Take-Two Spent $50M to Redefine Borderlands Art Style, CEO Reveals

Take-Two Interactive spent $50 million to redevelop Borderlands with a cel-shaded art style, according to CEO Strauss Zelnick. The decision came late in development when Gearbox Software convinced the publisher to delay the game by over a year.

Gearbox convinced Take-Two to delay release

The original art style was gritty and realistic. The change was risky. The head of Gearbox's division told Zelnick, "We think we screwed up, and the art style is not appropriate and it's not differentiated, so we want to remake the game."

Zelnick supported the decision. He said, "Had we not done that, Borderlands wouldn't have been a hit. And that was a non-obvious decision. And I pretty much can assure you no one else in the business would have done it." He added that other companies would have rejected the idea because it was "insane" to spend $50 million to remake the game in another art style.

The investment paid off. Borderlands became a successful franchise. Zelnick noted that the decision was not obvious and that few other publishers would have taken such a gamble.