Borderlands franchise director leaves Gearbox

Matthew Armstrong, the franchise director for Borderlands at developer Gearbox Software, is no longer with the company, according to his recent tweet.

Things changed. No longer working at @GearboxSoftware. I will always love Gearbox, but it's adventure time.

— Matthew Armstrong (@MisterArmstrong) April 17, 2015

Armstrong joined Gearbox in 1999 and helped create the Borderlands franchise, whose first game was released in 2009. As a lead designer, he helped design the series' arsenal of wild weapons.

The franchise expanded with a sequel, Borderlands 2, in 2012 and a third entry, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, last year. Borderlands Legends arrived on iOS in 2012. Tales from the Borderlands, an episodic series of adventure game spinoffs from The Walking Dead developer Telltale Games, is still being released.

Just prior to announcing his departure, Armstrong tweeted good luck to 2K Australia employees. The Canberra, Australia-based Pre-Sequel developer is shutting down, parent company 2K Games confirmed to Polygon last week. A 2K statement explained the closure as a measure "to better manage ongoing development costs while improving the working proximity of our creative teams."

Armstrong is at least the second Borderlands developer to leave Gearbox this year. Anthony Burch, the lead writer on Borderlands 2 and contributor to developer 2K Australia's Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, left the left the studio to write a Hulu TV show.