Trivia / Tales from the Borderlands

• Acclaimed Flop: As one of Telltale's post-Walking Dead games, it was a commercial failure, not helped by the terrible release schedule caused by the studio deciding to prioritise development for Game Of Thrones instead. Nonetheless, it is frequently cited as one of the best games Telltale produced, and its popularity allowed it to be properly integrated into the main series with Borderlands 3.
• Actor Allusion:
  • At some point, Vasquez calls Rhys "chum".
  • This isn't the first time a Troy Baker character's ended up trapped in a chair by the armrests
  • The characters playing a tabletop game during the opening cinematic of "Catch a Ride" is a direct reference to Laura Bailey's love of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as giving Rhys fancy Hyperion socks in "Atlas Mugged", as Troy Baker is a sock collector.
• Adored by the Network: As opposed to Telltale, Gearbox loves this game as much as everyone else, and it almost always receives equal billing to the other games. So much that it was confirmed entirely canon with the Commander Lilith DLC for Borderlands 2 and Borderlands 3 integrating its story, and several characters even making the jump to the main series completely. The dev team also commented that Gearbox was more than happy to let them kill off long-standing characters or write big events that would shape Borderlands lore without resistance.
• Casting Gag: Once again, Telltale veteran Roger L. Jackson is the voice of an unseen and apparently malicious party known only as The Stranger.
• Executive Meddling: When Telltale acquired a trove of valuable IPs, Tales from the Borderlands was no longer a priority for the company; they pulled the lead designer off the project, even though "Episode 1: Zer0 Sum" was nearly completed, in order to help finish The Walking Dead (Telltale). The final episode, "The Vault of the Traveler", was finished with a skeleton crew as most of the team had been moved to other projects by then.
• The Other Darrin: Instead of Mike Turner reprising his role as Zer0 in Episode, he's voiced in this episode by Ashly Burch.
• The Other Marty: Sam Witwer voiced Rhys early in the game's development, but was replaced by Troy Baker at some point after E3 2014, as Witwer's interpretation made Rhys sound too much like an asshole.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Sasha's involvement with Rhys was bulked up in later episodes due to Chris Hardwick's touring leaving him unavailable to record sessions as Vaughn, meaning Rhys needed someone else to interact with.
• Real Song Theme Tune: As per Borderlands tradition, changing from episode-to-episode:
  • Zer0 Sum has "Busy Earnin'" by Jungle.
  • Atlas Mugged has "Kiss the Sky" by Shawn Lee.
  • Catch a Ride has "Pieces of the People We Love" by The Rapture.
  • Escape Plan Bravo has "To the Top" by Twin Shadow.
  • The Vault of the Traveler has "Retrograde" by James Blake as the opening theme, and "My Silver Lining" by First Aid Kit as the ending theme.
• Screwed by the Network: Telltale did not consider the game a success prior to its shutdown and were apparently considering cancelling the series before it was even finished.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: The finger gun fight in Episode 4 was created because the developers felt that the episode needed a big fight sequence but they didn't have the VFX budget to do both a normal big fight scene in Episode 4 as well as the big final battle in Episode 5. Removing the guns from the Episode 4 fight solved that problem while creating one of the most famous scenes in the game.
• Throw It In!: In the script of episode 5, Rhys' escape from Helios included a direction for him to "flip off the monitors as he runs by". The writing team meant this as being that he switches them off, but the animation team misinterpreted this and instead showed him flipping the double-bird towards the monitors in defiance, which creative director Nick Herman found to be too hilarious to not use.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Sam Witwer was originally going to voice Rhys.
  • Previews in earlier episodes show that Jimbo and Tector Hodunk would have played bigger roles in-game, but only the latter appears and plays a very small role as August's goon.
  • Nisha would have originally been one of the corpses on display in Shade's museum.
  • According to Anthony Burch, Vasquez originally have a much smaller role, but his role got expanded thanks to Patrick Warburton.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Nobody on the writing team had decided on the true identity of Rhys and Fiona's captor until very late in the story when it became time to reveal it, and other candidates were considered.

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