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Gearbox lets fan with terminal cancer play Borderlands 3 early and create a custom in-game weapon in honor of him

vestan

vestan

#REFANTAZIO SWEEP
Member
Dec 28, 2017
24,748
For those that aren't in the know, Trevor Eastman is a huge Borderlands fan that has been diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal, stomach and liver cancer who has only been given a year to live. He made a post over on the Borderlands Reddit asking if people help him get in touch with Gearbox. The post garnered 9.5k upvotes and Gearbox were quick to get in contact with him. Quoting the original here.

Hi everyone. I don't even know if this is a possibility...if anyone can make this happen for me...but my name is Trevor Eastman and I'm 26 years old. Last June I was diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal, stomach and liver cancer. I was given a year to live...I've been a huge fan of Borderlands for a long time now...and I don't know if I'll live to see Borderlands 3. If there's any possible way that someone could find a way for me to be able to play it early...I would be forever grateful. I tried to see if I could see Avengers: Endgame early because I'm not sure how long I really have...but i wasn't so lucky. If anybody could help me that would mean the world to me. Thank you for listening. Proof: http://imgur.com/a/VKPW2wJfurther proof because some people really think I'm making this up: http://imgur.com/gallery/Qw4Kbhz
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and the follow-up...

Hey everyone, I just wanted to give you all that were kind enough to upvote and tweet about my situation an update. One of the people from 2k has been talking to me(not sure if I'm allowed to say who so I won't mention a name) and he's making it happen. They're flying somebody out at the beginning of June most likely to give me a copy of the game. I just wanted to thank you all so much for helping make this dream come true. It means the world to me that you all cared enough to do that for me.
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Just two days ago, Trevor went up to Gearbox to play a good four hours of Borderlands 3.

To everybody that made this dream of mine come true...I just wanted to say thank you all so much. To Brandon, to Noelle, to James...to everybody that made this actually happen for me...I couldn't be happier. You all went out of your way to make this dying man's dream come true and I won't ever forget that. I got to play for a good 4 hours or so and just saying...Borderlands 3 is amazing. It will definitely be worth the wait and I'm so happy. To every single one of you that helped....from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
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That's not all, though. A developer over at Gearbox made a custom legendary Maliwan shotgun in honor of him and allowed him to name it and add some flavor text to it for when it appears in the final game.

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Mad respect to Gearbox with this one. Randy Pitchford aside, the people at Gearbox are good folk. They absolutely place the community first and foremost with everything they do and actually listen. Imo, I think giving Trevor his own gun in-game is a really nice way to immortalize him. Fuck cancer.
 
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giancarlo123x

giancarlo123x

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
25,476
I swear to fuck if anyone runs this wholesome thread. That's so nice and sad at the same time. :(
 
ApexNorth

ApexNorth

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,178
That's really, really cool of Gearbox. I seem to remember them doing something along same lines in Borderlands 2, but don't quote me on that.
 
Starlatine

Starlatine

533.489 paid youtubers cant be wrong
Member
Oct 28, 2017
30,537
love stories like this. good for him and on the gearbox folks who did it

on a sidenote i'm liking that a pretty good lvl28 weapon is 60x3. makes me feel really hopeful the ridiculous scaling of BL2 is a thing of the past

ApexNorth said:
That's really, really cool of Gearbox. I seem to remember them doing something along same lines in Borderlands 2, but don't quote me on that.
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the michael mamorill dude that gave you items in sanctuary was a similar story
 
Shan

Shan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,976
I remember when Claptrap did an eulogy for a fan who unfortunately passed away. I believe said fan ended up as an NPC in borderlands 2 as well.
Good of GBX to do this and fuck cancer...my SO's going through a similar phase where someone of her family tragically passed away recently due to terminal cancer...
Happy you had your wish of playing BL3 early, Trevor.
 
squall23

squall23

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,817
I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly but Gearbox seems to always do these nice things. At least, I think I remember something for Borderlands 2 and Pre-Sequel.
 
OP
OP
vestan

vestan

#REFANTAZIO SWEEP
Member
Dec 28, 2017
24,748
Starlatine said:
love stories like this. good for him and on the gearbox folks who did it

on a sidenote i'm liking that a pretty good lvl28 weapon is 60x3. makes me feel really hopeful the ridiculous scaling of BL2 is a thing of the past



the michael mamorill dude that gave you items in sanctuary was a similar story
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Yup, although in this case Trevor gets a gun instead of being an NPC.
 
Megatron

Megatron

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,445
Borderlands isn't the game I would pick, but super happy for Trevor and an awesome act of kindness from the Borderlands team!
 
TheMan

TheMan

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,264
This is what it's all about. Good on Gearbox for helping this guy in his last days. Fuck Marvel I guess.
 
Damn Silly

Damn Silly

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,224
Yeah, the devs at Gearbox have always seemed like pretty swell folks, particularly when it comes to stuff like this.

Fuck cancer.
 
Velg

Velg

Member
Jan 6, 2018
498
Mad respect to the guys at Gearbox. Hope Trev loved the game. So happy he got what he want. Despite the shit that Randy has done, it's important to remember that most of these devs are great people.
 
Silvergun-Blue

Silvergun-Blue

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,969
The Borderlands games have always had a very positive attitude towards their players. BL2 was an excellent sequel and not just a churned out cash grab, the vanilla game had a huge amount of content, the DLC was fantastic and very reasonably priced, it had split screen when almost every other game has ditched it, added accessibility options like button mapping and colourblind assists and overall consistent support for a good amount of time.
Then there's the excellent representation in terms of gender, orientation and ethnicity and BL2 even had managed to slip in a message of body positivity and individuality with the Ellie character.
 

Deleted member 31817

Nov 7, 2017
30,876
Glad he got to find some comfort, and a Maliwan shotgun no less. My man.
 
Baircade

Baircade

Member
Aug 21, 2018
221
Europe
So happy for him even though it is a horrible situation :( cant imagine going through that knowing you only have that much time left. Thinking about it is already too painful.
 
pikachief

pikachief

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,569
I will now make it my personal mission to find the Compressing Trevonator to put in my display case ingame in sanctuary 3 :)
 
RedshirtRig

RedshirtRig

Member
Nov 14, 2017
958
I know Gearbox gets hate because of a certain someone, but the team is talented and they do nice things like this. BL2 has that one random NPC who give blue rarity weapons and that was also a fan who sadly passed.
 
Elven_Star

Elven_Star

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,998
This is really cool. Glad (and sad) for that fan.
At the same time, these things always seem like part of a marketing campaign.
 
BakedTanooki

BakedTanooki

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,751
Germany
They also should integrate a cancer boss fight. And you can one shot him with that gun.
Really sad and cool story/event.
Just shows how much meaning games can have to people, because of the happy and awesome times you can experience with them.
 
DeaDPooL_jlp

DeaDPooL_jlp

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
2,518
Feel for the guy but I am happy Gearbox were able to give him a slice of happiness in a situation that is void of much of it. If I get this gun in game i'll always keep it at least in my vault and never sell it, and blast a couple of pyschos for good measure in his honor.
 
Strings

Strings

Member
Oct 27, 2017
31,590
Gearbox needs all the good PR it can get and this is a sweet thing to do. Win / Win.
 
ColdSun

ColdSun

Together, we are strangers
Administrator
Oct 25, 2017
3,307
Always glad to hear these stories coming out from Gearbox's actions.
 
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