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Rae Overton

Professor Gardiakos

ENC 1101

8 November 2021

The Borderlands Community

All sorts of entertainment and media have grown so popular they’ve developed their own

discourse communities. The Borderlands game series is no different, developing its own

community ever since the release of the first game in 2009. It has grown immensely in the

decade that it has existed and will continue to grow as new renditions of the games continue to

come out. The Borderlands community is an extremely diverse one and brings together everyone

who loves the lore, gameplay, players, and everything else that comes with the games. As all

other discourse communities, the Borderlands community has a wide variety of platforms that

members use to communicate amongst themselves, a large lexis of its own that many others

would not understand outside of the community, and their own set of values and beliefs.

The platforms in which the Borderlands community communicate are extremely

important. These platforms can be classified as the genres, or ways in which the community

allows “communicative furtherance of its aims,” of the discourse community (Johns 562). One

very important platform the community uses is the Borderlands Discord. For those who may not

know, Discord is a messaging platform you can use to create servers with friends, communities,

etc. and use it for various purposes. The Borderlands Discord server has over 145,000 members

and it is regularly used to give announcements on upcoming games, updates, codes, etc. It is also

divided into various “channels” used to talk about the lore of the game, make theories, or join

groups to play the borderlands games with other people. It is a very good platform within the
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community and helps various members to stay up to date with all things Borderlands while being

able to talk to others and play the games with other people within the community. I personally

use the Borderlands Discord server to get the most recent news about updates for the games and

the various events that are hosted for holidays, special weeks, etc. in the Borderlands 3 game.

The various channels are very organized and allow me to find information specific to game

updates, events, multiplayer groups, etc.

Another important genre within the Borderlands community is the Twitter page

(@borderlands). This page is most often used to share information about upcoming Borderlands

projects, updates, trailers, etc. It has 1.4 million followers in comparison to the 145,000 members

of the Borderlands Discord, so it reaches a larger portion of the community and those outside the

community who may be interested in joining. The Borderlands Twitter account also posts about

“SHiFT codes” which are codes used in all of the Borderland’s games to redeem rewards like

skins, golden keys, etc. that are useful or cosmetic bonuses within the games. This past week the

twitter has been promoting the “Community Carnage Challenge #3” and informing players about

the event and the reward of a new skin (Figure 1). The usage of Twitter also allows for

community members to comment on the posts and leave their thoughts in view of the owners of

the account. This allows for community authority figures like social media managers and the

creators of Borderlands to go through direct feedback from community members and make

changes or respond to that feedback. Having a direct form of communication between those

higher in the community and general members allows for constant improvement of the

community itself as well as feedback from community members making it into future games and

updates of the Borderlands franchise.

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Perhaps the most important genre of the Borderlands franchise is the fandom wiki. This

Wikipedia compiles all of the most important information of every single game within the

franchise. It gives detailed lists of all main characters, playable characters, villains, etc. so that

players can fully understand everybody within the Borderlands universe. It is extremely useful to

all players within the community because in addition to information about the lore and the

characters it compiles lists and lists of important in game information. For all of the games it lists

detailed stats about all weapons, mods, shields, etc. and has sections of the Wikipedia dedicated

to walkthroughs of every mission and easter egg within all of the games. Whether you’re a new

or old player in the community, everybody utilizes the Wikipedia.

What makes the Borderlands community unique to others is the lexis used within the

community when talking about the games and community itself. There is an immense amount of

lore that the members of the Borderlands community have learned throughout playing the games

and a large lexis that is intertwined with that lore and the gameplay mechanics themselves. It is

impossible to be within the Borderlands community and not know about various important

characters and items within the series. For starters, Handsome Jack is the most notable villain of

the series and he is featured within three out of five of the franchise’s games. He is the main

villain of Borderlands 2 and is widely regarded as the best villain of the entire series. He fathers

another very important character by the name of Angel, whom happens to be a siren. In the

Borderlands universe a siren is an individual with “incredible, mysterious powers, and are

physically distinguished by elaborate tattoos that cover half of their bodies” (Borderlands Siren

Wiki). Sirens have been playable characters in the game like Maya, Lilith, and Amara, as well as

non-playable characters like Angel, Dr. Tannis, and many more. Though many have existed,

only six sirens are able to exist at the same time in the Borderlands universe. Notable characters
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featured within multiple games of the series are Roland, Lilith, Brick, and Mordecai. They all

serve as very important characters who are leader figures in the series and guide the players after

Borderlands 1 in which they are playable characters. Lilith is featured in all of the Borderlands

games except for Tales from the Borderlands and serves as a very prominent figure. She is the

main leader of the Crimson Raiders(group of rebels in the universe) after Roland dies in the

second game.

Another very prominent and arguably fan-favorite character within the Borderlands

universe is Tiny Tina. She serves as a mission guide in both Borderlands 2 and 3, and she utilizes

her expertise in bombs to assist the character in their adventures. She is a very spunky character

that many in the community have come to love. She serves as the narrator to a DLC in

Borderlands 2 where most people came to love her character even more, and a continuation of

this DLC is going to become a full-fledged game to the pleasure of the community (Borderlands

Character Wiki). There are many other important characters featured throughout this series, but

the ones mentioned are some of the most notable.

Continuing the contextual lexis of the Borderlands community are the stats and types of

weapons, mods, shields, etc. used by players in all of the games. Every game includes a wide

variety of guns in different rarity levels: common, uncommon, rare, very rare, and legendary

(Borderlands Weapons Wiki). Each level of rarity is color coded, white for uncommon weapons

or least rare and yellow/orange for the rarest legendary weapons. In addition to color coding for

the rarity of guns, the rarer weapons and other equipable items in borderlands have a feature

called “flavor text” which is essentially a line of red text written for specific unique and

legendary weapons that characterize the gun’s personality or abilities. Each weapon in the game

also has the chance to fire elemental damage. The most recent game of the series, Borderlands 3,
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utilizes the elements fire, shock, corrosive, radioactive, and explosive. These elements deal extra

damage in addition to the base stats of weapons, so all players in the community know to look

out for them. My personal favorite elements are shock, because it depletes enemy shields faster,

and radioactive, because it weakens enemies while doing damage to them. Similar to the

weapons in the game the shields, grenade mods, and class mods all have the same rarity ranking

from common to legendary. In addition to the actual weapons that characters can use in the game

there are skill tress unique to every playable Borderlands character in which the players use skill

points from leveling up to specialize into. The perks of these skill trees include unique skills like

Gaige’s Deathtrap skill in Borderlands 2 that when activated spawns a killer robot to assist the

player in taking out enemies and can offer Gaige other power ups based on which skill tree

branches the player chooses to spec into (Borderlands Character Wiki). There is a large variety

of skills in the Borderlands universe across all 20 or so playable characters, so everybody plays a

little differently.

Moving on from the lexis and actual gameplay mechanics, the borderlands community

definitely has its own set of conventional and anti-conventional beliefs. One of the most

prevalent beliefs, going back a few paragraphs, is the belief that Handsome Jack is the best

villain of the series. There is a universal agreement amongst the community that Jacks character

was extremely well written and played out in the second game, while getting expansive

backstory in the other games. He’s written in such a way that players love his character, but

written just morally gray enough that we also love to hate him. He’s clearly a demented

character, but he is a very entertaining villain and the Borderlands Pre-Sequel game gives a bit

more insight into why he turned out the way he did in the second game. This belief is a

conventional one that is agreed upon by just about every individual within the Borderlands
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community whether you’ve played just one game or every game. It is almost impossible to find

someone who is not on board with this idea. A belief I have within the community that is more

on the anti-conventional side is the fact that the Borderlands Pre-Sequel is a good game. I

personally enjoyed the characters and mechanics, as did many others in the community. Though

the majority of the Borderlands discourse community disagree with this take and find many

issues within the gameplay mechanics themselves as well as the story. They believe that the O2

mechanic used to breathe in the game since it takes place on the moon is inefficient and think

that story was lackluster. I personally enjoyed the fleshing out of Handsome Jacks backstory and

think that the playable characters had fun skills.

Many in the Borderlands community also share the values that there is no one specific

way to enjoy or play the games. It is widely encouraged that everyone in the community explores

a variety of playstyles before deciding which characters are their favorites to play every game.

The community is a very supportive place and the authority figures of the community like the

company CEO, social media managers, etc. are very integrated with the community and help

encourage the members to come together. Overall, the Borderlands community is a very diverse

set of people coming in all ages, backgrounds, etc. that come to bond over one of their favorite

video games. The community is extremely welcoming and quick to help new people that are

struggling whether it be sitting in the same voice chat or giving them various pointers on starting

up through blogs and forum posts.

The Borderlands community is one of my favorite discourse communities that I have

found myself to be apart of. I have been in this community since middle school and many of the

members have supported me both in and out of the game. I am glad to have shared the basic
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aspects of the community in this paper today and hope it served as an educational introduction to

the community while encouraging others to join.