Fans of first-person shooter (FPS) specialist Gearbox Software have been very vocal about what they want to see next from the studio: the next installment in the popular Borderlands franchise. VR enthusiasts, however, will be happy to learn the team as a project for headsets in the works too.
The SMU Guildhall, a Texas-based university specializing in videogame development, this month announced that 16 of its students had been hired by Gearbox to work on an unannounced VR videogame. According to CEO Randy Pitchford this will be a custom-built team that will work on a “key Virtual Reality project” at the company’s HQ in Frisco, Texas. No details about the game itself have been announced that this time. We’d certainly welcome a VR game set in the team’s mad world of Borderlands, though.
SMU Guildhall revealed those joining Gearbox as artists Devanshu Bishnoi, Nina Davis, Taylor Gallagher, Taylor McCart, and Mace Mulleady; designers Michael Feffer, Alexandre Foures, Steve Kocher, Jacob Lavender, and Sam Pate; producer Mario Rodriguez; and programmers Taylor Bishop, Nicholas Dorbin, Benjamin D. Gibson, Clay Howell, and K. Komal Shashank.
Each of these students has worked on VR projects before, such as SMU’s Mouse Playhouse, an Unreal Engine 4 project in which players build a course for a mouse to navigate and grab some cheese, with an assortment of other minigames also available.
Though Gearbox is best known for Borderlands, a role-playing game set in a post-apocalyptic world, it’s worked on several major franchises over the years, including Half-Life and its own Brothers in Arms series. Most recently the studio released online shooter Battleborn.
There’s no word yet on when we might see Gearbox’s VR project, though E3 is right around the corner. Perhaps the studio might have a surprise in store for then?
