Handsome Jack Is In Borderlands 3, Ish

For those that played Telltale’s Tales from the Borderlands, Handsome Jack pulled an interesting move regarding the game’s main protagonist Rhys which ultimately led to an ending that left his inclusion in future Borderlands games unclear. Now we have a little more clarity as for what the future holds for Jack – though beware, spoilers ahead.

Seriously, there are spoilers for Borderlands 2 and Tales ahead. If you haven’t played either and don’t want to know an important plot point, turn back now.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way in Tales from the Borderlands, Handsome Jack is seen as a hologram following his death in Borderlands 2. Seems pretty cut and dry that the infamous villain and mainstay character would be kaput, but it turns out he was just too dang important to leave in the dust for good. 

Narrative producer Randy Varnell recently told GameSpot, “Handsome Jack is dead. He’s such a big character in our universe though. There’s always going to be some stuff–there may be a side mission or something and then we mention him a few times. It’s so hard to get away from that impact. But you’re not ever going to see Handsome Jack come back as a character.

“But it was a hard decision. Because he’s such a great villain. But when we were looking at coming up with new villains for Borderlands 3… we’ve got a lot of Jack–if you like Handsome Jack, you’re in luck because there’s a lot of existing content where you can play and enjoy him. He’s too important to the universe to never mention him again. But we wanted to be sure that the Calypso twins, the new villains, can stand on their own.”

Makes sense, he helped shaped Pandora as we know it after all and Rhys – who is also confirmed for the third game – was very intricately intertwined with the character.

Though we’re sad not to see one familiar face, the upcoming game still looks to be absolutely incredible. We recently had a chance to play it ourselves during the gameplay reveal event and couldn’t stop raving about how much fun it was! You can learn more about our hands-on time with the title right here ahead of the game’s September 13th launch.