Earlier this year, a nasty situation between Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford and Claptrap voice actor David Eddings continued to escalate with allegations of physical assault, abuse, and lack of pay. Though the situation seemed to eventually die down after a public back and forth, some who are enjoying the latest Borderlands 2 DLC meant to bridge the gap for Borderlands 3 seem to think that Gearbox took one last potshot at the whole ordeal.
David Eddings was not just a Gearbox employee, but also the original voice of Claptrap. Now there’s a new annoying robot in town voiced by Jim Forondo. While Pitchford called Eddings “bitter and disgruntled,” Claptrap can be heard during the Claptocurrency questline begging Lilith for his old job back. The nature of the scene seems a bit more pointed than it should be, leading many players on Twitter and Reddit to believe that this was more than a simple comedic sequence and instead one last commentary on the Borderlands 3 drama.
Players weren’t the only ones to think this, David Eddings himself took to Twitter to call the scene a “sad attempt” by the Gearbox boss to paint him in a negative light:
Yet another sad attempt by Randy to paint me in a false light. For proof, here’s my 1st response when asked to reprise the role. For clarity, “royalties owed” were earned prior to 3/7/17. pic.twitter.com/u4BYJWjlmz
— David Eddings (@davideddings) June 23, 2019
Given that Eddings has mentioned that the previously public investigations into Gearbox were “always a lie,” we hope that Borderlands 3 can remain untouched by Pitchford’s real-life dilemmas. A lot of hard working devs worked on this title, something Eddings himself has often stressed, and it would be a shame for that hard work to be flushed down the toilet over something that should absolutely be dealt internally.
As for the DLC, the Borderlands 2 DLC is available now on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.
Source: The Sixth Axis
