Borderlands 3 Brings Back Handsome Jack--Kind Of

Spoilers for Borderlands 2 follow.

Handsome Jack is one of the most acclaimed and beloved villains around, and his debut in Borderlands 2 cemented his place in fans' minds even before he came back for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

However, Jack dies in Borderlands 2, and while he is seen in Tales from the Borderlands, it's in hologram form. Now, Borderlands 3 developer Gearbox says Handsome Jack will return in the upcoming threequel, in some capacity.

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"Handsome Jack is dead," confirmed the studio's narrative managing producer, Randy Varnell, in an interview with GameSpot. "He's such a big character in our universe though. There's always going to be some stuff--there may be a side mission or something and then we mention him a few times. It's so hard to get away from that impact. But you're not ever going to see Handsome Jack come back as a character.

"But it was a hard decision. Because he's such a great villain. But when we were looking at coming up with new villains for Borderlands 3... we've got a lot of Jack--if you like Handsome Jack, you're in luck because there's a lot of existing content where you can play and enjoy him. He's too important to the universe to never mention him again. But we wanted to be sure that the Calypso twins, the new villains, can stand on their own."

The upcoming shooter includes plenty of new characters, so take a look at everything we know about Borderlands 3's four new vault hunters. The game is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC on September 13.

If you'd like to see Borderlands 3 in action, you can watch the gameplay reveal stream here. We've also put together a preview on what it's like to play the game solo (spoilers: it's surprisingly good.)