Prolific voice actor Troy Baker played Rhys in Tales from the Borderlands. Rhys returned in Borderlands 3, but Baker did not – and the reasons why became a weirdly public debate as Baker and Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford provided contradictory accounts on social media and at convention Q&As. More recent statements and interviews reveal it was a union dispute – but the parties involved still can’t agree on what happened, and another Gearbox statement has raised even more ire. “It was simply a matter of they wouldn’t go union,” Baker tells VG247, kicking off the renewed discussion. “And I can’t do a non-union gig. And without getting too deep into the weeds of that, we had long conversations about this. We always knew going into it, that this was going to be the thing.” In a statement provided to Kotaku and other outlets, SAG-AFTRA says “We attempted to sign Gearbox to a union agreement. They refused and disengaged from those talks.” Gearbox followed up to say “Gearbox is a Texas company and is bound by Texas law – which means that a person cannot be denied employment because of membership or non-membership in a labor union or other labor organization.”