Watch the Borderlands 3 gameplay reveal streams and you might win in-game loot

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The first-ever Borderlands 3 gameplay livestreams on Twitch will also serve up the first-ever opportunity to try out a new Borderlands 3 ECHOcast Extension that will give viewers the ability to rifle through streamers' loadouts, backpacks, and skill trees. Maybe more importantly for those of you who like loot, it will also give viewers a chance to pick up some nice pieces of kit in a rare chest promotional event.

Each livestreamer will have four Red Chests hidden in their game during the reveal livestream event. If they find one, viewers will have a 30-second window to open it: 25 percent of those who do will be given another 30 seconds to choose one of the in-game items from the chest as their reward, or have one given to them at random if they miss that window.

It's a bit of a limited bonanza—nobody gets anything if the streamer doesn't find any chests, and the items are automatically scaled to your level when you retrieve them from your in-game mailbox when Borderlands 3 releases, so you're not going to end up with any wildly overpowered (and fun) hardware—but hey, free loot is free loot.

The Borderlands 3 gameplay reveal livestream is scheduled to begin at 10 am PT/1 pm ET on May 1, on Twitch. The rare chest event will take place over two sessions, the first running from 10:45 am to 1:45 pm PT and the second from 4:45 pm to 7:45 pm PT, and you'll need to link your SHiFT account to your Twitch account in order to take part in the events. (You'll be able to poke around in inventories and skill trees with just the extension installed, if that's all you really want to do.)

Full details about the extension and the promo are up at borderlands.com. While you wait for the fun to begin, here's a list of SHiFT codes for Borderlands 2 that still work in 2019.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.