Borderlands Pre-Sequel Dev Will Consider Xbox One/PS4 Versions if Fans Demand Them

2K Games surprised some people earlier this year when it revealed that the next Borderlands game--Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel--would only be available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. That remains the plan for the upcoming shooter, but there is now a glimmer of hope that it will eventually make it to Xbox One and PlayStation 4, too.

"All the players of Borderlands 2 are all playing on those [last-gen] consoles, that's the choice they've got. So we want to reward those guys and give them the Borderlands Pre-Sequel experience on that console," said 2K Australia's Tony Lawrence in a recently published E3 interview with Gamereactor. "If fans say, 'Hey, we'd really like this on a next-gen console,' well, we'll think about that. But right now, we're concentrating on the consoles we know."

That's as promising an indication as we've gotten to date that gamers who have fully transitioned to Xbox One and PS4 will still have the opportunity to play The Pre-Sequel. But Gearbox's Matt Armstrong notes that many of the fans clamoring for Xbox One and PS4 versions aren't necessarily indicative of everyone, saying that "the vast majority of our fans" still have their old hardware.

"The other thing is, it's between, it's the middle in a trilogy," he continued. "And moving it onto next-gen and requiring people to buy new hardware to play the middle on a trilogy feels a little disingenuous. And we sort of want to respect that. As I said, one day, maybe. We'll think about that, we'll see how people react to the game, how much fun they have, and whether or not everybody moves on to the next gen fully next year."

Indeed, while the new consoles have sold well, the install base for each remains relatively small compared with the previous generation of consoles. It's due in part to the huge install base for Xbox 360 and PS3 that Borderlands 2 was able to become publisher 2K's best-selling game ever. Gearbox head Randy Pitchford pointed out when Pre-Sequel was announced that Borderlands 2 had sold more copies than Xbox One and PS4 consoles combined (at least at that point). In light of that, the decision to develop The Pre-Sequel for last-gen hardware makes a lot of sense.

But that doesn't mean the game couldn't also be available on Xbox One and PS4 for those who would like to be able to play the game and easily record video or snap Netflix to the side while doing so. Given that Lawrence and Armstrong's comments came at E3, we checked with Gearbox to see if its stance on being open to considering Xbox One and PS4 versions had changed, but it declined to comment.

The Pre-Sequel is scheduled for release on October 14 on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. For more, check out the new narrated gameplay walkthrough video above, which features the full demo that we saw at E3 last month.