Paul Helquist, senior designer on Borderlands, has responded to disappointment over the post-apocalyptic shooter’s ending. Speaking with MTV Multiplayer, Helquist said that while it didn’t get the reaction devs Gearbox were hoping for, Borderlands‘ conclusion left options wide open for future installments in the series.

“We went through lots of different iterations on what the ending of the game was,” said Helquist. “We ultimately ended up with what you get to play. We didn’t know how people were going to react to it. Obviously the reaction hasn’t been as strong as we had hoped [laughs]. That’s something we’re going to be keeping in mind as we do new things, whether it’s download content or other games in the future. We’re gonna think more about it and try to get more user feedback before the game comes out so we can ensure that we’ll have endings that you guys like in the future.”

The Gearbox designer went on to discuss the positives of the ending from the perspective of potential future narratives, saying, “I think what’s great about where we did leave the player is that we have pretty much infinite options of where we want to go next. We aren’t currently working on a sequel or anything like that, so that stuff is way down the line, but just from my point of view, it’s sort of an open book in terms of where we want to go.”

“We can go in directions that continue to explore the vault mythology or we can do something completely different. The ending of the game, for better or worse, didn’t paint us into any corners,” he said.

Borderlands‘ first DLC pack, The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, is available to download now.