When it comes to pushing creative boundaries, Borderlands 4 has never shied away from making a statement. To celebrate its highly anticipated return, 2K and Take-Two Interactive turned to Singapore’s own design collective, Tell Your Children (TYC), to bridge the gap between the digital and physical worlds.
Bold, irreverent, and visually explosive, the game is known as much for its storytelling as it is for its signature art direction. Held as a one-day-only pop-up at The Centrepoint, the event served as the opening for Borderlands 4’s Southeast Asia tour.
While fans queued for interactive photo booths, merchandise giveaways, and limited-edition collectables, it was the captivating mural by TYC that stood as the visual centrepiece, an artful homage to the game’s rebellious DNA.
Translating Digital Rebellion into Physical Form
Tell Your Children’s approach to the project was rooted in a deep understanding of the franchise’s unique visual language. Known for their bold, graphic, and comic-book-esque style, the team immediately recognised the synergy between their own artistic ethos and the grungy, cel-shaded aesthetic of Borderlands.
“Our style is very illustrative and very graphic,” shared the TYC team. “We leaned into the personalities of the characters and their design language. It was about translating the feeling of it.”
What emerged was a striking six-panel mural inspired by classic Marvel-style collages. The characters, cartoonified with a gritty texture and rebellious edge, were rendered in a punk-infused palette that echoed Borderlands‘ post-apocalyptic chaos.
The cuts were storytelling fragments, each one forming part of a larger mosaic that fans could piece together, just like lore fragments in the game.
Rapid-Fire Creativity Under Pressure
Despite the complexity of the project, the TYC team worked with remarkable efficiency. From brief to execution, the entire process spanned just three weeks, with actual design work completed in two. “We had to send everything off for production quite early, so the design phase had to be sharp and focused,” they said.
The approval process, often a major hurdle in creative collaborations with global IP holders, was refreshingly smooth. “The artwork got the green light faster than expected, and that was definitely encouraging,” they added.
Much of that ease can be attributed to the natural alignment between TYC’s artistic vision and the existing Borderlands universe. “Even the early concept art from the original games had that raw, sketched-out look. We just brought it to life with our own spin,” they explained.
Global Storytelling with Local Hands
Interestingly, despite being a Singapore-based activation, TYC chose not to localise the content overtly. “It was important to keep the visuals authentic to the Borderlands universe,” they noted. “Incorporating too many local elements might’ve made it feel out of place. This was Borderlands 4, brought to life through Singaporean hands.”
That creative restraint paid off. The result was a visually compelling, culturally neutral showcase that resonated with fans of the franchise across the region, while still spotlighting the world-class design talent emerging from Southeast Asia.
Rebellion, Reinvented
For TYC, the project was a chance to show how local art can elevate global entertainment, how illustrative storytelling can breathe new life into familiar characters, and how design can serve as a narrative bridge between player and game.
“We didn’t focus on whether the characters were male or female,” they added. “It was all about their personality and energy. That’s what we wanted to capture. The essence of rebellion that lives at the heart of Borderlands.”
And in doing so, Tell Your Children proved that sometimes, the most immersive gaming experiences happen on the street.
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