TheBorderlandsuniverse is filled with unsolved mysteries, with some introduced in the first game and others being introduced/made more complicated inBorderlands 3.As it stands, it doesn’t seemTiny Tina’s Wonderlandswill push the franchise plot much further (it’s set in the past after all), but that doesn’t mean it won’t impact the variousBorderlandsmysteries.
At The Game Awards,Tiny Tina’s Wonderlandsrevealed a new story trailer, and for fans of the franchise, one mysterious element may have stood out: Fred. On his own, it seems like a stabbing-obsessed and enemy-murdering ally, but combined with Zer0 and FL4K, it seems he’s a new element to a long-standing mystery.
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Borderlands: The Zer0-FL4K Mystery
Zer0 isn’t human, which isn’t something the casual fan may realize. No, inBorderlands 2, there are a lot of hints that he’s genuinely a robot and not a human in a suit. He has four fingers, not five; he doesn’t run out of breath when sprinting, like otherBorderlands 2characters; and there’s an on-the-nose “0” in his name. In the Son of Crawmerax DLC, there is another figure known as 0ne—leading to a plenty simple theory: there is a robot maker out there who has invented multiple, numbered generations of robots.
The introduction ofFL4K inBorderlands 3supports this theory, based on their character alone. The number “4” suggests at least four generations of robots, while FL4K also has four fingers. The two characters can also cloak, share a similarly named skill (Tw0 Fang and Two F4ng), and have some dialogue where FL4K will call Zer0 “familiar.” Thus, the theory goes that there is a creator out there, and that we’ve seen at least two generations of robots from “her.”
Adding to the theory even further is the defeat ofKatagawa Jr. inBorderlands 3. Zer0 will be seen later asking himself how Katagawa mimicked his suit and specifically asking if “she” did something. In other words, the creator is mysterious, important, and clearly a woman, but that’s all fans know about her…at least untilTiny Tina’s Wonderlandsreleases.
Wonderlands: The Fred or FR3D Mystery
InTiny Tina’s Wonderlands, players will be meeting some new characters (presumably played byBorderlandscharacters), and just ignoring the whole meta concept there—one of them stands out: Fred. There’s nothing official showing how to spell the clearly-a-robot’s name, and thus it stands to reason that it’s probably FR3D, not Fred. After all, pausingthe newTiny Tina’s Wonderlandstraileron FR3D clearly shows that, like Zer0 and FL4K, FR3D only has four fingers.
Obviously, it’s still too early to understand how FR3D works into this mystery. He seems to be a third-gen robot, he may or may not have a TWO Fang ability (or THR33 Fang?), he may or may not be able to cloak, and so on. But he seems like a new factor in this franchise and perhaps FR3D will even reveal more about his,0ne, Zer0, and FL4K’s mysterious creator.
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlandslaunches July 31, 2025, on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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