Theory time!: what happened to Sal, Krieg, Axton and Gaige?

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#1

Yes, I’ve been watching videos on YT lately and there is big concern about the other VHs who didn’t made it into the trailer/gameplay reveal. Some say they’re dead or hostages, they’re in other planet or who knows what.

Thoughts?

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Missing Vault Hunters
#2

At least a couple were cordoned off for a dlc at some point, imo. The others, I expect have some role in the story like the bl1 vault hunters had in bl2.

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#3

They didn’t include everything in the gameplay reveal? Even if we don’t “see” them again, I’d be surprised if they aren’t mentioned verbally in an Echo recording, dialog, or something similar.

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#4

I can’t see them just killing them off personally. I’d cry if Axton died!

It would be cool to have them return throughout the story, like in BL2, so we’d end up with 8 at the end instead of 4.

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#5

My thought is very simple. There was no point in trying to cram each and every character into one trailer. Beside. It’s always good to leave some surprise to be discovered in game.

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#6

Gearbox actually went one step further, saying they wouldn’t include a character in the game just for the sake of including them. I mean, I love Gaige and Krieg myself, but I understand they can’t include everyone; things would start to feel too crowded and bogged down.

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#7

I talked to the writting staff about this, they were cautious in answering but it boiled down to about this. They want to make sure characters are there for a reason, not just to be there. There are a lot of characters in the borderlands universe, all might not be in the vanilla game buth with dlcs we should see most of them.

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#8

It wouldn’t make any sense for Gearbox to quietly get rid of main characters off-screen. I think it’s very possible that some of them will die, but GB knows they’ll get a sh*t-ton of mileage out of them by including them in the main story or DLCs. If we’re not seeing characters in the previews of BL3, my guess is it’s because they’ll be part of missions in the game.

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#9

That’s eminently reasonable. One of the things I’ve enjoyed is that certain side quests, Headhunter packs, and especially the Tiny Tina and Claptastic Voyage DLCs have given you a look into a specific character’s story. Keeping characters from the previous games in reserve gives more opportunities to the writers to be creative in such additional content. I would view that as a positive.

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#10

The source of those rumors is some graffiti that can be seen in the background of one of the areas in the gameplay reveal video. The graffiti said “vault hunters” followed by six stick figures. Four of them are crossed off, only two remaining. The BL1 vault hunters aren’t technically vault hunters anymore, so people are assuming those six figures represent the six vault hunters from BL2. Since we only saw Maya and Zer0 in the trailers so far, the theory is that they are the two remaining vault hunters in that graffiti that aren’t crossed off. Now, what exactly the other four figures being crossed off means, nobody knows at this point.

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#11

I pitched them a buddy cop DLC with Krieg and Gaige

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#13

Fair enough, and it’s quite good point.

Like shoving Krieg or Gaige in the middle of the story without context doesn’t make any sense…

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#14

Like I mentioned in another thread there is a conversation in Sanctuary you can watch between Lillith, Brick, and Mordecai discussing what to do now that Jack is dead. Brick calls dibs on hunting the new vaults they learned about. Add to that Brick appeared to be absent in the bits we saw from the gameplay reveal. I wonder if Brick already left Pandora to hunt vaults on another planet and if he did whether or not he brought some of the others with him.

Thinking of Brick, Krieg, and Sal on their own as a group without someone to rein them in, bandits on said planet might end up asking us to save them lol.

Gaige and Axton had a bit of dialogue in TPS during the holodome so its possible they may be working together on something like building a new “toy” with all the features of deathtrap and axton’s turret.

Athena appeared missing as well though I think she identifies more as a mercenary than a vault hunter even though she hunted a vault in TPS.

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#15

At the very least, a single Echo recording left behind would suffice (without actually drawing/adding them as an NPC but still providing some closure). Axton made up with his wife and moved back to Themis, Gaige got a scholarship to college, Kreig is in therapy and doing well (or for a darker take, Axton died when Helios crashed and he was on board, Gaige started dating an abusive boyfriend and was last seen with two kids and a budding substance abuse habit, and Krieg’s been catatonic since Maya gave him the cold shoulder).

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#16

This was why I said a while ago that I didn’t really want a ton of new characters this time. The cast keeps expanding and everybody has a favourite. Like, if Rhys shows up and there’s no mention of Sasha or Fiona I’m going to have questions (and be disappointed).

That said, I don’t see how there can’t be a ton of new characters with the plot of traveling to different planets. And I’m sure I’ll love at least some of them.

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#17

Athena’s one of my favourite characters, but I honestly wouldn’t mind if it’s made canon that she and Janey got rich off their share of the Vault loot in Tales and ran away to a happy life together on a planet that doesn’t suck.

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#18

You can see Brick in the trailers. He’s with Tiny Tina and Mordecai.

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#19

In the trailers yes. But in the parts of the game we saw in the gameplay reveal and demo no. Mordecai and Tina were absent at that point as well. I didn’t recall seeing them on Sanctuary 3.

#20

The voice actors for both Brick and Tina have confirmed that they will be reprising their roles for BL3 . As has the guy that voices Mordecai now that I think about it.

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#21

I thought I saw Kriegs voice actor was back as well, and we saw krieg guns. It could be an echo, could be a talking gun, could be much bigger. Who knows.

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