Borderlands fan will get to see Borderlands 4 early after Gearbox agrees to fly him to the studio following cancer diagnosis: "I never expected anything like this"
Oct. 28, 2024“It was awesome to see the CEO of Gearbox emailing me and telling me that he would do whatever he could to help me out”
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After asking the Borderlands 3 community if anyone might know a way for him to see Borderlands 4 early, Caleb McAlpine, a 37-year-old army veteran and Borderlands fan with stage 4 cancer,saw an outpouring of support including a huge boost to his treatment GoFundMe.Gearboxwas informed of his situation, and after outreach from CEO Randy Pitchford, McAlpine says there are now plans for him to visit the developer’s Texas headquarters next month and see Borderlands 4 as it looks right now.
Speaking with GamesRadar+ over email, McAlpine explains that, when hefirst shared his storywith the Borderlands Reddit community, he wasn’t aware of the other times that Gearbox worked with fans in similar health situations. “I looked them up and saw the stories and it touched my heart even more knowing that Gearbox is such a great company to do this when they didn’t have to at all,” he says. He hadn’t used Reddit very much either, so the community’s response, as well as Gearbox and Pitchford’s offer, “floored” him.
“I honestly did not expect it to blow up like that,” McAlpine says. “I had thousands of notifications and streamers that I have watched their videos commenting on it. When I received an email from Randy I couldn’t believe it. It was awesome to see the CEO of Gearbox emailing me and telling me that he would do whatever he could to help me out. I was just floored to be honest. In a good way. I never expected anything like this. It almost felt like a dream to be honest.”
Games have “always been a passion” for McAlpine, who got into Borderlands with the first game, which launched during his time in the army. “We would actually have Borderlands parties at the house or in the barracks where we would put three or four TVs together and play that way,” he recalls. “It was a fun time with good people and obviously a good game.” He also shared a picture of his crew’s old setup:
“I have been playing the games ever since,” he continues. “All of the games are good in their own way, from characters to weapons. They are just downright fun games to play.”
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“Cancer is no joke, the pain I have associated with my colorectal cancer that spread to my entire liver is bad enough,” he adds. “But when you add chemo into the mix it’s just unbearable. There are good days, don’t get me wrong, but I have had so many bad days because of the side effects from the chemo that I legitimately have just been in bed crying from the pain. The morphine and the gabapentin that my palliative care team put me on doesn’t touch it. So for anyone that is going through cancer treatments, my heart goes out to you and to your family members that have to watch you struggle with this horrible disease.”
Games have been a valuable hobby for McAlpine throughout this process. “I have my Xbox Series X that I play at home, but for chemo days I was gifted a Switch by friends and of course the very first games I bought were the entire Borderlands series,” he says.
“Once I was able to download the games (because I live in the middle of nowhere it took two days for them to download) I immediately loaded up BL3 and got right back into the vault hunting on the Switch. I take my Switch with me to the infusion clinic and I have Borderlands geared up and ready to go. Of course BL3 is best but you still have to farm. I loaded up BL2 and started that game again this last round of chemo just so I could get going and just be a Vault Hunter in that game too.”
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