While the Borderlands series has always been known for keeping a goofy, irreverent tone, the last entry caught some flak for bordering on self-parody. Gearbox has repeatedly asserted that Borderlands 4 will avoid that trap with a tone more in keeping with the first two games, and in a new interview, the writers go into some detail in explaining how they're achieving that tonal balance.
"I've been on the game for a couple of years," lead writer Taylor Clark tells IGN, "and it was definitely something from the moment that I came on board, when I was talking to Sam [Winkler, narrative director], the grounded tone was a priority. Grounding the humor in the world, he made it very clear that if I tried to put a meme in the game, he would come to my house with a baseball bat [laughs]. So, it was definitely in the brief from the beginning to make the tone fit the world.
