Archivists Seek Help in the Ongoing Quest to Revive Borderlands Online MMO

I’m on it.

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Alright, so here’s the deal with this whole Borderlands Online saga. It’s like this never-ending mission to resurrect a game that’s been tucked away in the archives somewhere. A small, but mighty, group of folks is trying to get it up and running. They’ve basically put out a “help wanted” sign for anyone who can crack codes or has a knack for poking through stuff like DNSpy and Unity Ripper. The big hurdle? Getting past the character selection screen. Go figure.

So there’s this YouTuber, game designer, and data miner, EpicNNG. I talked about him before—he managed to reach the class selection screen, but now seems like he’s hit a bit of a snag. Not because they don’t have the skills, but, you know, time is a sneaky little bugger. They have the game on tap—seriously, right there—but need more code-slingers to make it run. He’s saying stuff like, “Look, we know we have the full game. It’s just about when, not if, we’ll get it working.”

Anyway, these guys put out a video. Long one, too. They’re scouring through old Chinese websites for Borderlands Online, hoping to piece together something playable. I mean, they found ghost links and some viruses lurking about—yikes. So maybe don’t try this at home unless you know what you’re doing. Seriously.

The whole effort is strictly for archiving purposes. They’re trying to dodge any cease and desist papers from 2K, so their fingers are crossed, hoping the legal hounds stay away. Had a chat with EpicNNG through DMs—he’s aware of the risks, but he’s cool with getting the word out, even if it spells trouble.

EpicNNG’s got this clock-ticking vibe going on, drawing parallels to that time Activision shut down the H2M Call of Duty mod—didn’t want it stealing thunder from their next big release. The fear is real that 2K might pull the same stunt with Borderlands 4 looming in the wings, unless they get that extra help to beat the clock.

Honestly, bringing this project to fruition would be huge, like a major score for video game archival nerds everywhere. And since it was a Chinese-exclusive MMORPG that’s been off the grid for ages, it’s like the elusive white whale of gaming archives. Here’s hoping the right folks catch wind of it and pitch in before it all goes south. But hey, if you’re not super savvy with Unity or whatever, maybe just send some good vibes their way instead.