Gearbox Software president Randy Pitchford is uneasy about the very idea of Borderlands 3, he told Game Informer in a new interview. That’s because a third entry in the numbered series–which is absolutely not announced or even in development–would need to be “so crazy and so big” that the developer might not be able to launch a game worthy of its ambition.

“There’s a point where it’s like, ‘What should the next Borderlands be? Should there be another Borderlands, and what should it be?’,” Pitchford said in August’s issue of Game Informer (via Videogamer). “We had that discussion and there was this weird mixed bag. On one level it’s like, ‘Woah’. If you’re going to do something that’s called Borderlands 3 and it’s going to be done in this next-generation environment, there’s a whole bunch of ideas that come around of what has to happen in order for that to live up to what that needs to be.”

This fall’s Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel–developed principally by 2K Australia–really upped the ante for what a potential third Borderlands game from Gearbox needs to be, he said. Pitchford explained that 2K Australia’s involvement with the game, “changed the nature of the pressure of what Borderlands 3 had to be for us.”

“If there’s going to be a Borderlands 3 and what that would be. We imagine what that might be, and frankly it scared us,” he added. “It’s like, ‘That’s so crazy and so big that I’m not sure we can succeed’.”

Despite Pitchford’s Hideo Kojima-like pessimism, it’s still possible that a new Borderlands game from Gearbox could be released for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 generation of consoles. Game Informer writes that while Gearbox has not ruled out such a game, the studio’s current main focus is on multiplayer arena shooter Battleborn for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

Also in this month’s issue of Game Informer, it was revealed that characters from the Borderlands series might end up appearing in Battleborn.

“I won’t say that we haven’t talked about [including vault hunters],” creative director Randy Varnell said. “But it’s really important that Battleborn is its own universe first and that it has its own tone and its own style and that it can grow its legs. But it is a universe. It’s a vast universe with who knows what. It’s set way, way in the future and so I can’t say that [vault hunter characters] would never happen…”

Eddie Makuch is a news editor at GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @EddieMakuch
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