Set some time after the events of Borderlands 2, the game's story centers around Hyperion employee Rhys and Pandoran con-artist Fiona as they team up on an adventure to find and open a Vault.

The game follows the episodic format that Telltale used for its titles The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, where player choices and actions have somewhat significant effects on later story elements.

The player separately controls the story's two protagonists Rhys Strongfork (Troy Baker) and Fiona Dillon (Laura Bailey).

Rhys is a Hyperion employee, who has been working with his best friend Vaughn (Chris Hardwick) to get promoted into the higher ranks of the company but is stymied by his new boss and rival Hugo Vasquez (Patrick Warburton).

Fiona is a con-artist working on Pandora along with her younger sister Sasha (Erin Yvette), both who learned under their mentor and father figure Felix (Norman Hall).

[11][12] Other new characters in the game include Rhys and Vaughn's co-worker Yvette (Sola Bamis), black market fencer August (Nolan North), bandit leader Bossanova (Jason Topolski), a mysterious masked stranger (Roger L. Jackson), hooligans Finch (Dave Fennoy) and Kroger (Adam Harrington), bandit lord and August's mother Vallory (Susan Silo), Atlas scientist Cassius Leclemaine (Phil LaMarr), and the robot Gortys (Ashley Johnson).

In addition to original characters, the game also features returning characters from the main Borderlands games (voiced by the same actors from the previous games) including Handsome Jack (Dameon Clarke), who appears as an artificial intelligence injected into Rhys' mind, businesswoman Mad Moxxi (Brina Palencia), gun salesman Marcus Kincaid (Bruce DuBose), the Hyperion Loader Bot (Raison Varner), madman Shade (Brad Jackson), Hodunk clan leader Tector (Joel McDonald), mechanic Scooter (Mikey Neumann), junk dealer Janey Springs (Catherine Moore) and her girlfriend, ex-Atlas assassin Athena (Lydia Mackay), Vault Hunters Brick (Marcus M. Mauldin), Zer0 (Michael Turner), and Mordecai (Jason Liebrecht), and the robot Claptrap (David Eddings).

[13] Representatives from both Telltale and Gearbox were present at the ceremony at adjoining tables, and over the course of the event, the idea of combining their respective talents on a project came out.

Additional voice actors include Nolan North as August, Patrick Warburton as Hugo Vasquez, Chris Hardwick as Vaughn, and Erin Yvette as Sasha.

[16][17] While Tales was critically well-received, the title had not met management's expectations for financial returns compared to its other properties like The Walking Dead.

Eurogamer's Jeffrey Matulef noted that the last episodes of the series seemed to be the best work that Telltale had done, likely as a result of those most committed to the project staying on as the skeleton staff.

However, 2K Games stated in May 2019 that they are looking to take over the publishing rights to Tales as to bring it back to digital storefronts, as Skybound Entertainment had done for Telltale's The Walking Dead series.

[20] Following news that the Telltale brand had been revived in August 2019, one of Gearbox's writers for Borderlands 3, Sam Winkler, expressed interest in a potential Tales, though no plans had been confirmed.

To help bridge the gap, Gearbox released free DLC for Borderlands 2, Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary, in June 2019, which occurs following the events of Tales, after the crash of Helios Station onto Pandora.