I have a friend that’s said that the Pre-sequel isn’t canon. I usually trust her on this, since she’s obsessed with the series, but I can’t find anything saying that the Pre-Sequel was removed from the official canon. Just hoping someone could help me with this.
Links are appreciated
It is canon as far as I’m aware as is Tales from the Borderlands… I haven’t played BL1, but BL2, BL TPS and Tales all fit together in terms of their overall story so it would make sense that it is canon.
I would consider it canon too.
Although the game was developed by 2K Aus, Anthony Burch (writer of BL2) collaborated extensively on the writing (there’s a making-of documentary that shows them on conference call discussing butt slams)
It builds so heavily off BL1 and BL2 that if it wasn’t canon, whatever replaced it would have to recreate it or it would end up causing so many contradictions between BL1 and BL2 it would be a disaster.
There are some comics out which provide additional background and story for BL1. Those written by Mikey Neumann (BL1 lead author) are also considered canon, and include stuff on Roland’s background for example.
Of course, if you want official confirmation you could always call in to the @Nerdvana live podcast with Randy Pitchford on Sunday afternoon and ask him directly. You can cue questions either by phone or through a Discord chat channel.
Yup. Definitely canon. As is tales from the borderlands, if you haven’t played it.
Yeah. I’ve never seen any suggestion from gearbox that it’s not canon. All of the borderlands series are stories that are told from an individual’s perspective, however. There is usually a biased narrator. But still: canon.
It might have been fun to have Handsome Jack do the background narration for one of the TPS play-throughs. You can reconstruct his view a little bit from the actual story, but that’s still filtered through Athena’s perspective. Although she strikes me as one of the more impartial observers in the Borderlands world (except where Atlas is concerned.)
What’s her argument for it not being canon?
I never thought about that before @Psychichazard, that each of the BL stories is told not from a neutral perspective but through the lens of a biased narrator… one of those things that seems obvious now but never considered before… curious if they continue that for the third one…
So who exactly is the narrator in BL1 and BL2? The player? Different characters chip in at different times: Marcus, Angle, Roland, Lilith, Moxxi, Zed, even Clatrap. TPS is much more obvious.
well in BL2, it’s originally told through the perspective of Angel, but then is told from either the player’s point of view or the Crimson Raider/Sanctuary crew… I don’t know BL1 enough to comment on that…as you say in TPS and Tales it’s quite obvious…
edit: sorry BL2 is originally from the player’s perspective technically but Angel is the narrator and everything you see/hear/experience is through her filter as Jack is so obviously evil in his communication with you…it’s only later that it’s more shifted to the Sanctuary’s crews perspective, but you could also define that as simply being the perspective of the character who happens to align with the Sanctuary Crew mainly because they are the only people on Pandora not trying to kill you.
Marcus introduces the story.
great point, completely missed this…you’re right, Marcus is the narrator in the base game of BL2 and the DLC’s so it’s possible that this is just his story regardless of what’s actually…so yes, I was incorrect, it’s told from his point of view or it’s just his story that he’s making up for someone…
It wasn’t all 2k aus. Gearbox did help develop it and collaborated with 2k aus.
I believe that was implicit in my mentioning Anthony Burch. IIRC GBX also led on the Claptastic Voyage DLC?
I just wanted to throw that out there. Cause alot of people will say it was all 2k aus. Also, i misread your comment, my bad. I know i heard gearbox developed some maps and stuff in the vanilla game. But im not sure about claptastic voyage