Spoilers Off for games prior to Borderlands 3 and for Spoiler characters that are marked as such. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.
Playable Vault Hunters: Borderlands | Borderlands 2 (Krieg) | The Pre-Sequel (Claptrap) | Borderlands 3
Supporting Characters: Borderlands | Borderlands 2 (Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC) | The Pre-Sequel | Borderlands 3
Spinoffs and other media: Tales from the Borderlands | Tiny Tina's Wonderlands | New Tales from the Borderlands | Other media
Weapon Brands: Atlas | Dahl | Hyperion (Handsome Jack) | Maliwan | Jakobs | Torgue | Tediore | Other Weapon Brands
Other: Bandits and Bandit Factions (Children of the Vault) | Hodunk and Zaford Clans | Creatures (Eridians and Vault Monsters) | Raid Bosses
"Tediore was founded on the principle that no family should be without the protection that an affordable, lightweight firearm provides. Whether you're planning on taking little Billy out to the fields for his first pheasant hunt or you need to chase some trouble off your front porch, Tediore will be there for you. Over the years, Tediore has built a reputation among the working class men and women of this land for providing fast-reloading weapons that anyone, on any budget, can afford. So the next time you're headed down to the Save-N-Save, why not put a little piece (sic) of mind in the cart and grab yourself a Tediore? Tediore's pistols, shotguns, sub-machine guns and rifles can be found at major retailers nationwide."
Headed by Susan Coldwell, the Tediore corporation prides itself on cheap affordable firearms for the common people. As such, they are some of the most common guns found in the games and their easy-to-use functionality means that they have exceptionally fast reload times. In the second game, this "evolves" into being thrown away, with another gun immediately digistructing into your hands. Tediore lasers act as Tesla coils for a short while before exploding when they are reloaded, and Tediore barrels turn lasers into splitters. Tediore shields and grenades lack any sort of special gimmick, although their shields do boast low capacity in exchange for fast recharges.
Borderlands 3 turns the variety of their grenade modes up a notch: Bouncing Bettys, MIRVs, homing grenades, guns with legs, and more.
In New Tales from the Borderlands, Tediore takes the helm as the new villains as they invade Promethea sometime after Maliwan's own invasion.
General
In General
- The Aesthetics of Technology:
- Tediore weapons are boxy and utilitarian, to emphasize their cheap and disposable nature. They're often made of low-quality plastic or metal, with higher-end models using carbon fiber parts instead.
- In Borderlands 3, they've switched this out for a style similar to mechanical parts, though they have injected a bit more color into some of their guns. They also acquire 8 bit-era traits, such as sounding increasingly 8 bit-like as you spend their magazines.
- In 2 and Pre-Sequel, Tediore guns have no external magazines due to their disposable nature.
- Attack Drone: Tediore Guns in 3 can sometimes sprout legs after reloads so that they can run around and shoot at enemies, fly around as a homing missile while firing shots off, as well as act as turrets.
- Big, Bulky Bomb: In 3, some guns may have a giant, holographic sphere around them when thrown that spell out Shoot Me. Shooting it makes the gun explode with even more force than what would be allowed.
- Boring, but Practical: In 1 Tediore guns had the advantage of having lighting fast reloads and most of their unique and legendary guns gave you essentially infinite ammo through ammo regeneration, all which came at cost of them having lower than average stats and no other effect. In 2 and Pre-Sequel most Tediore shields tend to recharge very fast but lack any of the flashier effects.
- Butt-Monkey: In Borderlands 3, Tediore is treated as this among the corporations. Both Rhys and Katagawa Jr (heir of Maliwan) make multiple digs at Tediore's expense, treating the company as a joke and not a serious threat. Even Timothy Lawrence in the Handsome Jackpot isn't so sure if they were still a thing when he meets the third generation vault hunters.
- Cute as a Bouncing Betty: Tediore produces the Bunny, which is a line of Legendary rocket launchers that, when reloaded, bounces around and drops live grenades before blowing itself up, allowing their users to blow a up condensed room several times over. They're also painted bright pink with a white bunny emblem on its side.
- The Baby Maker is an SMG (a pistol in 3) that's painted a vibrant pink/purple that explodes like any other Tediore weapon, but with the added effect of additional baby copies of the gun to sprout out and also explode on enemies, causing massive damage if not outright goring them. It also makes Varkid larvae sounds when exploding.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: From 2 and onward weapon reloads will make your character throw the gun, which has caused many guns being flung accidentally after an enemy has been killed or after a fight ended.
- Difficult, but Awesome: Starting from 2 Tediore reloads make your character throw the weapon to explode at an enemy instead of inserting a new clip, the more ammo the weapon throw had the bigger the damage will be. You can easily deal large amounts of damage if you can aim your throws, but missing means you wasted an entire clip worth of ammo, hitting enemies from mid distances is tricky stuff and from long distances is nearly impossible. This is more or less remedied in 3 with the new reload properties allowing weapons to home, or even chase targets, but a badly aimed throw still means you'll waste the gun's entire ammo. And if you're not careful you can burn through your entire stock of ammo before you can even notice.
- Homing Projectile: The Deliverance in 2 is a shotgun that, when reloaded, will fly in the air and home in on the nearest target while still shooting at them before colliding and exploding; some of their rocket launchers also become homing rockets when you throw them away. In 3, this behavior was made into a generalized feature of much of their guns, from the gun itself homing in on a target to the projectiles it spawn doing so.
- Housewife: Their mascot in radio ads is Mrs. Tediore, who is a 1950's-esque housewife who also happens to be a spokesperson for a weapons company.
- Hufflepuff House: Until New Tales of the Borderlands they tend not to play much of a role. The most heard about them happens to usually be anecdotes of their defeats and jokes made at their expense by the other corporations.
- Magikarp Power: The Anarchy shotgun in 3, made in the likeness of an Anarchy focused Gaige, starts out with roughly the same damage as any other Tediore shotgun, which is to say not much. It will gain more damage whenever it kills an enemy or is reloaded with an empty magazine up to ten times, which ramps up its damage high enough to instantly blow away most enemies and have an even deadlier explosive reload.
- Nanomachines: Tediore guns are implied to be this in its true form due to their Throw-Away Guns nature and how they easily digistruct for use.
- Never Needs Sharpening: The volatile construction of a Tediore gun was made into a selling point of the gun.
- One Bullet Clips: Subverted. Any bullets left when reloading a Tediore go with the gun and add to the damage of the explosion. If nothing, it can be useful for some burst damage with high-capacity guns such as SMGs.
- Our Weapons Will Be Boxy in the Future: Because of their cheap and disposable nature, the average Tediore gun will resemble an arrangement of boxes with a trigger mechanism. Even their scopes are boxy. New Tales of the Borderlands shows that even their armor and spaceships are blocky in design.
- Punch-Packing Pistol: Tediore Law revolvers in the first game. They fire fast, reload even faster, and outclass repeaters in damage no matter what, so they make for very good sidearms.
- Smart Gun: They're begun delving into this business in 3, by installing AI into some of their guns which help the user deliver their disposed gun to their enemy. The guns with the bouncing augment stoically say 'Ow' while they hop around the environment, while those with turret legs will shout and threaten the enemy while firing at/chasing them.You will die! '''You! Will! Die!'''Here come that boy.I am unleashed!
- Take That!: One of the Tediore grenade mods in Borderlands 3 is basically a weaponized Samsung Galaxy Note 7
— it turns your grenades into ECHO-2 smartphones that explode very hard after a long time. - Throwing Your Gun at the Enemy: In Borderlands 2 and Pre-Sequel, "reloading" a Tediore means tossing them at your enemies, thus turning them into grenades. In the case of rocket launchers, this means they turn into rockets themselves. The third game has the guns sprout legs and become miniature walking turrets. That explode.
- The Worf Effect: According to a hidden ECHO log in Commander Lilith and the Fight For Sanctuary, a shock troop of Iron Bear mechs from Vladof's Ursa Corps was able to clear out clear out an entire continent of Tediore forces in a matter of days. While Tediore's military might was never well-established, the fact that Hyperion was freaked out by this suggests the budget manufacturer is at least somewhat competent.
People
Leadership
Susan Coldwell
DECIMATOR of Glass Ceilings and Souls
Voiced by: Samantha Ferris
"Frozen Yogurt, hmm... That's when you use milk instead of cream, yeah? Never was much for it. Just seemed objectively WORSE than ice cream. Beneath it, almost. Some people say that's a matter of opinion, but you and I know that's not true. Hm? Some things are just better than others. Some PEOPLE are just better than others. Heheheheheheheheheheh... On any planet, in any galaxy, the cream rises to the top, and that's why I'm here and you're there."
The current CEO of Tediore, and a ruthless businesswomen.
- Bad Boss: Treats her employees with total disdain. While in the case of the grunts is a bit understandable (there are too many screw ups from their part to count), she also treats her better personnel (such as her scientists and doctors) like trash.
- Big Bad: She's the main villain of New Tales From the Borderlands as the one behind the invasion of Promethea.
- Continuity Nod: Much like Vasquez did back in Tales from the Borderlands, one of her first proper acts is to diminish and intimidate a main character (Rhys there, Fran here) using a Social Darwinist speech that contains the phrase "that's why I'm here and you're there".
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Openly tells her subordinates to destroy property to get around a loophole keeping them from killing Fran, seeing killing her as better than the licensing fee she would pay.
- Cutscene Boss: At the end of New Tales, if Anu embraces the Anahatium Crystals she becomes a godlike being and casually vaporizes Susan.
- Establishing Character Moment: While her first appearance is talking to Rhys, it is her discussion with Fran that shows her disregard for her subordinates, the poor, and Tediore regulations.
- Iron Lady: She's a hard-nosed businesswoman with a Thatcher-like bouffant and a general lack of the silliness of most Borderlands characters.
- One-Winged Angel: At the end of New Tales, if Anu rejects the Anahatium Crystals Susan will combine them to turn herself into "Anahatium Susan" and serves as the Final Boss.
Other
Reba Fullfölja
Judges. (Insurance claims your wardrobe)
Voiced by: Cherlandra Estrada
- Because You Were Nice to Me: If Fran had primarily positive interactions with the Fullfölja sisters, Reba will say good things about her to Rita, who will attempt to help out Fran by getting her Therapy Bot to her.
- Jerkass: To be expected from someone who works for an Evil, Inc.-type MegaCorp in the Borderlandsverse. She makes fun of the damage Fran's frogurt shop took during the Maliwan invasion prior to discovering Hank's frozen body/remains in the back room.
- Pet the Dog: If Fran is cordial to her and doesn't end up freezing her, she partially admits that she does feel bad about bullying her as a kid.
- Small Role, Big Impact: It's her being frozen by Fran the action that prompts her sister Rita and Tediore's head honcho Susan Coldwell to take action against her.
Tediore Commandant
- Boom, Headshot!: If Danielle is told to take care of him, she'll blow a hole in his left eye.
- Foreshadowing: There's a twisted tradition in the Borderlandsverse where people billed as "Commander of [Faction]" are guaranteed to meet their demise. Much like his predecessors, he doesn't get to see the end of the events.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: As the leader of a military regiment backed up by a MegaCorp that opposes the main characters, he follows the steps of Commandant Steele and General Knoxx from Atlas, and Colonel Zarpedon and Commandant Hector from Dahl. However he commands a Tediore regiment, and Tediore lacks the finesse of BL1!Atlas and the professionalism of Dahl. Furthermore, the two companies' negative sides (the incompetent management and the Paper Tiger tendencies) are reflected in Tediore as well. As a result, he goes down as quickly as he's introduced, to the point of not even having his own introductory card.
Brock
State-of-the-art Annoying Gun Technology.
Voiced by: Erik Gow
- Avenging the Villain: Once the Tediore Commander is killed he promises vengeance.
- Establishing Character Moment: Appears alongside Tediore troops and their commander promising to shoot anything that opposes Tediore.
Tediore grunts
- The Alleged Expert: Trained troops... that fail to do anything. Even shooting.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Whenever they find Anu, Fran or Octavio, they end up missing a lot of shots trying to gun them down.
Badass Superfan
Voiced by: David Epstein
"I'm not gonna TAKE it [Octavio's Vaultlander]. Vaultlanders must be EARNED through the rite of glorious combat! Will versus will. Vaultlander to Vaultlander!"
A Tediore soldier who's obsessed with Vaultlanders.
- Establishing Character Moment: When Octavio fails to sneak upon him during the second chapter, he points his gun towards him... only for a Vaultlanders figurine to fall from Octavio. From there on, he challenges Octavio to a game of Vaultlanders with his life (and Anu's and Fran's) on the line. If Octavio wins, he lets them continue, and he gets a Zane Flynt Vaultlander.
- Recurring Extra: He shows up once per episode to challenge the protagonists to Vaultlanders, hiding in a container.
- Skewed Priorities: If, instead of challenging Octavio to a game of Vaultlanders, he just shot the trio like he was supposed to do so, Susan Coldwell would have achieved all of her plans. This costs him his job at Tediore halfway through the game.
