Gearbox Software LLC

Gearbox Software LLC is based in Plano, Texas (USA) and was founded in January of 1999 by a group of experienced 3d game artists, designers and engineers: Randy Pitchford, Brian Martel, Stephen Bahl, Landon Montgomery and Rob Heironimus. They formerly worked together at Rebel Boat Rocker, Inc. until the studio went out of business. Pitchford and Martel previously worked together at 3D Realms, and Montgomery used to work at Bethesda Softworks.

The company initially worked closely together with Valve on titles in the Half-Life franchise. They ported the game to the PlayStation 2 and were responsible for the three expansions: Opposing Force (1999), Blue Shift (2001) and Decay (2001 - only released as a part of the Half-Life PS2 version). A Dreamcast version they had in development was eventually cancelled. The team was also involved with Counter-Strike and Condition Zero.

Around 2002, they started forming relationships with other publishers, which led to the PC versions of 007: Nightfire (2002), Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (2002) and most notably the Windows version of Halo: Combat Evolved (2003).

The studio's first game based on in-house IP was the first-person warfare shooter Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (2005), it marked the first game in a short-lived series that branched out to a wide range of platforms including major consoles, personal computers, handhelds and mobile editions.

A departure from their FPS history, Gearbox Software created the Wii version of Samba de Amigo in 2008.

In the 2010s, Gearbox Software released the Borderlands series, Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines. Since 2013, they have owned the Homeworld IP, licensing development out to Blackbird Interactive.

Since 2016, Gearbox Software has run the Gearbox Publishing label, joined in 2022 by the San Francisco branch purchased from Perfect World. On 2 February 2021, Gearbox Software became part of the Embracer Group as its own operational unit.

In the late 2010s, the main company was joined by a secondary studio Gearbox Studio Québec. On 22 November 2022, Eidos Shanghai was transferred from the CDE Entertainment operating group to Gearbox and renamed Gearbox Studio Shanghai.