One of my favourite video game franchises is releasing a new installment and I don’t think I’ve been more excited in my life.

Borderlands 3, the newest entry in the Borderlands series, is coming out on Sept. 13. Fans, including myself, have been waiting for this game for years and early looks have only made us hungrier.

For those that are unaware, Borderlands 3, and the series in general, is a looter-shooter. It is a first-person shooter with standard role-playing game elements and loot. So much loot. One of the main marketing schemes that Gearbox, the developers, came up with, was that Borderlands 3 has over 1 billion guns.

In addition to the huge assortment of gun combinations, the main playable characters are some of the most varied and interesting characters that have been featured in the franchise.

Fl4k, one of the main characters, is a robot that identifies as non-binary. Every mention of the character in the game and without has used they/them pronouns. It is a major step forward for inclusion in video games and gives non-binary players a character they can identify with. In fact, Gearbox CEO, Randy Pitchford posted a poll on Twitter that showed that 40 per cent of players are picking Fl4k as their first character. Pitchford even said, “When Borderlands 3 launches, I thought I would start with Zane the Operative. Now, I’m second guessing myself.”

The addition of more primary abilities for the characters is also a point of excitement.

Amara, another playable character, ticks several more inclusivity boxes. She is very clearly a person of colour and her class, Siren, has been filled twice before with white women. Moze, the Gunner character, is also a wonderful addition. She is strong and clearly independent, having some kind of military-esque background and a glorious giant mech. The final character, Zane Flynt, is a bit of an interesting pick for a protagonist, but he does have a lovely Irish brogue.

Despite the decent amount of controversy surrounding the game’s launch, including allegations of Pitchford assaulting a former employee and the game’s publisher Take-Two Interactive hiring private investigators to follow a live streamer, many people are still incredibly hyped for release day.

The thing that makes me even more excited is that release day is also my birthday. The marketing and media hype over the last six months have increased into a veritable furor in the last few weeks and I can only hope, for the future of the franchise, that the game doesn’t disappoint. Every piece of content that I have devoured on the game has me believing that this will be one game to live up to the hype.

Borderlands as a series has been incredibly important to me over the years. I can only hope that Borderlands 3 will bring even more people into the franchise’s fold.