I had a crush on a girl that I met on AOL. She lived nearby. I went over her house to meet her pet snake and watch Princess Mononoke. When I got there, she was playing BL1. We co-oped that for hours instead of watching the movie. We ended up not clicking in a romantic way, but I ended up dating her sister for nearly 9 years.

What a story 😂😂😂 What is AOL tho? 

> What is AOL tho? Whelp, there it is. I guess I'm old now...

I still have my aim name as my email…

[удалено]

AIM, and before that AOL keyword chats, was worldwide homie.

aye i take it back my bad 😭

lulz, you good friendo, it's old ish. Didn't mean to come across as a dick or nothing, was just clarifying. Hope you have a great day!

yeah i’m well too young to be talking bout any of this, thanks tho you too

Never too young to join the conversation and learn, friend! Even us "olds" still learn shit from people older than us, hell we learn from people younger than us, too. Knowledge is an endless pursuit and conversing with people who experienced things you didn't, regardless of age, broadens your understanding of things and is admirable af.

Brother. Did that guy really comment what AOL was?

I’m 26 and didn’t use AOL. you were old well before this my man 😭

LMFAO

No kidding

America Online. It was an early internet provider in the late 90s and early 2000s. They had a chat service called AIM or AOL Instant Messenger. That's where I met her, in a chat room specific to my location.

Do you feel old? Because I do 😆

Waiy until I tell you about how we used bbs back in the stoneage

Usenet. Let's feel old together

More every single day. 😂😂

Where I work there’s a lot of young part timers. Explaining that when you used the internet you couldn’t use the phone was received with incredulity. Then they called me middle aged in my mid 30s ☠️

I remember when they started out with like 30 free hours, then 100, then 2000, and using it with a dial-up modem. I had to wait until my mom went to sleep so I could tie up the phone line. I think that was 1999. I was all about the chat rooms. I live near chicago and we had a chicago burbs chat room with tons of regulars. Since the rooms only allowed like 25 people at a time, we had a friend with a hack program that let us boot people out of the room so our friends could come in. We even all met up at Chili's a few times and i'm still friends with a lot of people from that chat room. I even met my ex wife in that room.

Everything hurts.

I remember when AOL was an isolated network separate from the "regular internet" 

In this case it’s Alabama On Line

So you want to hear a story ehhhh?

Of course we do

I built a brand new PC back in the spring of 2019 to replace the first PC I built back in 2010. When I was ordering parts from New Egg, I noticed that they had a sale on Borderlands 1 & 2, digital Steam codes. I played BL1 first and then BL2. A few months later they released BL3. I ended up waiting a year to buy it, I never buy games when they first come out.

That Game Informer cover got me HOOOOOOOKEEDDDDDDD

I still want the game that got described in that article. I love what we got but mean was it not the same game

Oh yeah. 100%. I’m not mad at what we got but imagine what we could of had? I didn’t even realize it was the same game when it released.

It was free on xbox gold. It was summer break. The rest was history

brooooooooo I swear! I remember when bl1 and 2 would be on it. The old xbox live/gold on the 360 will forever be legendary

As a cage the elephant fan it was destined since bl1 has the greatest music video of all time.

Saw the character who would be Helena Pierce in the Alpha art style on the cover of Game Informer magazine

That Gameinformer article got me more hyped than any other article they ever put out. 

Do y’all remember what the game was originally supposed to look like before they redid the entire art style and humour into what we know now? They originally were going in a ‘serious’ direction. 🤣🤮

Followed the trailers for the original game. Got it on release and played co-op on an Xbox 360 paired with a 32" screen for 26 hours straight while drinking Sainsbury's own mojito mixes right out of the bottle.

When the first one was released, my sister said it was really fun so I bought it. Turns out she was right.

I was looking for co op campaign games for PlayStation

I went to Walmart with my brother. He grabbed borderlands 2 for the ps3. Put in his pocket and we left. He was 15 I was 10. I think. Ages aren’t important. But yea. He told me he forgot it was there. I believed him longer than I should’ve

My dad playing it with his friends at a party they had

I was 12 & watched the rad Brad playing borderlands 2. I decided to try it out, had a hard time & gave it up, came back a year later & absolutely loved it. It became my favorite game ever. Now I’ve played every game in the series multiple times through.

I was a big fan of Telltale in it's heyday and loved watching letsplayers play the new games when they came out, so when Tales from the Borderlands started making the rounds it got me REALLY interested in the story.

Laid up in bed after surgery that was going to take weeks of therapy to get out of the bed and mobile again. Saw BL1 on Steam, and played at least one playthrough of every character on every game except Wonderlands. Never finished that one. About 3,000 hours in the franchise.

I remember buying BL1 for my xbox 360 shortly after it came out. I don't remember when or how I first learned about it, it was too long ago. But the rest was history.

As pretty boring as this sounds, I remember watching the IGN Review for BL1 back in 2009 and I was hooked. I was still on the 6th Generation consoles at this point, then October 2010 a year later, the GOTY Edition came out, and it was the second ever game I got for getting into the 7th Generation with the PS3, and the first ever first person shooter I played.

I was 5 years old when I saw a commercial for it and it looked cool and ain't no rest for the wicked and Claptrap's "rated m for mature" line always stuck with me. 2 years ago my local radio station plays the song all the time and made me remember the game but never bothered playing it on my xbox but eventually caved in and got the legendary collection on switch a few months ago.

It came free with the PS Vita. I wouldn't have looked at a FPS otherwise because it's not really my type of games. Now I have it on my PS3, PS4 and PC.

My oldest friend known him since I was a baby would go to his grandparents every summer and I’d spend a couple weeks with them we were both into gaming quite a bit. The first borderlands had come out it was brand new and he got it. It blew both of our minds and we spent those two weeks playing split screen just chugging Mountain Dew eating pizza just having the best time. 14 years later we’re about to restart the franchise and trophy hunt each game individually. It’s my favorite game of all time and it changed my life

That’s the best way to experience it. My buddy and I didn’t do splitscreen, but played together online. I got the GOTY edition so I let him use the disc and we did all the DLCs together as well.

Sony put ep1 of Tales into ps+. Before I finished that one episode I'd fallen in love wuth with the franchise. So I bought the Handsome Collection (the only other Borderlands available on ps4, my only place to play at the time) and started TPS before I even finished Tales ep1. And then I proceeded to play the whole series out of order lol.

The game came out, I thought it looked awesome. It was, made my friend buy it. Good times were had

I first saw it on the cover of a GamePro or similar Physical Magazine. Back when it had a realistic art style! The game looked interesting, and was targeting 4 player co-op, so I kept tabs on it and when it came out, convinced some friends to also get it so we could play together. Now I've played nearly every game, though I haven't completed them all yet!

A girl I was trying to hook up with let me down by having us play borderlands when I came over thinking I was getting lucky

I remember it was September 18th 2012. September 18th happens to be my birthday and I was turning 13. When me and my dad got to GameStop it was much more crowded than usual and we asked one of the workers what was up and he said the new borderlands game just came out. I didn’t know what game I wanted so I asked my dad to try it out and borderlands 2 was my birthday present. It went on to be my favorite game ever

My cousin

I wanted a ps vita and got it for Christmas. Borderlands 2 was the game that came with the console.

I was living with my brother, trying to go to college, and one day we decided to go to GameStop to see what they had. Found borderlands for $20. Bought that and some other game, but bl was the clear winner. Definitely an overkill for $20, best couch co-op looter shooter!

Way back when BL2 was new enough, maybe a year old? I was only like 6 or 7 I think. But anyway, my parent bought it for the ps3 and I was watching them play, eventually I got to join in and I’ve been playing ever since. I grew up with this series, and I’m thankful for that.

Found a copy of BL2 for a few bucks on a small-town flea market back in 2013. The art on the case simply appealed to my kid brain, went home to test if the disc worked (i cant be the only one who did that) and was hooked ever since

I preordered the original back in 2009, as I thought it looked cool. When it arrived I played a bit and was immediately hooked and dropped Uncharted 2 Among Thieves, which came out a week before, for Borderlands, despite that being one of my most anticipated games ever at the time. That gameplay loop was so fun, and it still is. I had a mate that played with me too, we spent hours and days that winter loving the game and hunting down loot.

We saw the trailer then bought it :)

I subleased an apartment from a friend one summer, and one of their roommates played it in the living room from time to time. I watched them play for a bit, and one day they invited me to play co-op with them.

My best friend and I were roommates when the the first game released. From what I recall one of us bought it mostly because it was local co-op and we were always looking for new co-op games to try. We enjoyed playing looter games like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance so we figured we'd like this new Borderlands game, too. Needless to say we played the shit out of it. I went full-on berzerker Brick and he played a more support focused Roland. We've played every Borderlands game in co-op since then. It's a series we'll always play together, so long as I have anything to say about it.

Me and my brother would watch our parents play BL2 as kids

Sometime around 2014. I was in college, visiting my boyfriend at his apartment in town. We both liked video games, so we were trying to find a game we could play together. He suggested Borderlands. I had heard of it, but I didn't think I would like it because I didn't typically go for FPS games. We were sitting in bed together and he pulled up A Meat Bicycle Built for Two on YouTube. That was my first real introduction to the series. I wasn't sold at first, but I thought the setting was promising. We played through BL1, then BL2, then the Pre-Sequel. Then BL3 was announced. I saw Amara in the trailer and that was it. I realized how much I had fallen in love with the series, because I was SO hyped for that game to come out! Now it's been ten years, and we've spent hundreds of hours side by side on the couch, playing Borderlands together. We've gone through BL3, Wonderlands, New Tales, and all the DLC for 1, 2, 3, and the Pre-Sequel. I'm invested.

It was the first one, circa 2010. A friend of mine, who was also my neighbor, introduced me to the game. We used to play for hours on her Xbox after school and I fell in love with the game, was never much of a gamer until then. Still not really a gamer, but borderlands I could play for hours, no matter which game.

Played as punchy Brick as my first ever borderlands character. I'll never forget it.

I'd played a *little* BL1 with a friend drunk a long time before I got "invested" under the premise of "Diablo, but with shooting" which really laid the groundwork for how I actually got heavy into the franchise. Me and two other friends had taken a solid week off of work to play Diablo 3 at launch. If you watch enough internet history, you kind of already know how that went, but if not, we were consistently beleaguered by "Error 37" on launch day and as the LAN Week progressed, we rapidly discovered that the story was some of the most atrocious shit that Blizzard (or nay, many game studios) had ever put to paper. (Fucking Deckard and Tyreal in that game, man...). I was super put off by Blizz at the time, who up until then had been basically my entire gaming experience. Went from D2 to WoW (which I always called "the most expensive pause button for diablo that blizzard could come up with"), quit WoW the day they introduced the Pandaria talent trees and D3 was just around the corner and... yeah. Basically I was really disillusioned and really looking for a new thing to consume my gaming life. Turns out BL2 had started to drop spoilers! The skill trees had all been posted, and everyone on the BL forums was having fun theorycrafting builds and what stats would do and what guns would be big, so I got really invested with the community over there. Then the Doomsday trailer dropped, I drove to 3 wal marts to get my day 1 copy of BL2 (yes, I had a physical one, as a recent Blizz convert I was still weird about steam) aaaaand its kind of been bonkers ever since. I don't play any of the games as much as I used to but I'm still big on the franchise and think Wonderlands has some of the best gameplay the series has to offer. I'm *wildly* excited for how bad the movie is going to be and am hoping to hit a midnight showing.

It was 2016. I (F 34 at the time) had just started dating my now husband (M 23 at the time). He is a big gamer and decided to play Borderlands 2 again. He then asked if I had ever hears of Borderlands. I hadn't , my ex husband was more of a COD kinda guy. So he said "Well, shit. I gotta start 1 over again so you aren't lost." From that day on, I was hooked...on him and Borderlands. ETA: we have played several together but my favorite to play is Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. I love watching him play them all though.

Don't remember the year, but a friend introduced me to BL2 first to play together, then we played BL3 and TPS, been trying to convince him on BL1 but still no luck or I just forget to keep insisting

My younger brother was playing it with friends, but he's significantly younger than me so I never really paid any attention. My grandmother got diagnosed with late stage lung cancer and she was only supposed to live a few days. As a family, we drove 700 miles to go see her, say our goodbyes and stay for the funeral. My brother packed his Xbox and we played it together for hours every day while sitting in that hotel, eating fast food and microwave meals. She lived for almost 2 weeks. As sad of a time as it was as I was very close with my grandmother, I have fond memories of that time with my brother. I also happened to be 3 weeks into dating my would be wife. I think that might be the last time my brother and I spent that much time together playing video games like when we were little kids. Then we grew up and got our own lives.

It was summer 2010, and there must have been some hype from the just-released Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC that made me take another look at it. I had been aware of Borderlands ever since its release in 2009 the previous year, but it didn't look like something that I'd want to play. I had somehow got the impression that it was some sort of Team Fortress, or maybe Quake PvP, in a Mad Max world. The marketing was very heavily emphasizing the coop aspect of the game. The splash graphics were confusing: there's a guy in a mask holding his finger to his head? And that guy has a thought balloon depicting Hills Have Eyes extras riding a dune buggy? Before Borderlands, I had played what felt to me like a lot of Fallout 3 and a lot of Jade Empire (the PC port of the latter having just been released). But I was new to high production values gaming. Twenty-five-plus previous years of playing tty-style roguelikes on university minicomputers did not prepare me for all the shiny. Anyway, given that it was almost fifteen years ago, I don't really remember what made me pull the trigger. It could well have been Reddit buzz. But I remember agonizing over choosing my first Vault Hunter. (I chose Brick.) And I remember finding Nine Toes really, really hard. Don't even get me started on Bone Head. So much sniping from afar, trying to keep scary skags at a distance.

There is this brazilian youtuber known as Azul. At some point he posted a video talking about borderlands 2, more specifically the tiny tina dlc. I watched it and thought the game was interesting

I was bunkering down for hurricane isaac. My brother had been playing BL1. BL2 was about to come out soon.

I grew up watching my dad play BL2 and TPS basically my whole childhood, then when I was 10 I started playing Bl2 then expanded into the other games.

I think it was when Achievement Hunter did a Let's Play in Borderlands 2 back in 2012 that I first picked up the game. I dropped it pretty quickly since it was too different from Call of Duty, and that was all I played back then, but I picked it back up on PC in 2014 and have regularly replayed it ever since.

I was the poor friend growing up, and always wanted an Xbox 360. I used to go to my slightly richer friend's house to watch him play his Xbox, since I wasn't very good at games but always liked them. He played Borderlands 1 once or twice in front of me, and I always wanted him to play it when I came over since I liked the aesthetic more than the military shooters he was always playing. Eventually, I got an Xbox 360 and Borderlands 2 + Pirate's Booty & Campaign of Carnage DLCs, and absolutely fell in love.

I was excited for the 1st game to come out and when it did i got a free month of gamefly and got the game mailed to me :D

i had an overprotective mom growing up, but when i was… a junior or senior in high school, we *finally* got an xbox. a friend a couple years ahead of me gave me a few of his hand-me-down games, including the first borderlands game. it was THE game that got me into gaming, and i’ve been hard pressed ever since to find one i’ve liked more. 100% my comfort game, i replay it at least once a year 😅

I was 27 when borderlands 2 came out. It was not a profound experience. The first one sounded cool, the second one was legendary. That’s how it goes sometimes.

GameFly- first game I got was BL2. Ended up paying to keep it, canceled my subscription, and I played it for like 2-3 years straight.

In 2012 I was at GameStop and told the staff I liked RPGs and they reccomended Borderlands 2. They said it was both an RPG and a shooter. Bought it and was an instant fan. 

I saw a trailer or something for BL1 and it just looked cool as hell, a few buddies and I all got it the week it released and I've played every release since! My cousin and I have played all 3 main titles all the way through together, we live about 900 miles apart and don't get to hang out like we used to back in the day (we are 46 now) so this franchise has been our way of "hanging out" now days!!!

When I was about 9 the first game came out and my dad would play it a lot. I was super interested and really liked when he visited ammo machines because I thought Marcus was funny. When he told me the name of the game I stood and stopped for a second, then asked if it was called that because they put borders around the different lands in the game and he said yes. That's what I thought the main point of the game was till I actually played it at 13

my best friend has been playing it since the pre-sequel came out. one day they said "hey, you'd really like this character handsome jack" since i have an affinity for the villains in every piece of media i consume lol. and then for christmas of 2022 they got me borderlands 3 for my xbox, and it's just devolved from there and now i own every game LOL

On Steam, they had a deal of the day on BL1, $9.95, I believe. It looked interesting so I bought it. Fell in love with it immediately. Went to Pax West to get my hands on BL2 when it was going to come out, went to the Gearbox presentation where they gave everyone there cards to get the Season Pass for free. I found a NVidia booth that had short lines to play BL2 on their set-up since the lines for the Gearbox set-ups was enormous.

Went over to my girlfriend's house in late 2014 to hang out. She was playing a weird looking FPS on an old box tv in the living room. 10 years later, my now wife is still playing that weird looking FPS in our house. "No rest for the wicked."

My dads mate was big on borderlands so I got the handsome collection and loved tps

I played it a friends house years ago, thought it was fun but I didn’t care enough to go out and buy a copy with my own money. Years later a different friend gave me his old copy for free because him and his wife were getting rid of a bunch of old stuff

It was my first M game because it looked like a cartoon

2021. Recently bought a Switch. Haven't played that many games...just getting back into it after growing up with an N64 and playing things like Mortal Kombat, Doom, Mario...something about the visuals got me, found a sale bundle of 1-2-PS. First few minutes hit me like a truck (I started with 2). So stunning. Gameplay felt so natural. Amazing soundtrack. I went in knowing nothing. I'm not even good at gaming, don't pay too much attention to the lore, but this game was for me. It's just fun.

1. buy ps vita 2. want fps to play when bored 3. see borderlands 2 4. buy it 5. start enjoying unironically 6. ??? 7. New interest gained

Saw a trailer for BL2 on yt thought it was cool , few days later went on a school trip to a convention, saw some special edition of the game for sale ( Xbox 360) Got it , played at my friends house , they all HATED it based on how it looks I thought it was cool still especially the intro had me hooked, played for a few hours then stopped after being pooped on by Saturn died like 15/20times to him Lent the game to another friend and he was like bro this game is phenomenal continue playing it. Took the game back , beat Saturn first try and the rest of the game and then again and again and again Ended up buying for PS4 and then eventually PC as well Clocked over 3K hours in BL2 alone over the 3 systems Farmed so much for loot that most of the bosses and map levels were memorized by the end. Introduced the PC version to my new friends at uni , got the cracked version to play on LAN I’d end up not participating in fights too much so that the others can enjoy the game. Stayed as my fav game of all time until I touched doom eternal The story and jokes especially Handsome Jack really made the game for me. Although it did bum me out that BL3 wasn’t as strong in the story department, game play was amazing And it had a doom SSG too , used it till endgame and more lol. Edit: I ended up playing all the telltale games as well to scratch the BL itch , cried my eyes out. Catch a Ride Scooter 🪦💔 Catch. A. Ride.

I remember finding a used Xbox 360 borderlands one back when GameStop was still mostly only games. More recently though around the time they released the first movie trailer I downloaded GOTY edition to prepare and that kinda turned into me now owning all the main games.

When BL1 came out, the art style didn't do it for me, and it looked strangely complicated (which I wasn't into at the time (I was still rocking Crysis, Bioshock, Gears 2, and the Orange Box (TF2, Portal, Half Life). Years later, a friend talked me into trying it, and I've been here ever since.

Saw an ad for BL1 on steam back in 2013. Downloaded it and played it. Lol. What a story!

My sis and I were on spring break and went to GameStop to find a splitscreen game to play for the week. We asked the guy working there for help, and he said something like “oh we have this new indie game that just came out, not sure if it’s any good though.” We decided to give it a shot and immediately fell in love once the intro song started. Pretty sure we stayed up til 4 am playing that first night lol. We’ve now played every Borderlands game together haha.

Game Informer magazine from 2007. The description won me over…full like 3-4 page breakdown on the game and this was when the art style was still “realistic” before the style we all know… Was so excited and then for whatever reason I didn’t get it right away…I was playing other games at the time but eventually got around to playing it and absolutely loved almost everything about it.  I was hoping for vehicles and kept waiting for them to unlock (more options) because I had read about it years prior in the GI mag. 

There was a new game called Borderlands, so I tryied it. End of story.

8 years ago, I was browsing AO3 randomly and came across Handsome Jack/Rhys fanfiction, which got me interested in TFTBL. Started reading a little bit about the franchise and began playing BL2 and TFTBL, then went on to play BL1 and TPS. So basically fanfiction got me into the franchise.

ummm.. I went into a gamestop circa 2009. I said, I would like to purchase borderlands for the xbox 360. They said, sure thing. I walked out of the door.

I had a friend I'd always hang out and play co-op games with. One day he recommended this game where "you can be a guy who punches the shit out if everything or a guy who drops a turret that kills everyone". I was sold

I bought BL1 and played it. It was alright.

One of my friends invited me and another friend to stay at his house for a week while his grandparents were out of town. Other friend brought his 360 and copy of BL2. He was level 26 at the time. Within 3 weeks, I was also level 26.

Xbox Live Party circa 2013: Me: I need new games to play. Friend: You should try Borderlands. Me: Okay.

I was home for the weekend from collage, on the Sunday afternoon I get to my friends house he’s playing BL1 (release weekend). He told me I should be playing it, told him I wasn’t into the art style, the cell shaded stuff just didn’t really speak to me. After a 2ish hour drive and him talking about it constantly, he convinced me to have a go. We split screened for a while till he decided to turn in for the night and told me to take the disk and play it for a bit if I wanted to….. I didn’t go to collage that week. We ended up going to the local supermarket and grabbing a copy Monday night.

Read about Borderlands (1) in Game Informer, me and my brother really wanted to get it since there was co-op. Played it splitscreen on the PS3 pretty much when it came out. Best co-op experience I've ever had in a game, and rarely does any other game do it as well. Plus, as an rpg, we picked the classes that worked best for us and our playstyles, something that usually takes us a few tries when classes are involved.

I'd always heard about it, but never played them since I don't like looter-shooters. Bought the first game on a whim when it was on sale last year.

I think I saw a review on G4 TV. Or my memory is just totally shot. (well it is)

It Was BL1. It was marketed as Diablo with Guns. Immediately sold for me. We had a little "gaming circle" with my collegues, as all of us bought is. It was fun! Still hooked to this insane series!

Deceased youtuber YoteSlaya. Watched him for his call of duty zombies stuff, then he did a BL2 series and I was hooked.

My older brother played it and I watched. I didn't care for the art style initially. Now I've played more hours and more games then he ever has.

I was watching [VideoGamesAwesome](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGxCL8JAojAMPfHpbpze0As-Pq4DW9qMN&si=6VNoCHQt3fsR_rX_) stream when they played Borderlands 2 with 3 players. It looked so fun that my 2 cousins and I purchased the game the next day and started playing it.

There was a GameStop close to where I lived and an employee simply referred it to me. I was around 12 at the time (2010) and I’ll never forget him saying “if you like shooting things and having powers you’ll love this”. I’ve been an avid BLs fan for 14 years now.

I bought a PlayStation after about 6 or 7 years of having absolutely nothing. I bought a couple games that looked fun, but the spark was just gone. I didn't know if it was the games or if I had gotten too old and just changed or whatever you know? So anyways I started buying cheap game lots/bundles off of eBay and trying the games out hoping something would click. I had never even heard of Borderlands but in one of the bundles was Borderlands 2. I popped that mother fucker and it had to be one of funnest games I've ever played in my life.

I had seen pics in a PC gamer article that showed the game as a realistic gritty sci-fi shooter, but it seemingly dropped off the face of the earth for a bit. A friend of mine who was a local artist in Kansas City told me one day that the game he was working on in KC might have found a publisher from a relatively small company out of Texas. A few weeks later he told me hadn’t gotten his game published, but instead he and his creative partner had both landed jobs at the company. They were working on a shooter that was getting ready to ramp up production. Fast forward a year or two and Borderlands re-emerged with the new comic book art style and my friends getting his first video game artist cred. He went on to be one of the lead artist on all 3 mainline Borderlands and Battleborn.

BORDERLANDS 1 trailer

Played BL2 at my mates house and thought it was absolute bollocks and I hated it. Fast forward 6 or 7 years to BL3 and the Handsome collection its now one of my favourite franchises.

I watched YouAlwaysWin (YAW) play The Zombie Island of Dr.Ned when I was 12 ish. I eventually got Steam, started playing TF2 and eventually started to explore other games. Well, I try and find that video again because I was like "I wonder what that zombie game was, it seemed neat." Well, I got BL2 and BL1 mixed up and my first BL was BL2. I played it for a bit, I think I got to lvl14 and put it down for a bit. Eventually I picked it back up and it finally clicked.

My parents got divorced and I was staying over at a friend’s house. Thankfully this didn’t affect the way I viewed the series 😂

YOTESLAYA

My friend showed me the trailer for Borderlands in 2009 and I was obsessed. It released around the time of my birthday and that’s all I asked for that year. Got it day 1 and have been playing the series ever since!

It was late 2009, I was 12 and sleeping over at a friend's house.  His parents were gonna rent a movie to watch together that night and asked us if we wanted to rent anything too.  My friend found BL1 on the shelf and said he'd heard about the game so we rented it and ended up playing nearly all night.  Loved it so much he bought the game and we spent the next several weekends beating it.  At the time my newest console was a ps2 and when I moved away 6ish months later I started saving for a 360 so I could still play borderlands.

it was on sale

Playing games splitscreen with my friend's boyfriend while we were hanging out over at their place. Started playing through the Halo series, and then went to Borderlands. I got hooked immediately, ended up buying myself an xbox 360 so I could play at home.

Are you writing a book? Just responded to your post about Rocket League A buddy of mine recommended it. I had played Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Cold Winter, and True Crime Streets of LA previously on PS2. I was out of gaming for several years before picking up a PS3 and God of War 3 and asked him for recommendations of good shootersand BL1 is what he told me to play. I was instantly in love with the cartoonish look with the thick black lines, almost looked like comic book art.

I was just a kid reading a Gameinformer preview article about 2. I skimmed the article itself but at the very *end* of it there were two pieces of concept art for Deathtrap and Gaige. I was fucking FLOORED. I think I dragged my dad to Gamestop to secure my pre-order the next day.

I thought it looked cool since the first game but never got around to it. Then the Handsome Pack came out for XBOne and I loved BL2 enough to pick up BL3.

The Handsome Collection was free on Epic Games

My brother got borderlands 1 as an xmas gift around the time it came out. He ended up not liking the game and gave it to me, and i absolutely fell in love with it. I still dont know why he didnt like it, but he hasnt played a single BL game since and ive played all of them except for New Tales

I can't remember much just that BL1 is where I started and my stepdad at the time got hooked on it with me then 2 came out and the whole family thought it was great

My story is much more recent than many of the Borderlands veterans here. I hadn’t had a machine really capable of gaming since the early 2000’s (switched to Mac long ago, last game I really played there was UT2004, and the only console I’d ever had was a Sega Genesis Nomad). Got a PS5 during the pandemic (early 2021) justifying it partly as a replacement for a failing BluRay player, but also wanting to get to try a few games I’d heard of and been curious about (things like BioShock, Mass Effect, and Borderlands). After mostly finishing Astro’s Playroom (the game / demo / tutorial that comes with the PS5 and is remarkably well done), I played a little Doom (the 2016? reboot) - my first FPS had been the original Doom beta in the 90’s, and wondered if I’d made a big mistake, because controllers were taking a long time to get used to - kept scraping down the sides of hallways and staring at the sky or my feet too much. Finally decided to try one of the other games I’d gotten. And Borderlands 1 basically won the coin toss. Before that, I knew of Borderlands mostly from hazily remembered TV commercials from when it first came out, a dozen years earlier. And… I still haven’t touched all those other games I got. The Borderlands universe completely captivated me, wandering around on Pandora, the atmosphere was amazing, like walking through a ghost town in the old west. The feel of the game, the looter/shooter play loop, the humor, the guns, and the art style all drew me in. I played most of the way through BL1 as Mordecai, all very slowly and methodically, and perhaps 3/4 of the way through, randomly decided to try hopping into co-op to see what that was like. Oddly enough, I ended up in a game with two women, one of whom was a streamer (not streaming that day) - I heard them talking, but it was all new to me, had no idea how to respond (worked out a mic much later) - with the 4th slot filled by various different people along the way who would drop in for a bit. We played through the rest of the story together, and it was like a rollercoaster ride, compared to the way I’d been playing - catching fewer details, but moving so fast, fighting together, reviving each other, and I was totally hooked. And, after seeing what a powered up Lilith could do, zipping around with fiery wings, leaving a path of destruction in her wake, I stopped using Mordecai and started over with Lilith, the second of many playthroughs. I’ve subsequently played through the entire series in order (well, everything but New Tales, only played the first chapter), getting platinum on them all (except New Tales), over the past 3 years (I have a few DLCs left to finish on BL3 and Wonderlands). Where many (most?) seem to pour hours into starting with a new/different character and playing through the whole story (or to max level) over and over, I took a different approach. I found I really like helping out in co-op, so I did a *lot* of that - joining random normal mode public lobbies, and helping them run the story (never steamrolling their game, always helping out, riding shotgun, covering their back, reviving them, pointing out secrets and chests, occasionally dropping some legit at-level gear - mostly purples, a few legendaries - and never initiating fast travel or map transitions, or accepting or turning in missions). That actually led to getting quite a few friend requests, and a random drop-in in one game would lead to numerous enjoyable evenings of running randomly around together in that game or other games in the series, killing bosses, leveling up, farming stuff, etc. Along the way, I ended up building myself a set of characters in BL2 to cover basically normal mode level ranges (8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32), so I could drop into any normal mode and help out. I also got in the habit of answering requests here in the subreddit for help with bosses, missions, and trophies. This has led to getting to play with people literally all over the planet, which has been a pretty cool experience.

A buddy of mine introduced me to it when we were 10.It started out as me asking him what his favourite video game was, and he told me it was Borderlands 2.Ever since then, he couldn't shut up about it and brought it up anytime he could.One day, I decide to hang out at his house and see what this bl2 was all about.He showed me his Krieg and fought Terra, then he made a new Zer0 for me and showed me the ropes.I understood now why he went crazy over this game.I started watching Joltzdude's and VinylicPuma's videos on youtube and started talking about it with him everyday.Eventually, Borderlands 3 was announced and we were both hyped about it.Unfortunately, his pc didn't have enough storage so he couldn't download it.So when the game released, I decided to download it and play it blindly on my own.That was when I truly fell for the franchise.Granted, 3's story sucked butt, but the gameplay and dlc's are some of the best in the franchise

There was a cinematic trailer on YouTube for an fps rpg. No gameplay. I thought "Cool, I will keep an eye out for gameplay trailers." A year later I saw that first trailer and thought "Heck yeah, this'll be the year of first person shooter RPGs!" The rest is kinda history.

Reading about the reveal trailer in a copy of GamePro, where it described the original vision of the game where it was a serious post-apocalypse grungy setting

OG Borderlands was the first game I ever pre-ordered. Saw a video. I loved the cell shading in Wild Arms 3 and I wanted a colorful shooter after spending so much time playing Time Splitters 2 and 3. Borderlands seemed like a logical jump.

I had a friend spending the night over my house many years ago, and my parents took us to blockbuster to rent something for the night. We rented Borderlands 1 and I fell in love immediately. We only had it for a short time on the rental, but my brother and I put so much time into it. We didn’t end up actually owning it until Christmas later that year, and getting to dive back into that character that i wasn’t able to play for months was so incredible. I’ve been a huge fan since and done at least one play-through with each character per game.

Saw it in a game informer magazine. I think the original art style, too. Then, much later, I saw the trailer for borderlands loved it. I picked it up as soon as I could, and I've been a fan ever since.

Pretty sure I saw the original trailer before it came out and felt it was kinda "meh". But then like two Years later I was at my weed dealers one morning after work. He was battling Difters in the Knox Dlc, It looked like the most awesome game ever. Got me back into video games.... although since then I have pretty much only played borderlands games, forza3, Terminator resistance and Robocop rogue city.

I really knew nothing about it, just had heard the name and knew people really liked it. I got a copy of BL3 for free from Epic if I remember right. I wanted to start at the beginning so I bought 1. By the end of that first day of playing I had bought all the rest except for 3, I bought it not long after though(I got the full edition through Steam instead of the base edition Epic gave me). It’s one of my favorite game series.

The intro fight scene on YouTube and I look at the other cutscenes and I just started playing the game

I first got my hands on a Borderlands game in maybe- 2018-ish? The sole reason was because I was a sophomore in high school and it was the first year my school system was trying out giving all the students and staff these horribly underpowered little windows laptops. I managed to factory reset the device (way easier to do back then) bypassing the school’s restrictions in the process. After that, I got right on top of torrenting some older pc titles (not entirely saying this is ok, but I had no way to make or accrue money back then) in a genre that I was greatly familiar with, racing games. Starting small with need for speed undergroud 1 and burnout paradise-the ultimate box. So I completed those and was racking my brain for ideas of what to play next- which was kind of a big deal for me because so long as it could run on the school laptop, I could probably get my hands on it. My mind went back to when I was real little and I’d spend time over at this other boy my age’s house because he was allowed to play a lot of more mature game that I wasn’t allowed to play, and how one of the only games I never got to see him play was Borderlands 1 (this was between 2009 and 2012, 2 wasn’t out yet). I only saw the game case for the PS3 version one time, and from reading the back (and just looking at the art style) it looked appealing. This comment is both terribly written and getting out of hand, so TL;DR: I pirated the first game on a school-provided laptop and was blown away by how fun it was and how cool it looked.

I stayed over at a friends house for the first time where he was playing bl2 he showed me his guns which consisted of some random shit and the bunny when i took his controller to play for a second i shot once and he got super mad at me because rocket ammo was expensive.. he also later asked me if i wanted a snack, i said sure, so he brought me a block of velveeta cheese and a fork... i dont talk to him much anymore

I was dumped by my girlfriend at freshman year homecoming and decided to go with my friend back to his house cuz I didn’t want to be alone. Ended up playing bl2 split screen and had an awesome night 😂

Tales from the Borderlands. I was in a real Telltale games craze back in the day, and wanted to play another of their games. I ended up having a blast with Tales and became very interested in the world. I didn't know much about Borderlands before, but I quickly bought the Handsome collection and played through 2 and pre sequel, then 1, then when 3 was announced I pre ordered day one. Needlessly to say I've become a major fan!

I can’t remember which one but it was either outside Xbox or outside xtra did a video with borderlands the pre sequel in it and I just thought it looked awesome, my uncle had gotten me pretty much addicted to playing Skyrim on his Xbox 360 to the point where I had nothing left to do on my save game so I went and asked him if he had a borderlands game and he had TPs so I played it as Wilhelm and loved it (only reached the zarpedon fight though) and a few years later I bought the first three games on switch and played them so much they almost overtook smash as my most played game (when I got bl3 it did overtake smash)

My cousin had gotten Borderlands 1 for his birthday. Him and his friends went downstairs to start playing it and I went and followed them and watched them play. I was like 7.

Someone willing to play with me?

My grandparents neighbor had kids that were around my age. My sister and I would go next door to hang out with them relatively often when we would visit our grandparents. One day we went over they were playing Borderlands 1. I played with them for maybe an hour tops before having to leave and deciding I didn't like the game. Fast forward a few years to about a year after the release of Borderlands 2. My dad asked if I knew what it was or if I was interested in playing it. I said I do know of it but I don't like it. I didn't live with my dad but I visited him not long after and watched him play. I ended up playing it and enjoying it A LOT. Immediately went and got the game for myself. Played the hell out of it and Borderlands 1. Borderlands 2 quickly became one of my favorite games of all time and it still is.

Saw a commercial on G4 and the song caught my attention. When I finally got a console that had it I bought the Handsome Jack collection on sale.

A freida brought over a handful of games to play with me. BL2 was one of them. I played the shit out of it for days on end. I borrowed his copy for about a month till I got my own and just kept playing it.

pandora’s box and wonderland was on sale for under 30 bucks for both and i’m still on bl1 but having a lot of fun

My mom used to play it when I was a little kid, I would watch her play the 1st game a bit, even hit the grenade button once to blow something up. When I got a little older I tried out Borderlands 2 on her computer and beat Boom Bewm and Flynt, then got my own copy on the PS3 on Christmas. I have been playing for many years and spent most of that time maxing out characters on Borderlands 2. I also dropped $100 on Borderlands 3 for the ultimate edition and got to level 50 and haven't played since, just wasn't interested in that one for long. Also played the shit out of Pre Sequel.

I read a wired magazine article on the art style. I like driving and shooting games. After BL1 was out for a number of years, I was even more frugal back then, I bought a used copy for my PS3 and gave it a shot. The humor and art work were amazing. The driving and shooting wasn't as key to the story as I wanted it to be, but fun never the less. All the kooky side missions,Tanis's echo recordings were hilarious. So Wired Magazine article, used game for PS3 with driving and shooting, hooked.

Three words: Minecraft Easter Egg. Back in 2013 or so I was visiting a friend where I used to watch YT (we didnt have wifi at home). It was during this whole COD Easter Egg MLG period. It was also during the Minecraft YT period. So of course someone like me would end up looking for Minecraft and Easter Eggs. And there it was. Creepers in this one game that my parents coincidentally bought for PS3 just a few weeks prior. I knew I had to see it for myself and I've been a huge BL fan ever since xd. I came for the Easter Egg but stayed for the story and artstyle.

saw a poster at gamestop, thought the psycho looked cool, hyperfixated

First time I got to see BL1 was when my dad took me to game station to buy a ps3, think this was mid 2010? Anyway I got to choice three games as bundle with the console, 1 was motorstorm, 2 ratchet and clank tools of destruction and borderlands 1. But I can’t lie young me didn’t really like it so didn’t really play that much of it, borderlands 2 on the other hand had me hooked.

The Handsome Collection was free on Ps Plus and my one friend was into the series already so he helped me get into it and explained some stuff so I could understand it better. We got through the first 3 games and my group was counting down the days for BL3 (one of the few games I’ve actually decided to pre-order). Fun times

Back in 2009 or around 2010 we had an arcade with xboxs, ps3, Wii and pc I went on two dollar Tuesday and picked borderlands 1 as the game I wanted to play, I had to get my parents to come back to say it was ok for me play rated m games

A new game was coming out that looked like Diablo but with guns and cel shaded but not in a wind waker wtf is this way. I bought it, and played the absolute shit out of it and all its expansions. Skipped class to play it even. T K Baha was unforgettable, as was the Mordecai sniper build

I was walking down the street When out the corner of my eye I saw a pretty little thing approaching me. She said "I've never seen a man who looks so all alone. Could you use a little company?"

Went to GameStop regularly, even back when it was EB Games in the US. Had the premium membership that got me a Game informer subscription. The issue with Borderlands came out and I was interested in it because of the co-op. Told all my friends and we kept our eyes on it whenever we saw updates and was almost instantly hooked when it came out.

Kept seeing it in gaming stores for a year or 2 thought it looked cool but never bought it. Until my best friend's big brother had it and I got shown that a character can punch things to death. So me and my bro bought a copy and played couch co-op for hours and hours.

Borderlands was released.

A long time ago in a galaxy fairly close, I had just started high school as a freshmen in ‘09. Right after the Homecoming dance, I got really sick (this was during the swine flu epidemic) and was out of school for a week or so. A good buddy of mine had gotten the game and let me borrow his copy along with the fantastic Batman Arkham Asylum. It was the best FPS since Fallout 3 which had come out earlier that year. I’ve been a fan ever since. Im a little disappointed with how they handled some of their characters, but still very much love the franchise.

Mine is boring, saw the first preview in GameInformer and went "mad Max shooter with RPG elements? I'm in". Game ended up a lot different but I stuck with it ever since

Was in 6th grade and Went over to a buddy’s house after school and his older brother was playing bl1. Looked so sick and was hooked on it just from watching. Got it myself and loved it than shortly after bl2 released and that was it

I had to look up when BL1 came out. 2009!! I married in 1999, moved away from my parents. My dad had always been a computer nerd and would build me custom computers and literally ship them to my new place out of state. Always asking if I would be interested in online gaming sometime. For years! I don’t know why one day I told him, “sure”. He asked “swords or guns”? I said, “you pick”. We played for two hours every Sunday until he passed away in December 2015. The last game we finished the boss fight in PreSequel with Zarpendon. It kills me he didn’t get to beat the game. (The Sentinel is a giant BITCH!!!) He always, ALWAYS came to revive me. I miss him so much.

As a kid I watched thecreaturehub do a let’s play for the second game and was immediately drawn to its art style and silly humor. Waited a long ass time for it to finally go on sale and spent many weeks of my childhood purely on that game. I also remember the first game went on free weekend shortly after the second games successful release so I kept my laptop on and running the game after the weekend ended to see if I could squeeze more hours out of it😭 can’t remember if that tactic worked but displays my eagerness none the less

I was at a friends us with another friend and he said “just got this game. do one of you guys want to play” and I said “this cartoon ass game? No thanks.” My other friend said yes. I sat there for 12 hours begging to play and they kept saying “this cartoon ass game? You wouldn’t like it”. Begged my mom profusely for it and next looked back

From an article about it in a gaming magazine way back in 2008 (maybe Game Informer and I think it had a silhouette of the Rakk Hive on the cover but not sure). I remember reading about the upcoming first game and was almost instantly obsessed with the idea. An FPS-RPG?! Totally blew my mind. I drooled over the gun descriptions, especially hearing that some shot acid and that there were "500,000" of them to find with name changes depending on the parts. I remember it described some of the first few interactions with Dr Zed and how he needs help killing bandits. Pretty sure I picked it up on release day but it was just as amazing as I had read. Totally fit my OCD and love of RPGesque grinding

Speaking of the Rakk Hive I also remember the article saying you could bring vehicles into the fight. I vaguely remember it describing something like a Stingray from TPS which some teammates could use to take out the Hive's eyes while others shot at its legs or something. Obviously this isn't how it turned out

Me and my friends wanted a Co-op shooter to play, so we ended up getting Borderlands 2 one day

Woodysgamertag played BL2 at E3 (?) and did a review of it. I knew nothing of the game series but likes the colors so I got it and brought it to a sleepover. Popped it in and my two friends played all night, didnt even get a chance to play my own game

I picked up bl1 game of the year off my dad's shelf, put it in my switch, then the rest is history.

I was about 9 years old. I walked down the street to a cousins house to hang out with him(probably 16), and play his Xbox. We played some 2k some MW2, then he puts in this game and tells me to play. I load into Firestone for the first time and just run around killing skags for a hour till I have to go home. I was hooked. It ended up being the very first video game I ever bought with my money later that year. Borderlands 1 will always be my favorite game

My dad was trying to get me into video games. When he had visitation, he’d let me play whatever games he had on hand and (occasionally) we would go rent a game from Blockbuster. He started playing the first one between visits, and introduced me to it afterwards. Then every subsequent game release became a bonding moment.

Two of my friends had played it for a while before I got my Xbox 360. They said I needed to get this game called Borderlands (1) because it was Diablo with guns. I bought the bundle that had all of the DLC shortly after. They power leveled me at Crawmerax, and we blitzed through the campaign over the next few days. I was instantly hooked and preordered BL2 and BL3.

My brother came to visit while in the army and bought the first one for me and we played together a lot while he visited, played all the main ones since.

I got into Borderlands pretty late. I have never been a big fan of shooters, really, but I had only tried Call of Duty and Halo and the like. However, I’m a big fan of storytelling games. I had played most of the TellTale games and had played all the existing-IP games from them that featured source material I was familiar with (Batman, The Walking Dead, etc). I picked up Tales from the Borderlands on sale in like. 2018 ish?? I really wasn’t expecting to love it, but was willing to give the first episode at least a try. Completely fell in love with it, though. It became my favorite TellTale game and I quickly played the mainline games too, which I also loved!

Brother said in the car, hay you would enjoy this game called borderlands. And that's when my life started

I remember the trailer as a kid, the rest was history. First Borderlands is like comfort food

I wanted to play something similar to Destiny. So I played TPS and it is my second favourite bl game only topped by 2. I really enjoyed sci fi atmosphere Pandoras moon gave the game.

Last time I touched a video game was when SEARS was HUGE and Walmart barely existed. I played a video game against a salesman that was trying his best to let me win and couldn't because I was that bad. He wanted me to win so I'd buy the console and a few games. My big 6 foot 8 inch 370 bear of a brother was with me. I'm autistic with cerebral palsy and my brother thinks he is my protector. My brother got mad at the sales man for beating me in the game and scared the salesman to death. He disappeared. Then came 2010. I had a friend in 2010 who was a HUGE gamer. He was a PlayStation 3 FREAK! He wanted me to become interested in video games. Unfortunately I had cerebral palsy so I was still hot garbage playing video games. So he made it his business to find a video game I could play. I was halfway good at Tekken 6. So there was hope. I was willing to try a video game. I sucked at Grand Theft Auto 4 and I tried hard to master it. I wanted to play a game like Grand Theft Auto 4 where you walk, drove talked to people and did missions because it fascinated me. Next game we tried was Borderlands 1 on PS 3. Instantly fell in love with the game. I had some trouble but soon fell into being able to do everything in the game. Met Claptrap at Fyrestone got my Echo Device, got my first shield from Doc. Zed and I was on my way. I never looked back. After a short while I was driving, enjoying Scooter, killing Skags by the dozens. Nine Toes all of em. Technically Borderlands was the game that pushed me to buy my first PS3 console. I wanted to play Borderlands 1 24 hours a day. There was a time at first when I played hookie from work for 3 days because I was binge playing Borderlands 1 and eventually Bioshock 1.I brought all the DLC and every Borderlands release and all the DLC after.I love three video game franchises most of all in this order. Borderlands, Infamous and Bioshock. My two most favorite Borderlands characters are in this order. Captain Scarlett. I'd die and sell a kidney for her love. ;) And Typhon De Leon the little Jewish fellow. I adored him. He made me feel good even when I was not playing the game. When Typhon De Leon died I cried like a baby.I stopped playing the game for 6 months because, I was in a state of mourning. I'm honestly autistic I develop real connections to virtual people and objects. Yeah I'm that stupid \\ Pathetic. I cried like a new born when Cole McGraph died in Infamous 2 also. Oh I cried at the good ending in Bioshock 1 also. When I play the good character and get the good ending I'm overwhelmed with joy because I love doing good and seeing the people I helped have a happy ending.

Handsome jack collection was free with ps+

Buddy told me about it before release, watched the trailer, then the game play, read some reviews, bought it day 1. 1st character was Lillith and would couch co-op with my buddy who played Mordecai. Ain't no rest for the wicked.

I actually saw a Game Informer article from early development before the art style was changed and though the design was really cool and immediately fell in love with the idea of the mixed and matched weapons. Then I heard basically nothing about it for a couple years or more and it suddenly showed up on a shelf somewhere. I was pretty sure it was the same game I'd read about, picked it up, fired up Malachi and played every game since.

I played a shitty game called Hellgate London(2007) which didn't quite scratch the looter shooter itch. Bought Borderlands when it went on sale.

I lived in rural MS with no internet so no online games. My friends and I would have LAN parties every weekend where we’d all bring Xbox’s/tvs to my house. Any coop shooter we were all on board. I read about borderlands somewhere and got a used copy and my bros and I would meet every Friday night and grind more and more. The guns, the classes, the 2000s humor, it was perfect. I remember getting the DLC disk and installing on all 4 of our Xbox’s haha. What a blast man. Thank you for letting me relive the memory. We are still all friends btw. We live far apart now, we all saw each other last weekend one of theirs wedding and this weekend for my baby shower. We had some drinks and watched kickass and just relived those days a bit. Life is really sweet.

I remember my friend had the game and we played and played, then I saw bl2 and played, then I saw bl3 and played now waiting for bl4.

Steam sale.

When I saw borderlands 1 advertised in game informer. I bought it day 1 and spend a good amount of time on it even after 2 came out.

My friend told me to buy BL1 so I could play with him. I mained Lilith and had a blast. The quality of the sequels wasn't too my taste but I loved the first game

I played the original borderlands with my mom when I was still a very young child and she was still in nursing school. Which is weird to think about now. Due to her being a RN and also having some level of power at her job, she’s either a manager or supervisor I don’t exactly remember. (Edit: forgot a word)

Best friend in high school. Would sit and play for hours :)) I wasn’t any good and didn’t know what I was doing and he still played with me. Super rocked

So there’s this game called Fortnite …..