A number of senior Gearbox developers Tiny Tina's Wonderlands.
According to the report by Axios, seven high-profile senior of Gearbox have now left the company, which was apparently announced to staff internally around two weeks' ago. Senior producer Christopher Brock had been at Gearbox for 14 years, and both lead mission designer Keith Schuler and art director Scott Kester had also been at the studio for more than a decade.
Borderlands 3 creative director Paul Sage, UX/Game Feel director Chris Strasz, and lead character artist Kevin Penrod are also leaving. Apart from Borderlands 3 co-writer Danny Homan, who left back in May to Respawn, all of these senior Gearbox developers are leaving to start their own independent studio – coincidentally, exactly what happened with Respawn, which was started by ex-Infinity Ward developers.
Axios reached out to Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford, who confirmed that the developers left the studio "on the best of " – and, interestingly, had all been working on a mysterious new game that hasn't been announced yet. "Before their transition, the group was part of a not-yet-announced pre-production team and their departure will cause minimal disruption in our current plans." Borderlands 4 perhaps?
According to an Axios source, "fresh blood is now going to be leading the project they left" and the team was actually excited about this fact. Pitchford also added that "the bulk of our attention at the moment is dedicated to finishing [Tiny Tina's] Wonderlands, which is on track." apart from the Borderlands movie, of course.