Today, Gearbox Software revealed the most extensive look yet at Borderlands 3 (our hands-on preview impressions will be coming tomorrow). In the gameplay-heavy glimpse at the early game, the long-awaited follow-up to 2012’s Borderlands 2 promised more of what fans first fell in love with a decade ago: a comic book art style, a self-aware sense of humor and really bad baddies.

As Gearbox’s Managing Producer of Narrative, Randy Varnell oversees two out of three of the above selling points. And under his leadership, story has become a significant point of focus for the eagerly anticipated September 13 release. During an interview with decade-plus studio veteran, we asked the important questions.

Questions like: What’s up with the Children of the Vault? Why is Rhys suddenly a corporate shill again? And is Handsome Jack really (like really really) dead?

Bloody Disgusting: You’ve been at Gearbox for 10 years. You started six months before the first Borderlands launched. How has the series evolved, narratively, in your mind, in the time that you’ve been at Gearbox?

Randy Varnell: Tremendously. There have been generational gaps between each one. Borderlands 1 was such a project. I got there, and I wasn’t working on that project at the time I was going to test it a little bit and give some feedback… You’ve probably heard the stories of the big art style redo of the game?

BD: I remember that Game Informer cover.

RV: Randy Pitchford tells stories about restructuring all of the story in January of 2009 [Ed. Note: That’s just eight months before the game’s release]. So, it all came together and it worked out great and we were really happy. Then, we came to Borderlands 2. Borderlands 1 was showing: Okay, we’ve got something here; now let’s pay it off in a big way. At that point, we were like, ‘We need a team of writers.’ We went and got Anthony Burch and brought him in. We paired him with Paul Hellquist who did work on BioShock. And, like okay, story’s very important. We want to go there in a big way, we want to really pay off a good villain. And I think we did. Borderlands 2 is still selling and people are still playing it today. I did a stint in Battleborn, too, I was creative director on Battleborn. Story was huge for that.

The biggest thing to say about Battleborn in relationship to Borderlands 3 is: everything that we did in Battleborn leveled us up for [what we’re doing on] Borderlands 3. A big chunk of Gearbox worked on that game. There’s a lot of things that we learned on that: how you develop characters; we tried some different things with how you tell story and all of that. Found some things that worked, found some things that didn’t. The biggest lesson that we learned was: don’t make one writer do it alone. So, for Borderlands 3, one of the things that they brought me over to do was, actually build a narrative department. So, I have a group of writers now that work with me.

BD: How big is that team?

RV: So, we have four writers other than me that are just dedicated. We have a pair of co-lead writers, Sam Winkler and Danny Homan. Another guy, we actually brought from Telltale, Connor Cleary, who did a little bit of work on Tales from the Borderlands; worked on some other titles there. And, we hired a junior writer that’s worked with us, actually came up from QA, Dante Silva, who’s got one of the best lore minds [of anyone] I’ve ever met. That dude is just literally a data repository of everything on our franchise. Super good guy. So that group of guys come together, and we actually run it more like a conventional writers’ room, like you would have on a TV series or a large movie. And it’s been amazing. We worked very closely with Randy Pitchford and Paul Sage, creative director, along with several other leads, [game design director] Keith Schuler and art director Scott Kester…from the very beginning to be sure that the plot is structured, that we know where we’re going and that we really think through the themes and the arcs and the characters and the motivation.

And as we developed that it’s a big process change. Because before there were often moments where… you could hear Anthony Burch tell stories about literally writing in the booth while they’re recording to get some lines into the story. This game has been a lot more thoughtful and a lot more methodical. Apart from me, none of [the writers] have worked on a Borderlands before. And so we have big shoes to fill and making sure that we maintain characters, that we maintain tone, that we maintain continuity. In the writers’ room, they can go off and work on this little part and that little part and then we all come together and we’re hypercritical of each other. Like, ‘I’ve got a better joke,’ ‘That joke sucks,’ this and that, and ‘I don’t like what you did with Claptrap there,’ ‘Maybe we should do this with Lilith here.’ All of that, together, for several years working as a team I think is going to pay off in a big way. That’s been the biggest shift that we’ve seen in this from a story and narrative standpoint in the game.

BD: Just that focus on story from the beginning?

RV: Yeah, it’s bigger. I can say that too. There’s a lot more story. Our side missions in 3 many of them are as big as main missions in Borderlands 1. So, the game is not only more places you visit, more places you go, but the game is big in content, big in depth. We actually have a new type of narrative challenge type of thing that we actually haven’t spoiled much about yet, that will give you even more of that approach but from more of a challenge gameplay. But, it’s still got lore, it’s still got character development in it. There’s a lot more content that really opens up the game to that ‘play as you want.’ It’s a little bit open world-ish. You can go do these challenges, do these side missions. So, we have added some new ways that we engage story for you the player that’s different than before. Also, just the evolution of conversations for our player characters. In Borderlands 1, the player characters were fairly silent. You kind of made up in your head what Lilith and Brick and Mordecai and Roland would be.

In Borderlands 2 you had a little bit more, you got some Echo logs and you got to learn a little bit more about Maya and Roland. In Pre-Sequel, they started talking and you had those conversations. We did an immense amount of that in Battleborn because your ability to understand the character was all based on the dialogue and we had 30 in that game. So, when we got to Borderlands 3, we just continually heard from fans, they like that, they like hearing from the players, they like hearing the performances. So ,you’re going to see a lot of that in 3. So, we’re taking advantage of all of the lessons we’ve learned.

BD: Will playing with different characters open up different story arcs?

RV: Not in big ways but those conversations do give you information you wouldn’t get otherwise; a lot of it is about that player character but some of it is about the world at large and about history and about the past. They all come from different backgrounds. Amara’s… from a small community, small culture, kind of the community defender, whereas Zane has worked for every corporation ever. There’s even a passing line in this demo where he talks to Zero and says, ‘Hey, I remember you.’ You get some of that. So, while you’re playing different characters will do that. But, it’s not like a branching, choose-your-own story like a Telltale game, or like you’ve seen in other games, like what BioWare would do.

BD: Speaking of the corporations, Rhys seems like he’s a bit of a corporate shill in this game. He’s gone from Hyperion to Atlus. What can you say about his character and how we get from the end of Tales from the Borderlands to where Rhys is in this game?

RV: You can see Rhys, even at moments in Tales from the Borderlands, he has kind of that ghost of Handsome Jack on his shoulder. ‘I can make you rich. I can make you powerful.’ He’s constantly, in Tales, fighting that image. ‘Do I go full corporate? Do I follow on in this legacy or am I my own man? Am I free? Am I independent of all this?’ And that’s a struggle for him. And it’s interesting in Tales because how you choose to play Tales as a player can depend some sense of where he lands in there. But, in Borderlands 3, we’re basically finishing some of that in-between arc out. That lure of power was too much for him. He’s moved into Promethea, the planet, into Meridean City and taken over Atlus. You’re going to see—I don’t want to spoil all the game—but you’re going to get to see and learn some more about him as you interact.

You’re going to get a lot of interactions with Rhys on Promethea and get to hear him and hear what he thinks about corporate life. And that inner struggle is still there and he still kind of wants to be that approachable guy. But, then again he’s kind of enjoying wealth and power and influence except that it’s drawn Maliwan down on him and he now has this corporate war to worry about.

BD: Katagawa, the CEO of Maliwan, seems to be filling the Rhys role to Rhys’ Handsome Jack.

RV: Kind of. There’s a little bit of that. I think you’re going to see that there’s a really funny relationship. There’s a little bit of a bromance going on. Katagawa doesn’t just want Rhys’ assets, he just likes Rhys. And the only way that Katagawa knows to make friends with Rhys is to take over Atlus and force him to be his friend. So, there’s a kind of messed up dark humor in all that and it’s…man, I gotta stop myself here, because there’s so much in that relationship that’s fun to explore and you’re going to see some cool banter between them.

BD: Speaking of Tales from the Borderlands, I don’t want you to spoil anything, but can we expect to see any characters like Fiona or Sasha, or any of those characters?

RV: You’ve already seen a little bit of a hint in the teaser images that we put out that Vaughn is back. So, I don’t want to spoil the other ones but that image is out there and careful fans have already picked it out. He had an interesting arc at the end of Tales. He had been a Hyperion accountant. And, had been kind of a little mousy guy. And at some point during Tales he takes off his shirt and your realize he is strangely ripped. And, so he now has become a Bandit Lord. It’s more than just Rhys and Vaughn in there and… you gotta see where that pans out.

BD: We’ve seen a lot of the Children of the Vault. We learned today that Troy and Tyreen are streamer gods. Can you tell me a little bit about the dogma or the beliefs of the Children of the Vault. What is this religion promising to the people of Pandora?

RV: The best way to describe them is they are definitely a cult of personality gone bad. This is not really a dig at [streamers]. We’ve got so many streamers that we love and have done so much for us and love our game and promote our game. This is not a dig on any of them. This is just understanding that it’s relevant to our culture. What happens when you have a streamer who suddenly has millions of followers and starts using that power to, ‘Okay, go rob a store. Go bring me something. Go do something.’ And so you see Troy and Tyreen Calypso, they’ve done what was impossible for… In Borderlands 2, you see some bandit clans start to form up, but there were still some different ones and loose ones.

We land in Borderlands 3 and they’re all together, they have all moved together in the Children of the Vault and the Calypsos have accomplished what we thought was un-accomplishable. And you’re going to hear things. They’re going to talk about the Vaults. And the Vaults in all of Borderlands promises wealth and power and mysticism. And you’re going to see a little bit of that dogma militarized into a religion. Hey, you want that wealth and power? You help us find the Vault and we’re going to share that wealth with you, our children… That’s a lot of the story of the game. What are they going to do with that? How far are they going to take it? Do they have any other agendas in there? Those are great questions to ask… what are the Calypsos going to do? What do they really want?”

BD: Now, this may be a bit of a deep cut, but in Borderlands 2, there was a sidequest where there are bandits that are starting to worship Lilith, the Children of the Firehawk.

RV: Yes!

BD: Is there any relationship between those Children and these Children?

RV: Not directly. But, I think what you see in Borderlands 2 [is that] bandits are not all there. When we got to explore Krieg the Psycho as a playable character we did some really cool things to show you this deep divide that’s going on between his sane side and his bandit side. We call them psycho bandits; they’re a little bit crazy, they’re a little bit bloodthirsty and all that. They attach really quickly to things. And I think the safest thing to say is you see that start to form in some ways in Borderlands 2. And, I’m sure that that group, the Children of the Firehawk, moved into the Children of the Vault in Borderlands 3. But, there’s only loose ties there with that organization. Definitely the seeds, those seeds grew into something very different and very big.

BD: So, on an unrelated note: Handsome Jack is dead.

RV: So dead.

BD: There have been three games, Borderlands 2, Tales from the Borderlands and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, that have all developed Jack and worked with Jack’s personality. Is it difficult to move on from Jack? And what were the challenges of developing new villains to fill that hole that he left?

RV: It is. Handsome Jack was unusually successful as a villain. Good villains are hard. And I think your heroes always feel more heroic when they have a good villain to oppose them. I think Handsome Jack did that so well for Borderlands. I think ‘healthy respect’ is the best way to describe how we approach coming up with a new villain. We also listen to our fans a lot and after the three games you cited it was so much Jack that we actually heard from a number of fans, ‘You know what? We’re good for now if you want to take a little breath and show us someone else who could be bad for a second.’ So, canonically, yes, Handsome Jack is dead. You had a little ghost remnant of him in Tales and that’s even been dealt with. So, we wanted to come at the Calypso Twins and we looked at it from two ways: What are the lessons that we learned from Handsome Jack that are really important to preserve? His humor, his relatability, some of the snark, his presence in the world. You understand his goals; he’s after something that you can relate to and that’s really important. But, we also wanted to come with some twists.

Handsome Jack, while he had the Loaders and all that they were all expendable resources. And while the Calypsos might still see the bandits as expendable; they are definitely selling the line that they are a family, they are a group, they are a cult, they are a religion and they want to be worshipped as godlike power for all that brings. But, the Calypsos are also a hands dirty. They’re willing to get in the world. You saw a little bit of that today. They showed up as holograms but you see Tyreen’s work; you’ve seen the bandits that she has already drained all the life out and left as husks there in the world. You’ll continue to see that… You’ll see them diverge even more and more from that snarky humor that kind of draws you in into something that is even more threatening than Handsome Jack was.

BD: We’ve seen a lot of loot-shooters since the last Borderlands game. Destiny, Destiny 2, Anthem, The Division games. What have you learned from the storytelling successes and failures of those other cooperative loot-shooters?

RV: I think it’s confirmed to us that humor is really important. Humor is also really hard. And so, we wanted to be very certain that we maintained that humorous tone in Borderlands 3. I love all of those games but they’re all trying to do different things story-wise. Destiny and The Division are very serious in tone… Humor is always going to be just a cornerstone of Borderlands for us. Everything that you do, whether it’s mission objectives or how the players talk, we want to be sure that that’s in there… The importance of strong, identifiable characters. Where those games succeed it’s when you can remember those characters and remember the moments.

The best that Destiny was, was when they had memorable villains that you could remember the names of and memorable characters that came in there. And it’s certainly something that we’ve always, I think, done a fairly good job with, and it’s something that we wanted to double down on. We now have a massive trough of characters that we have to keep up with. So, making sure that we treat them respectfully, that we treat them right, put new characters in, but we develop those characters.

BD: One final quick question: if you had to devote your life to one of the corporations in Borderlands which one would you choose?

RV:“[Laughs] Oh my gosh, that’s a hard one! It’s an either-or for me. I love Jakobs because I love vintage, I love taste, I love seasoning, I love flavor, I love craftsmanship, and if it takes more than one bullet it’s not a Jakobs. I love that type of thing… But, the other part of me, other side of the coin, man, I love tech. And Maliwan is sleek and elemental and inventive, and ah, there’s just something about that style of design. I could find something I love in all of them. Those are probably my two top. Jakobs is probably my final answer on that.

And,  of course, Gearbox hopes that Borderlands 3 can capture that combination; traditionally made but charged with the innovative spark of the new.

Borderlands 3 is out September 13 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.