I’m still not quite sure why is that I’m attracted to the Borderlands series. I’m not a fan of loot focused action RPGs, I don’t often play coop or multiplayer and every single main game in the series has been at best “kinda nice”. Yet here I am, playing Borderlands 3 (and 4 big DLCs for it) without even expecting to like it much.
In many ways, I can’t help but wish Borderlands 3 was the first Borderlands game. I wish that this fourth game in the main series would’ve been the baseline we had from the start. So many things about Borderlands 3 feel like what was in previous games, except finally done right. Every system, every gameplay idea, every element about how quests get unlocked, how secondary stuff on maps works, how you automatically suck in all resource-type loot, how you have full body awareness and can mount obstacles. Everything that was weak, incredibly tedious or annoying has been redesigned to “simply work” and never get in the way.
Heck, even the actual first person shooting, something that has always been weak in the series, has been turned into something rather nice. Yes, enemies still tend to be bullet-spongey, yes the boss encounters are still obnoxious rather than challenging, but it’s far less of a problem now. The way guns and enemies behave was tweaked just enough for the game to feel like it could be a pretty okay shooter game, if you were to remove all of the loot focused action RPG parts. And it helps that now a lot of the maps are more interesting to explore and far more varied, that all of the most fun movement options from the previous entries were reintroduced, including the butt stomping and low gravity from Pre-Sequel (whenever applicable), that everything feels less grindy and boring to go through. Granted, the game still takes far longer to go through than it should, especially given that the narrative is too weak to support the length, but at least the process of playing the game is enjoyable.
But yes, the story here is extremely forgettable. Somehow, despite giving even more personality to the characters, including the player characters (who have a voice and personality throughout the game, just like in Pre-Sequel), despite expanding the universe of the game by allowing you to visit different planets, despite having some really cool ideas and moments, everything is painfully bland. Not as bland as the original game and its DLCs, not as boring and unfunny as the majority of Pre-Sequel, but nowhere near as intriguing as the second game. The main villains are surprisingly meh, despite some cool ideas for them, that is even without comparing them to Handsome Jack’s disgusting charisma. Jokes, always a questionable part of the series (arguably Tales of Borderlands is the strongest in this regard), rarely land, though the overall tone and characterization is leagues beyond Pre-Sequel. Most importantly, perhaps, things just never feel fun or exciting, despite how grand they might be and despite how cool characters participating might be. If not for the gameplay improvements, this would’ve been as much of a sleepwalk as the story of the original title.
The DLCs, the ones that are in the Season Pass, aren’t helping much either, even if none of them are bad. All of them have some cool ideas to them, but overall feel “more of the same”, which isn’t as nice when “the same” is simply not exciting.
Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot‘s main weakness is its location. It feels a bit like a redo of the Hyperion Hub of Heroism from Pre-Sequel, just with a casino flair and while it’s nice to see a return of more of the previous characters, this DLC isn’t particularly exciting. It is very much “more of the same” and not of the greatest parts of the main game. While not bad or even completely boring, it’s simply not exciting.
Guns, Love, and Tentacles mixes several really cool ideas, both stylistically and in terms of how the story and the gameplay evolves. It’s weird fiction mixed with the snow levels of Borderlands 2 and also mixed with a love story. It’s sadly not as exciting as it could be, but it’s solid and feels like the best attempt at a horror-themed DLC in the series so far.
Bounty of Blood has the most curious premise of them all, as it works as a completely standalone wild west inspired story somewhere in the Borderlands universe. Everything is built around this aesthetic, to the point that there’s a narrator to the events of the game, explaining things as they go and occasionally breaking the fourth wall. Additionally, it stylistically mixes the samurai and western movies, which were always close, into one amalgamation, with the sci-fi elements added and, pleasantly, far less “typical Borderlands” humour. Unquestionably the most interesting DLC of the four.
And finally, Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck is the final DLC (unfortunately, only of Season Pass as there will be some additional DLCs later) and it’s pretty bland and disappointing. While not bad, it, just as the first DLC, simply feels like a remix of the existing things from the main game, provided as a simple “more of the same”. Also just like with the first DLC, the locations and the overall structure are the biggest issues of this one. All maps are very boring to go through and always have a side-quest that becomes available only after you’re done with the map and require you to backtrack through at least half of it again for no reason but to pad things out. And the side-quest itself is usually some unrelated and unfunny nonsense. Unless you want more Borderlands 3, no matter the content, I’d stay away from this one.
Overall, Borderlands 3 is a solid title. It finally features the main gameplay that doesn’t completely suck, but it just lacks the spark that the second game had. I wish, I could have stronger emotions about the game, but it’s just “nice”. It’s well done, it improves on every gameplay aspect of the series, it has a really good soundtrack, but there’s nothing truly exciting or in any way very disappointing or bad about it. And I feel that by now the series might need complete rethinking if there will be any sequels.