Borderlands 3 will be powered by Unreal Engine 4

GDC 2017 - Gearbox's Randy Pitchford has confirmed that Borderlands 3 will leverage the power of Unreal Engine 4 to bring high fidelity advanced effects, dynamic shadows, lighting and much more to the next-gen Borderlands sequel.

Gearbox is doing some very, very interesting things with Unreal Engine 4. The studio has been developing Borderlands 3 for a while now, and at GDC 2017 Randy Pitchford showed off the game's first ever technical demonstration to highlight some of the more advanced effects the devs are using to make the game. "We're going to show you some technology that we're building within UE4 that will power the next Borderlands game," Pitchford said before the demo.

The demo shows just how far Borderlands has come, and how truly next-gen Borderlands 3 will be when it ships. The team has created some impressive experimental effects and features that absolutely breathe new life into the franchise and I fully expect Borderlands 3 to push the bar to new heights.

As you'd expect, the Borderlands 3 tech demo is extremely technical. Pitchford talks about a lot of things including procedural mapping rendering techniques that improve the visual quality of objects, as well as dynamic lighting and shadow, the unique outline methods used in the franchise, and much, much more. We see things like sunrays and atmospheric lighting effects and shadows with sun-lit scenes, including lighting occlusion, sub-surface scattering, and "ray of god" effects.

We have no clue when Borderlands 3 will ship, but I can say that I'm pretty excited for this new shoot-and-loot adventure, and I can't wait to see what awesome and nifty effects Gearbox will pull off next.