Take-Two Boss Reveals $50M Cost for Borderlands Art Shift

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has revealed that the last-minute art style overhaul for the original Borderlands cost an additional $50 million and pushed the game back by a full year. Without that risky bet, however, he believes the now-iconic franchise would have flopped immediately.

In a candid interview with David Senra about his career, Zelnick described approving the eleventh-hour change as “a non-obvious decision” that few other executives would have made. His faith in the development team, he said, ultimately turned Borderlands into a blockbuster.

At the time, Take-Two was still struggling after Zelnick took over in 2007. “We had not turned around the company yet, and we had very limited capital,” he explained. The game was originally slated for a 2008 release with a realistic visual style. But just two months before launch, the division head walked into Zelnick’s office with a startling proposal.

“We just don’t think this is good enough,” the executive reportedly said. “The art style is not appropriate and it’s not differentiated. We want to remake the game.” Zelnick recalled his shock: “I was like, ‘What does that mean?’” The answer was an additional $50 million in development costs and another year of work , on a title that was essentially finished.

Rather than give a knee-jerk rejection, Zelnick dug in, did his homework, and ultimately gave the green light. “That title became Borderlands,” he said. “Had we not done that, Borderlands wouldn’t have been a hit. And that was a non-obvious decision. I can pretty much assure you no one else in the business would have done it.”

Why? “Because it was insane,” Zelnick stated bluntly. “They would have said the game is done. Put out the game. Move on to the next thing. I’m not spending $50 million to remake the goddamn thing in another art style. And I have no evidence that one will work either.”

Instead, Zelnick chose to trust the instincts of the developers at Gearbox Software. “I hired the most creative people,” he said. “I said, ‘You have to pursue your passions. We will support you.’ They came and said, ‘This is our assessment. This is our passion. Are you going to support us?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’”

That leap of faith paid off. The looter shooter franchise has since sold more than 100 million units worldwide. Borderlands 3 became the fastest-selling title in publisher 2K’s history, while Borderlands 2 remains 2K’s top seller with over 30 million copies sold.

But the pivot wasn’t easy on the team. In a separate interview with Game Informer, Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins , who served as lead level designer on the original , recalled thinking the idea was “fNone*ing insane.” He explained that nearly every level was scrapped and rebuilt from scratch between January and late summer of that year. “It was an incredibly intense time, and we were like, ‘What the hell are we doing?’”

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford later told IGN in 2019 that while the switch was the right move, it also limited the franchise’s potential audience. “I knew it was putting a ceiling on us because there’s , especially back then , there’s just a huge percentage of the gaming audience that does not want a cartoon,” he said.

With Borderlands 4 now released and still receiving updates, the franchise’s future remains uncertain. A fifth mainline entry seems logical, but Zelnick has acknowledged that sales for the latest installment have not met expectations.