Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 is the game where players open the door of a dilapidated wooden outhouse and a wad of cash ejects from the bowl with a brown squelch. Borderlands 3 is also the game where a glowing purple pistol is strapped to the door of that same outhouse; a pistol whose bullets will magically bounce off a critical hit and fly into the nearest secondary target.

Borderlands 3 is a madcap game of endless guns and absurdist humor. Characters bounce around its cel-shaded world as punchlines or bags of disposable meat. Weapons and skills are doled out like candy and any player can taste from its sweet buffet of opportunity. In short, it is quintessential Borderlands, a franchise that has carved out its own path and fan base.

But in the world of gaming, Borderlands has been uncharacteristically silent over the past few years, its loud bravado delegated to remasters on this generation of consoles. Since the last numbered entry, players have been gifted with countless looter-shooters that have worked to evolve the genre past what Gearbox Software nearly perfected with Borderlands 2.

Despite the passage of time, Borderlands 3 is comfortable being what it is: another sequel to Borderlands. Nothing exists in this product that is completely unexpected. There are no loot boxes, no persistent online worlds, no raids. In a sense, Borderlands 3‘s attempt at not doing anything unexpected often makes it a victim of stubbornness. Ultimately, Borderlands 3 is a game about expectations and how much your enjoyment relies on the familiar.

I was in my early twenties when I first got Borderlands as a Christmas present. The game’s charm was immediate. Not enough developers had embraced cel-shaded graphics and the ridiculous cast of not-too-serious characters and zany guns was a perfect brew for a few weeks of doing nothing. Not every joke landed with grace. The Mad Max desert aesthetic ran a little long in the tooth. But damn, if it wasn’t fun sucking up every gun with anticipation, hoping it would be the new favorite death-dealer in my arsenal.

The writers at Gearbox haven’t seemed to age much over the decade. What worked in prior Borderlands does not always work best in Borderlands 3. And part of that problems stems from the game’s wavering narrative tones. The stylistic choices that have worked in the series’ favor are used from the onset. A new group of four Vault Hunters are introduced with flair over an opening cutscene with licensed music. Claptrap orders the player around as a new recruit while a spectral FMV of a female plays that constantly zooms in and out on her face. Familiarity immediately sets in for veterans of the series and it’s great to watch Claptrap be an idiot and hear enemies scream in pain and make jokes instead of death rattles.

The Vault Hunter is then introduced to series mainstay, the Siren Lilith. She directs us to recover a Vault Map that has fallen into the hands of the Children of the Vault led by Troy and Tyreen, the Calypso Twins. What unfolds is a planet-hopping trek in search of Vault Keys and Maps to figure out why the Twins want inside the Vaults so bad. As we’ve learned from previous games, an ancient alien civilization created the Vaults and packed them with untold power and riches, only to seal them up because they probably led to their inevitable destruction.

Outside of its generally nuanced but interesting lore, Borderlands has never held the most captivating overarching story. There are jabs at the power of corporations and greed, along with mild social commentary. Yet none of it has ever eclipsed the series’ diverse cast of characters that range from mostly evil to downright lovable. One thing I appreciated about Borderlands 3 was its devotion to memorializing the entire cast that has come before it. Key players from the previous main entries and Tales from the Borderlands are all integrated into the story in one way or another. Their personalities remain virtually unchanged but there are some who receive more spotlight than others.

Borderlands 3 attempts to pull together all the main threads that have been weaving themselves together over the years and deliver satisfying conclusions. It’s possible not everyone will make it to the end credits alive and for those who have been with these characters the whole time, there is meant to be an emotional impact. But it’s this serious, reverent tone that often gets in the way of the everything. Cutscenes will go by where your Vault Hunter doesn’t appear at all, seemingly forgetting to move into the camera’s frame. Instead we are to assume they are passively standing in the corner watching all the action unfold either powerless or disinterested enough to intervene.

The game’s mission structure makes this hit a bit more painful. Now, Borderlands missions have often been the case of having one character tell the Vault Hunter to do something, doing that thing, finding out another thing needs to be done, and then doing that second (or even third, or fourth) thing before getting rewarded. That doesn’t change for the most part and, in many cases, the massive maps mean long stretches of doing one quest without any breaks.

(A quick sidebar: Gearbox needs to rethink how many vending machines and fast travel points they put in some of these maps. Entire chapters of Borderlands 3 take place on one map with only fast travel points at the beginning and end and one set of vending machines. Considering how crucial the money economy is in this game, it can be a slog to have to constantly go back and forth between stretches of the map and delay the momentum of the story just to sell stuff. I know not every player will have this same issue but it is a gripe of mine.)

To remove that feeling of narrative monotony that can plague similar games (Diablo 3 comes to mind), Borderlands relies on its use of humorous chatter to inject some personality in missions. The most mundane tasks in a Borderlands game are often less so because the character players are helping out is funny, or insane, or so interesting that you want to push on to find out what they will say next or have you do. The critical path in Borderlands 3 does have some of these moments but they don’t feel as frequent or on point as previous games.

The Calypso Twins pale in comparison to Handsome Jack. The brother and sister duo are revered as gods by the crazies of Pandora and they dole out insults under the guise of livestreamers. They taunt players throughout the game, mocking the ragtag group of Crimson Raiders with the subtlety of a radio shock jock. The few choice moments where the Calypso Twins are meant to be threatening work but are instantly drowned out by their meme-like chatter. Their attitude is in stark contrast to the overblown heroism of the Crimson Raiders and it’s a foil that doesn’t often work.

Like so many comedic moments in Borderlands 3 and the series as a whole, there were moments the humor worked and plenty of moments it didn’t. I often found the funniest jokes to be the ones that didn’t feel forced. Dry humor and subtlety go a long way and in Borderlands 3, many of the “jokes” don’t feel earned or latch onto humor that comes across as dated. There are some side quests that are premised on a joke, like one about a augmented reality game that forces microtransactions and is still being devloped. I spent the first couple minutes laughing at an NPC’s t-pose and the placeholder graphics and the next ten minutes rolling my eyes at the same joke being recycled during each new leg of the quest.

Is Borderlands 3 too young for me? It’s possible. Though this is a Mature-rated game, there will definitely be a younger audience drawn to sillier bits and missions. To be fair, that is standard Borderlands and standard comedy. Not every joke will work on every person. That being said, I would be shocked if anyone played this game and did not laugh a few times. The more entertaining characters are left to side quests which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, yet it does show the weakness of the main story at keeping up the pace of its varying moods.

Despite flat humor and cheesy moments of sincerity, I have to emphasize the quality of the voice acting. Putting the controversies aside, nearly every actor nails their role. None of the dialogue is phoned-in and the commitment to hamming it up for the role makes even the longest missions a touch more bearable. From guttural screams to ridiculous accents, it’s impossible not to enjoy the effort being put into breathing life into the characters of Borderlands 3. My one glaring exception to this rule, however, was the choice Gearbox made with Typhon DeLeon. Typhon is the first Vault Hunter and collectible voice recordings of him are scattered across every section of the game. For voracious lore masters, these recordings are a must listen. But as he is likely the character with the most spoken lines in the game, it would have been nice to not have to listen to an off-brand Joe Pesci wise guy accent constantly. Yes, Typhon is a bumbling idiot with some funny lines but after the twentieth time hearing that voice, it stripped away any emotional connection I had for the character later in the story.

But what about the gameplay?

Borderlands 3 should not disappoint anyone looking for a satisfying, frenetic shooting fest. The series’ shower of guns remains true as players seek out varying colored tiers of loot to grow in power and enhance their builds. The higher in rarity a gun is, the more perks it will have. The same applies to shields and grenade mods. For several hours, Borderlands 3 feeds you a steady stream of guns that will be constantly sold and trashed to make way for incrementally better ones. Then purple and orange guns start dropping with perks that outclass anything you may find for awhile.

Guns and their specific perks become more important as players dive into the skill trees of their character class. I spent most of my time as the Operative Zane. Zane is the one class who can equip two active skills–he has the ability to throw down a protective shield, deploy an attack drone, and create a digi-clone–and he focuses a great deal on quick movement and freezing enemies. As I began to invest more into perks that buffed his cryo damage and kill skills, I focused on finding rapid fire SMGs and pistols that could easily crit.

Amara, the Siren, uses her psychic fists to inflict elemental damage on enemies and one of her skill trees takes advantage of being as close as possible to enemies to increase damage output. Moze, the Gunner, summons a powerful mech that offers different primary weapons and eventually allows another player to hop in with her. FL4K, the robot Beastmaster, has the ability to bring animals into the fray. Each class has three different action skills that can be swapped out and each has a perk tree meant to amplify the use of that specific skill. Because players have the ability to respec their points, trying out new builds is simple and rewarding. The synergy between gunplay and skill perks is that special sauce that Borderlands 3 implements to feel like an improvement over previous entries.

Many weapons in the game also have alternate firing modes to spice up a fight just a little more. With a simple press of down on the D-pad, a gun may do something as simple as fire in bursts instead of semi-automatically. Or that gun may shoot both corrosive and incendiary rounds. Or that pistol could shoot out a barrage of tiny rockets. These alternate firing modes work for Borderlands 3‘s catalog of ridiculous weaponry. It may not drastically alter a playstyle and you might even forget they exist, but I found a few times where they made a particular weapon shine. Finding a gun that shot cryo and radioactive rounds was a key part of my endgame build because I had a shield that caused enemies to explode when killed with radiation. And anytime there is a gun with a rocket launcher underbarrel…well that’s just special.

My main issue with how this all plays out is that Borderlands 3 really does not show its strengths until late in the game. The climb from level 1 to 50 feels far too slow and I say this after playing the game for over 70 hours. Each new level rewards a skill point and it takes about 15 to 20 invested points to start setting up a character build where action skill mods and perks come into play. On top of that, multiple gun slot unlocks, class mods, and artifacts are doled out over the course of the story. Artifacts began dropping for me at around level 30 and the story doesn’t let you equip them until near the end of the main campaign.

An argument can be made for not letting players rapidly power through content but if Destiny has taught me anything, games are often a slog when trying to get to the point of maximizing builds. Doubling XP gains would help but also wouldn’t solve the problem of unlocks begin held back by story progression.

Once the campaign is finished, players are treated to a fairly robust endgame as far as the core Borderlands 3 experience goes. An additional “True Vault Hunter” difficulty mode is unlocked which sends you back to the start of the game with all your unlocks and levels. True Vault Hunter mode should have been available from the start because it lets players face off against tougher enemies that reward better loot. But it’s when I hopped into this mode and played through (with frustratingly unskippable cutscenes) that loot felt even more rewarding. There does get to be a point where guns stop feeling special because you may have already seen them or you are used to favorites. During these endgame activities, gear starts dropping that has perks specifically tailored to character classes. Why are these pushed so deep into the experience and not earlier on?

I question why Gearbox wanted to hold back gameplay mechanics and rewards until so late into the game. Had unique loot like this been dropping at a consistent pace, it would have tantalized me even more instead of being shocked that it actually existed. Players can also activate Mayhem Mode after completing the campaign. Mayhem Mode is available in three tiers of difficulty and adds random modifiers to the current playthrough that can buff enemies and players but also make the game a lot tougher. The tradeoff is significantly better rewards. Guardian ranks are also unlocked at the campaign’s end. Acting as a secondary leveling system, players can invest a point into one of three skill trees that permanently apply a passive benefit. From reload speed, shield recharge rate, and increased rare loot, Guardian ranks are essential if a player wants to become an absolute terror with guns.

After starting True Vault Hunter mode with Zane, I had a blast melting through enemies with my endgame loot and Guardian ranks. I went through entire rooms and froze enemies and melted them with my radioactive shield, earning kill skills with each new corpse. I realized how much better it would have been to feel this way a dozen or so hours earlier, without having to restart the game. But, much like any game in this genre, multiple playthroughs are encouraged. Outside of the campaign, players can access an endless enemy wave rush or a difficult “dungeon” and fight through to a boss. In terms of Borderlands, it’s sufficient but I can’t help but lament for some true endgame activities that we’ve seen in other titles.

Borderlands 3 is also just a beautiful game. The graphical style fits perfectly, despite some low resolution textures when you get up close. I was surprised at the amount of unique worlds that could be explored. Each one has a distinct style and soundtrack that fits the mood. Point of advice: do not sleep on Borderlands 3‘s soundtrack it is one of the best parts about the game and I did not see it coming.

During my lengthy time with the game, I encountered quality of life improvements and some rather unfortunate issues. Borderlands 3 thankfully has a great fast travel system that loads pretty seamlessly. Being able to play the game in split-screen co-op is a treat but does take a toll when loading menus and trying to access the inventory. Pathing in the game is also pretty terrible. Players will only get an icon on their map for the end destination of an objective and sometimes driving across a map with clunky controls is a fools errand. Wrong turns and getting lost are very real problems and for a game in 2019, there are so many ways around this. A hotfix made to the game also broke the sound for me. For some reason, everything sounded like I was in a cave and many effects would echo. Apparently this was a common enough problem and no one knew how to fix it. On PlayStation 4 Pro, I first opted to play Borderlands 3 with the best resolution but later switched to performance. The sacrifice in visuals for fluid gameplay is definitely worth it but it still didn’t fix some of the menu slowdown.

I think most players know what to expect when going into Borderlands 3. Gearbox is devoted to this franchise and has a certain reverence for not changing it up too much. What are you looking for in this game? With three other friends and a laid back attitude, Borderlands 3 rewards on so many levels. Laughs, rewarding but loose gunplay, and constant loot are a specific pleasure. But this game is not going back to the drawing board. It’s hard to say this is a tired formula because Borderlands has been so quiet for such a long time. Yes I wish the story was better and the jokes didn’t work as hard. Despite all that, it is such a fun game especially when you pass the hurdles. And for that, I can’t help but recommend Borderlands 3.