Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford recalled a time where he was envisioning a Half-Life based idea and out of nowhere received an unrelated call from Valve boss Gabe Newell.
After leaving 3D Realms Randy Pitchford joined Rebel Boat Rocker with fellow ex employees, "It was very difficult. We were taking every risk building a new game, creating a new engine, building a new IP, and building a company all at the same time," Pitchford explained in the Shacknews documentary 24 'Til Launch: The Making of Borderlands 4. However, if you don't recognise the studio, that's because its debut game was cancelled by EA and the staffers all jumped ship, with a number of them founding Borderlands 4 developer Gearbox, as Pitchford explains " I called up some of the folks that I'd respected the most that I'd been working with and asked them if they wanted to kind of come along and let's get this thing going."
