{"id":13362,"date":"2026-05-18T10:39:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T10:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2026\/05\/18\/take-two-boss-says-borderlands-last-minute-art-style-change-cost-50-million-but-without-it-the-game-would-have-flopped\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T10:39:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T10:39:59","slug":"take-two-boss-says-borderlands-last-minute-art-style-change-cost-50-million-but-without-it-the-game-would-have-flopped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2026\/05\/18\/take-two-boss-says-borderlands-last-minute-art-style-change-cost-50-million-but-without-it-the-game-would-have-flopped\/","title":{"rendered":"Take-Two Boss Says Borderlands’ Last-Minute Art Style Change Cost $50 Million, but Without It the Game Would Have Flopped"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/section>\n

Borderlands\u2019 well-documented 11th hour art style change cost Take-Two an extra $50 million in development costs and delayed the game by a year, but without it the now successful franchise would have flopped straight out the gate.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, who in a sweeping interview with David Senra about his career<\/u><\/a> said his approval of the last minute switch and associated extra cost was \u201ca non-obvious decision\u201d that no-one else would have made, but his trust in the developers was rewarded with a new hit franchise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had not turned around the company yet, and we had very limited capital,\u201d Zelnick began, speaking of Take-Two as it was after he had taken over the company in 2007. At the time, Borderlands was due out in 2008 with a realistic art style, but then Zelnick was asked to approve a significant change with the game basically done that would see it rebuilt with a cel-shaded, cartooney art style.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

\u201cWe were developing a game and it was about to be released two months later, which is to say it’s done. And we’d spent a lot of money,\u201d Zelnick continued. \u201cAnd the head of the division came into my office and said, \u2018Look, we just don’t think this is good enough and we think we screwed up and the art style is not appropriate and it’s not differentiated. So, we want to remake the game.\u2019 I was like, \u2018What does that mean?\u2019 He said, \u2018It means $50 million of incremental dev costs [which was a lot of money to us], and another year.\u2019 It was on a release schedule, which we\u2019d announced. And I dug in. I mean, I don’t give knee-jerk answers. I dug in and did my homework. In the end of it, I supported the decision. And that title became Borderlands. Had we not done that, Borderlands wouldn’t have been a hit. And that was a non-obvious decision. And I can pretty much assure you no one else in the business would have done it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why wouldn\u2019t anyone else have made the same call? \u201cBecause it was insane,\u201d Zelnick explained. \u201cThey would have said the game is done. Put out the game. Move on to the next thing. I’m not spending 50 million bucks to remake the goddamn thing in another art style. And I have no evidence that one will work either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zelnick said he had to trust the intuition of the developers at Gearbox. \u201cThat’s the story,\u201d he added. \u201cBe the most creative, be the most innovative, be the most efficient. I hired the most creative people. I said, \u2018You have to pursue your passions. We will support you.\u2019 They came and said, \u2018This is our assessment. This is our passion. Are you going to support us?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Yes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

The rest, as they say, is history. The looter shooter franchise has now sold over 100 million units, with Borderlands 3 publishing label 2K\u2019s fastest selling title, and Borderlands 2K\u2019s top selling title with over 30 million sold.<\/p>\n

While it worked out in the end, the art style switch caused a great deal of stress to a number of people. In an interview with Game Informer<\/a>, Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins, who was the lead level designer on the original Borderlands, thought the idea was \u201cf***ing insane.”<\/p>\n

“We had already been working on the game for several years at that point, and not only did we change the art style, we basically threw out all of the levels \u2014 I think only Trash Coast and, like, one other level made it through \u2014 everything else, we remade basically from scratch,” he said. “From January to, like, August or September of that year, all of the level designers \u2014 at the time, level design, mission design, and level art were all just under ‘level design’ under me \u2014 we rebuilt the whole game to match the new art style from that time. It was an incredibly intense time, and we were like, ‘What the hell are we doing?'”<\/p>\n

In 2019, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford told IGN<\/a> that while he believed it was the right move, the switch to a non-realistic aesthetic put a cap on the Borderlands franchise\u2019s success. “I knew it was putting a ceiling on us because there’s \u2014 especially back then \u2014 there’s just a huge percentage of the gaming audience that does not want a cartoon,” he said.<\/p>\n

With Borderlands 4<\/a> out the door and continuing to get updates, it\u2019s unclear what\u2019s next for the franchise. Borderlands 5 seems like an obvious next step, but Zelnick has admitted sales haven\u2019t met expectations.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Borderlands\u2019 well-documented 11th hour art style change cost Take-Two an extra $50 million in development costs and delayed the game by a year, but without it the now successful franchise would have flopped straight out the gate. That\u2019s according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, who in a sweeping interview with David Senra about his career […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTake-Two Boss Says Borderlands' Last-Minute Art Style Change Cost $50 Million, but Without It the Game Would Have Flopped - Next Level News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Stay on top of the gaming world with Next Level News. 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