Stroll by Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 display at PAX West and you’ll see fans quietly playing the Divinity: Original Sin board game. Linger a little too long though, and you’ll hear what sounds like a car crashing through a McDonald’s drive-thru in the far corner of the show floor. And then another, and another. Follow the piercing sounds for long enough and you’ll arrive at the Borderlands 4 Ripper Rage Room, by far the most ridiculous marketing stunt at this year’s expo.
Fans of Gearbox Entertainment’s anarchic loot shooter, some adorned with its enemies’ iconic Psycho masks, are wrapped around a small, encased exhibit waiting for their chance to smash aluminum trash cans, glass bottles, and Dollar Store ceramics. Staff dress them in jumpsuits and riot helmets with plastic visors. Then, one at a time, they make their way into a plexiglass-ensconced chamber where they emotionally unburden themselves with a post-apocalyptic baseball bat.
It’s surprisingly loud and jarring, even when you know it’s coming. Imagine the heart-stopping moment in the restaurant when a waiter accidentally drops a giant tray of dishes. The immediate gasps as everyone experiences a simultaneous shot of fight-or-flight adrenaline followed by the hushed murmurings of people gawking at reality’s brief departure from the mundane.
The Ripper Rage Room debuted during the Borderlands 4 Warped Tour fan event earlier this summer in L.A. and is reprising its role for PAX West. The big difference, however, is that the annual Seattle-based expo features lots of booths ranging from PC gaming giveaways to first-time indie developers desperately trying to get someone to pay attention to their passion project.
More than one exhibitor has privately confided to me that “it must suck” for all the nearby booths who are trying to get attendees meandering on by to hang a second and listen to their pitch. In the case of Limited Run Games, the boutique physical game retailer closest to the Rage Room, that might mean hanging around long enough to pull the trigger on a copy of Clock Tower: Rewind for the Nintendo Switch. Then all of the sudden: *SNAP* *CRACKLE* *SMASH*.
But Gearbox is the king of PAX and it knows what the people want. Its massive booth for Borderlands 4, filled with dozens of demo stations and massive statutes of each of its Vault Hunter heroes, is both the most packed and the fastest at getting people through the queue. Fans at the Nintendo and Capcom booths complain about wait times and arcane requirements, like a lottery system for who actually gets to try Hollow Knight: Silksong on Switch 2.
And then there’s the Ripper Rage Room which, despite the absolute vibe-killing antics, always has people watching as each new fan briefly descends into a performative rampage, quietly realizing as they enter the translucent box that they are as much a part of the display as the brutalized silicon dummy standing in the corner. People love smashing shit. They love watching other people smash shit. Like the beautifully cel-shaded Skinner box at the heart of Borderlands franchise, it sometimes is just as simple as that.
Less straightforward is the task of needing to reassemble the Ripper Rage Room after each demolition. At least three staff race to stack the trash cans, folding chairs, bottles, and plates in precarious positions for optimal smashing. Trying to replicate chaos is an oxymoron but that is the mandate. Everyone knows what’s going to happen but they wait to watch it unfold again anyway. And what could be more Borderlands than that?