Randy Pitchford wasn't the only person to tease Borderlands 4 - that honor also goes to a Borderlands 3 and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands writer who hinted at the reveal trailer two years ago.
The Borderlands 4 reveal trailer shows, among other things, a heavenly body appearing in an alien sky, smashing through some kind of barrier as it goes. Eagle-eyed fans think that planet is actually a moon, Elpis, on which the events of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel took place. That, in turn, has turned up some pretty gnarly Borderlands 4 fan theories (only some of which have been squashed by Randy Pitchford).
It turns out, however, that while Randy Pitchford was hinting at "the big one" at the Borderlands studio in 2021, he wasn't the only Gearbox developer teasing something major on the horizon. After the launch of Tiny Tina's Wonderlands in March 2022, writer Sam Winkler (now narrative director on Borderlands 4) tweeted what's now pretty clearly a major hint about the upcoming game.
"I'm floored by the response to Tiny Tina's Wonderlands and the writing team's efforts," Winkler said 2.5 years ago, extending his congratulations to his colleagues. He closed his tweet, however, by suggesting that "I'm so excited I could teleport a moon."
Long game pic.twitter.com/Y248ZZQYFNAugust 20, 2024
Now, that's not really a common turn of phrase, but everyone seemed to overlook that fact at the time. Winkler, however, appears to have known exactly what he was doing, returning to that post to tweet "long game" in the hours after the Borderlands 4 reveal. In case you'd lost track, that trailer saw what, with the benefit of hindsight, is clearly a moon that's been teleported from one place into another.
You might argue that Pitchford had already been hinting at another major Borderlands project before this, but I would suggest that it would take him another couple of years before he really started to let the cat out of the bag in the wake of the Borderlands movie. I'd posit, then, that this was the first time that Gearbox staff actually spoke about Borderlands 4, a full 30 or so months before its eventual appearance.
