’s all. Go on, I guess.
Mordy: Cool. Anyway, I’ve got a 250 page backstory I wrote up on the flight in, and he’s got the ability to send out clones like Zer0, except the clones can actually shoot, and he can teleport between them, and he can send out blood – I mean, SNTNL – and she can use his grenades, and he can use a shield, and he can use two skills at the same time, and –
Lilith: Holy shit mordy, how the hell did you find enough skill points to pay for all this!
Mordy: Oh, I took a few character flaws. Double reviled backstory, that gives you, like a crapload.
Lilith: I’ve never even heard of that.
Mordy: Yeah, it’s actually hidden in the index of a second-edition support book they released like 30 years ago…but it’s still technically canon! I checked!
Lilith: …I’m not even gonna bother. Alright, fine, what two reasons is he ‘reviled’?
Mordy: What? Oh. Uh…yeah. Um. He’s…irish?
Lilith: …whatever. Fine. And the other?
Mordy: Oh, he’s, like, related to some bad guy or something, I guess.
Lilith: Like the Flynts, or something?
Mordecai, discreetly scribbling on his character sheet: Yeah! Flynts! Great! Except, he’s, like, the one good flynt. But nobody believes him, but he’s actually a really good guy, and he wants to save the world and stuff.
Lilith: Sighs, turns to Tina: Anyway, those are our characters. What do you think?
Tina: You need a fourth character.
Brick: What? Why?
Tina: It’s tradition! You always start a game with 4 Vault Hunters.
Lilith: But we started that tradition, shouldn’t we be able to-
Tina: You can’t break the traditions just because you’re really pretty and powerful, lily! Fourth character! Now!
Lily, Mordy, and Brick: Share a glance.
Lilith: Alright…then it’s a…soldier.
Mordy: Yeah! A soldier, with, like, those cool team effect auras. A good leader.
Brick: And guns! Lots of guns! Actually be able to use those assault rifles for once.
Tina: This is sounding a lot like-
Mordy, quickly: And it’s a woman.
Brick: Yeah! And she’s got a big damn helmet. To block incoming fire.
Lilith, flatly: Yeah. And she’s got a big damn mech so nobody can shoot her in the ba – in the anywhere.
Tina: Alright, that’s four characters! Roll! For! Initiative!
Our Take
This is very, very cool and we hope that Randy Pitchford or the team at Gearbox comment on this eventually. Borderlands 3 continues to be one of our most anticipated titles of the year so stay tuned for on-going coverage particularly around E3!
You obviously don’t play the game and didn’t even read the actual reddit post. Its a fan fiction… it has literally no basis in cannon, even if it was cool and well written