We played Borderlands 3, and it’s more of everything—including “the same”
Games Features For Our Consideration
How new does “new” have to be? It’s a question that’s bedeviled authors and filmmakers for far longer than it’s ever been an issue in the world of games. When making a sequel to a well-established franchise, how much does a creator owe to the spirit of innovation vs. simple refinement, or even just rote duplication? The issue of length complicates things, too, as it so often does when considering the gaming medium: If someone spent 60 (or 100, or 700) hours with a game you made, wouldn’t ambition or innovation only get in the way of those players getting exactly what they wanted a second time around?
Earlier this week, 2K Games flew us out to L.A. for a very swanky, very hype-heavy event promoting a soon-to-be-very-hype-heavy game: Borderlands 3, Gearbox Software’s latest entry in its massively successful, uber-profane series of sci-fi shooters. Aggressively cheerful PR people invited us to be “Welcome to the mayhem”; Andy Warhol-influenced pop prints of the games’ iconic Psycho enemies stared down from converted warehouse walls; and—after an hour-long demo reel that only occasionally took on the energy of a high-tech cult meeting—we were given 90 minutes to play the game itself, running two of its new characters through a major chunk of the glossy, Blade Runner-esque high-rises of corporate headquarters Promethea.
The Borderlands games have always operated at a pitch of exuberantly marketed excess, and so it’s fitting that the watch word for Borderlands 3’s first day out in the sun was “more.” More guns, with more weird little quirks. (Yes, the little deployable rifle that chases your enemies around after you reload it, acting as a mobile turret, is exactly as fun to play with as it looked in the game’s first trailer.) More quality-of-life improvements—things like the option to turn on level scaling for enemies and weapon drops, allowing you to play with your high-level friends without either of you having to sacrifice the joys of scooping up beefy loot. More of the series’ signature dialogue, which studio head Randy Pitchford described as “irreverent and sincere,” and which a more objective observer might dub “comedy-adjacent low-grade meme fodder.” And more, ultimately, of the same.
More following quest markers to mow down waves of more of the same faceless opponents. More pain-in-the-ass inventory management. More juggling elemental damage types and blowing up barrels to take your enemies out en masse. More scrounging for ammo and items, peering at giant lists of numbers to try to figure out whether a new gun is actually an improvement over your current loadout. More unsatisfying vehicle combat. More hearing the same “cool” quips come out of your characters’ mouths whenever they activate a skill or dispatch a foe. More Borderlands.
Which will—in case this even needs to be said—be absolutely welcome for the franchise’s legions of fans, who happily hoovered up Borderlands 2 in 2012, and its “pre-sequel” installment two years later. Both of those games offered up minor refinements to the series’ formula and lots of space in which to test them out—and if there were those who grumbled about the encroaching sameness of it all, there were just as many who were happy for hours more of familiar content to grind their way on through, either alone, or with a friend. Like many of the bastard children swarming across the “looter shooter” genre it helped inaugurate—a.k.a. “Shoot the man to make him drop a better gun to shoot those other men with”—Borderlands is allergic to ambition almost by default. Like a shark, it is now perfectly evolved to do exactly what it does, and almost impossible to evaluate on any other merit. Are we supposed to yell at a game for seamlessly devouring hours of human existence in the most low-friction way possible, any more than we’re supposed to yell at an apex predator for eating, swimming, and shitting out other, weaker fish? It’s not that you couldn’t find a way to evolve or innovate this formula, but to what profitable end? How do you artistically evaluate something that has no interest in being art?
Playing through those first 90 minutes, it’s impossible to conclude that the game is anything but beautiful, full of gorgeous animations and exquisitely drawn gore. It is expansive—at least in the sense that you’re finally leaving the blasted wastelands of Pandora in order to shoot your way through other blasted wastelands, on other, shinier planets. It features all of the series’ signature characters, plus several new ones that pretty much all sound like the ones you’ve met before. The new playable characters—including Siren Amara and roving assassin Zane, the two available during the demo—have skills that are almost, but not entirely, recognizable as ones lifted from character classes from earlier games. It is profoundly, determinedly familiar, designed with a precision bordering on brilliance to both welcome back old players, and to lull new ones into its simple, pleasurable rhythm. It is lovingly crafted. It has no soul, and does not seem to require one.
And why not? Games are supposed to be fun; the idea that they should be anything more than that is still relatively new. Borderlands 3 is, at least, far less predatory than many games of its ilk, with no progress-related microtransactions leeching cash off of impatient players, and a robust ability to be played offline. (“Non-predatory” for players, at least; Gearbox is just as prone to accusations of soul-crushing crunch conditions as any other major studio.) Borderlands 3 is more of the same. Nobody gets mad when you say that about a can of Pringles, right?
Note: 2K Games paid for our travel accommodations for this event.
62 Comments
I skipped Rage originally for Borderlands. This time I’ll be grabbing Rage 2 instead. I enjoyed BL 1, 2 and the Pre-Sequel but aside from being tired of their writing, Randy Pitchford can yank my knob.
Personally, I’ve never understood the “it needs to be different” mentality— when talking about another game in a series— the reason there’s a sequel is because people liked the original. Yes, I think there should always be refinements in a game’s gameplay, quality of life upgrades, and modern game improvements where they’re applicable, as long as it doesn’t change the core of what the series is about. Add some new modes? Sure, but there’s no need to turn a single player or co-op based game into a games as a service, for instance (looking at you Dragon Age 4). The focus should be on the new narrative, environments, items and characters that should be breaths of fresh air. Borderlands 3 looks like it’s going to be great for those that like Borderlands in general, and for new fans alike, and I think that’s great.
It’s a viewpoint I’m very sympathetic toward, which I hope comes through in this preview—even as I was unable to come up with much better than faint praise to damn the game itself with. The fact is, I was frequently bored while playing it, but I know that millions upon millions of people won’t be—and I probably won’t either, if I can round up some co-op buddies to shoot our way through it with me. And any “improvements” I could think up would just dilute the things it does that other people find satisfying.
Your point was a fair one, and I’ve seen other writers and influencers make that argument in a much more egregious way. Keep up the great work!
BL2 also had the greatest DLC of any game ever: Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep. How they use TT in BL3 will be interesting. And Mrs. F. and I are already excited about DLC for this game.
Yah. People need to look at games as serialized media now. Nothing worse than liking a game, then getting the new one and it’s…not the game you loved.
I wish more companies would follow the WoW model. Game has been adding content for 14 years, but still keeps everything that was good from the original iteration. You can still even revisit parts of the game you fell in love with back then…
I came to say pretty much the same thing. When games have appealing and fun gameplay, why go in a different direction?
I played Borderlands and loved it. Then I played Borderlands 2 and thought it was the greatest game of all time. Seriously, I must have played through it and all its attendant DLC like eight times. It beautifully improved on the (admittedly somewhat weaksauce) original in every conceivable way.
Then I played The Pre-Sequel and…I was thoroughly underwhelmed. The story didn’t grab me (I could never at any point of playing it described the plot to someone), the characters were uninteresting, the humour fell flat. I still enjoyed playing it with some buddies, but I could only bring myself to play it a couple of times.Maybe Gearbox can grab that brass ring again, but the franchise just feels tired at this point. They need to innovate if they want to keep my interest.
Personally, I’ve never understood the “it needs to be different” mentality— when talking about another game in a series— the reason there’s a sequel is because people liked the original.Because if it’s not suitably different (which varies from person to person), what is the motivation to buy into a new iteration? This article outlines my biggest concern with BL3. I loved the first two, but there have been iterations on the genre, and developments in gaming as a whole, that I personally enjoy. Even Diablo got rid of the notion of playing through the same campaign multiple times on different difficulties to eventually get to a max level that ends up ultimately not mattering. Not that I am privy to any information that BL3 follows that same blueprint that the first two did, but I also don’t see anything that would indicate they’ve moved on from that, or else I think they would have made reference to it.If BL3 ends up just being just more of the same Borderlands, like the article says, I don’t know how inclined I am to buy it despite enjoying the other two. If the only changes are cosmetic and some small tweaks to mechanics, I’m not sure that’s enough to warrant a full price purchase. I can just boot Borderlands 2, a game I’ve owned along with it’s full slate of post-release content for almost a decade, and apparently have the same basic experience.That’s always going to be enough for the people who have hundreds or even thousands of hours in the franchise, but for me personally, I’m not sure it’s enough for me.
In my opinion, Fallout is guilty of this. If they had stuck with the model of Fallout 3 and New Vegas, they would’ve been better off. I didn’t not like Fallout 4, in fact I will go against common opinion and say that I did enjoy it, but some aspects of it were just distracting and took away from the experience (looking at you, settlement building/defense). With Fallout 76, I think the devs went too far with trying to evolve. I played for over an hour at a friend’s house and left away pretty underwhelmed and unhappy with the changes. All they had to do was offer a co-op option to a game based off Fallout 4, coincidentally ala Borderlands, with an “arena” option to do PVP akin to their system as well. I can’t tell you how many times I played Fallout 3 and the DLC, as well as uber-buggy New Vegas. They were the same but different, exactly how the article describes Borderlands; a consistent formula with just enough change to keep things fresh and polished. Fallout 4 attempted it, but 76 just fell right on its face.
I can see how someone would find the Borderlands series to be obnoxious- the sense of humor can fall flat, the over-the-top exuberance can be wearying and it’s core gameplay loop is a loot treadmill just like the action RPGs and MMOs that in part inspired it. But it’s also a refreshing change from the overly dour, dark games that it was initially pitted against when the series started and it’s a series that has managed to evolve from game to game while remaining consistent about what it does well and what its core audience is looking for. Looking at environmental design for example, the first game is a Mad Max shooter awash in sandy browns while the second game deliberately starts in a frozen blue wasteland and continues changing environments as it goes and the Pre-Sequel explores space and low gravity. The core of it doesn’t change all that much, but I think each game brings a new iteration that has kept it from getting stale, in my opinion. And it’s fun to shoot weird guns and try to get better weird guns and chase that next skill point so you can see bigger numbers pop out of your enemies’ faces when you set them on fire or explode them. The Borderlands series is what I play when I want to turn my brain off and I’m excited for a new one- it looks like they’re making some good improvements without fixing what ain’t broken.
I enjoyed the hell out of Borderlands. Was sold at the Cage the Elephant intro and still break out the old hardware every now and then to play it.BL2… I can’t explain exactly why I bounced. Hard. I got to the point where the city took off to parts unknown, realized I didn’t really have it in me to keep doing the fetch and kill quests, put it down and haven’t been able to go back for more than a few minutes since. Glad the game is going to be more of the same, proudly and visibly – for those who made it through BL2, it’s probably mana from heaven.
It doesn’t have to be different, it just needs to be improved upon.
“comedy-adjacent low-grade meme fodder” is my noise band’s name
I just played through the pre-sequel which was OK, but reminded me of some of the things I didn’t like that I hope they fix in BL3. Better quests would be huge, the quests can be such an annoying slog in the other games, it’d be nice to have some more interesting ones. Also the guns, I feel like I get stuck using the same guns way past their useful level because you just get such absolute garbage most of the time. Nothing like a purple dropping and it has some weird firing mode or like a 10 second reload time or something else making it really annoying to use.
This is the review that I needed to push me over the edge. What I want is more of Borderlands 2, with different settings and more guns. SUATMM.
I was super disappointed with the presequel and was warm on the first game but BL2 with a group of people is super fun. I’m kind of curious about how they’re going to try to differentiate from other newer loot shooters out there like destiny and division. Either way it’s a game a lot of my friends want to play so hopefully I’ll get to play through it with a big group. There’s something so cool about this series when you find a gun that’s the perfect fit for you.
I hope this comment isn’t too edgy, and my apologies if anyone is offended, but I enjoyed Borderlands (the first a lot, the second a bunch and the third not so much) and hope that Borderlands 3 is good.
The Voice of Reason speaks!
While reading your comment I laughed, cried, gasped, and left feeling both offended and sexually gratified. All-in-all I give it a 4/10.
“More of the same” is exactly what I want from Borderlands, at least for now. BL4 might have to change things up a bit more to stay interesting, but for now, I’m all about just playing another one of these.
Yeah, agreed. I’d still be playing BL2 and TPS if I wasn’t so familiar with all the levels by now that I could do ‘em in my sleep. All I really want from a new Borderlands is just “more,” and it looks like BL3 should hopefully do the trick.Now to see if they ever put out a native Linux port!
‘if there were those who grumbled about the encroaching sameness of it all’Hell I had this problem with the second one. It probably didn’t help that I didn’t play Boarderlands 1 until after 2 came out and I went right to 2 after beating 1, but 2 was just so much of the same except moreso that I couldn’t finish it.
Remember what was different? Bioshock 2 and that was not good. All of the terror and ambiance were taken out and they added an abysmal multi-player death match
Point is, I’ll take more of the same BL. Especially if tiny Tina is there.
I dont get the hate of bioshock 2, it was a great game, the story wasnt as good but its the best gameplay of the series and has one of the best dlc`s ever with minerveras den
You’ve gone where I can’t follow, Mr. Frodo: BioShock 2 was good, and Minerva’s Den was great.
If you only play one Bioshock, make it the second one. Best game, best writing.
I’d go for “Bioshock 2 was great, and Minerva’s Den may be the singly-best bit of DLC I’ve ever played.”Granted, when I played Bioshock 2, my daughter was just about the age of a Little Sister, and it became incredibly personal to defend those little girls in the game. A lot of the endgame dialogue is about what it means to really be a parent and the personal nature of it really hit me. Did it have the shocking impact of seeing Rapture for the first time? Nope, but the first Bioshock didn’t have anything even vaguely resembling the emotional weight of Bioshock 2, not to mention the massive gut-punch that was Minerva’s Den.
Bioshock 2 owned actually
Is the Masher-style revolver back? (It wasn’t in 2, and I own but haven’t played TPS.)
“How do you artistically evaluate something that has no interest in being art?”You wanna explain to us how you define “art”, and how this differs?
Webster’s defines art as “a highly subjective distinction that people like to argue about when talking about video games online.” Let’s break down each of these words, and really dig deep into the author’s intent here. “A,” an article often used to refer to a singular instance of…
See, you made some kind of point in your article that I asked for a bit of elaboration on, and instead you gave me a snarky non-answer that’s of no use to anyone.I know the concept of art is subjective and hotly debated, that’s why I questioned your invocation of it in this context: as clearly you intended it to carry some connotations relative to the work in question.In other words, you brought it up in the first place; I don’t know why you’re sassing me for picking up on it. Am I just supposed to be nodding my head sagely, rather than engaging with what I read here?
Okay, fine: You caught me in a sarcastic mood, and sarcasm ensued. Here’s the less-tongue-in-cheek response:
“Art,” in this sense, means an effort to say something about something. An intent to convey a message through some combination of story, mechanics, and visuals. From the brief snippet I played of it, Borderlands 3 has no such intent; it also has no desire to say anything about playing games themselves, which is why it introduces no new actions or changes to the series formula. It feels explicitly designed not to provoke feelings or thoughts in the people playing it.
By that logic, is the Mona Lisa not art, since it’s not some kind of treatise but simply a portrait?Is there nothing to be said about the Cistine Chapel, since Michaelangelo just did it for a paycheck?Are Shakespeare’s sonnets not art, since they follow a rigid formula that they do nothing to upend?Also, how can you decide from a 90-minute gameplay demo that a work tens of hours long has no abitions to be profound or meaningful?Thanks for replying btw, I appreciate that 🙂
Sometimes you just get a sense for a work after witnessing it for a fraction of its intended length. Borderlands was never “trying to say something”. It made no point about humanity, about the nature of violence, or anything similar. You asked a question and got an answer. It was an answer you didn’t like, so you kept probing, asking to compare a formulaic sequel-to-a-sequel to inspired work that is thought provoking. If Gearbox had hidden a sly reference to God being a construct of man, if they had iterated within a rhythmic structure, leveraging the structure itself to say something about the state of culture at the time, if they had displayed any kind of artistic sophistication, an innovation on the very mechanics of what art is and can be, then you’d have an argument. But that’s not the case here.A more apt comparison would be Borderlands 3 to Thomas Kinkade. Paint by numbers, subject matter that is rote to the point of banality, showing no ambition beyond making a game that those that already like the formula will thirst for. Mass produced, constructed for the sole purpose of selling units to people with little appreciation or understanding of what art is. Or in this case, what it’s not.
This is the most pedantic and condescending response I could imagine. If only the author put this much effort into his articles, he might not be a nothing writer dishing out overly critical reviews for games that he doesn’t seem to understand.
I think it’s useful here to differentiate between “art” and “craft.” Both are created with intent, and both can be beautiful and have merit, but it’s the intent that separates the two. Broadly, art is meant to inspire or convey a feeling, emotion, or mood; whereas craft is built to a specific use or purpose. In general, video games are more craft than art, with some exceptions. Reviews like this are tough, sometimes, because pop culture is usually intended as art and the struggle here is how to apply that lens to a work that makes no effort to transcend the craft.
That definition only really works when you apply it arbitrarily though. Games aren’t furniture, they’re media pieces made to be consumed. They’re not simply assembled, they’re authored.Would you say a portrait doesn’t transcend the craft? Or a landscape painting made for a backdrop? This feels less like a dichotomy of art vs craft, and more like one of high art vs low art.
The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/artIs the primary purpose of engaging in the game to appreciate its beauty or emotional power?
Was the game created and produced to generate feelings in its audience?Probably not, no. Video games can be art. But that doesn’t mean all video games are art. Because if everything is art then art is so common it ceases to be special.
This game was created to make money. And to be fun to play. It’s a theme park ride. No one wonders if a roller coaster is “art”.
I think they meant that Borderlands is intensely interested in staying in the status quo and not saying anything that might challenge the legions of weird gamers online. This is obviously an artistic statement, it’s just such a boring one that some people would rather call it “not art”.
More pain-in-the-ass inventory management. That is a bummer. Really the only things I wanted out of a new Borderlands were more skills so character builds could be a bit more differentiated (seems like this could be the case), and better inventory management. I get that it’s hard when guns have lots of factors (recoil, ammo, damage, element, etc.) so something can’t always be objectively better than what you have, but Diablo 3 made it work. In Diablo 3 I would immediately trash loot if two out of the three arrows were red. I still remember picking up The Pre-Sequel and opening up my menu and feeling deflated, “Oh…this is like, exactly the same.” I was hoping they’d find a way to refine that by now. Oh well.
Unless they outright break the game, then it looks like this is exactly what I want. I avoided the Pre-Sequel initially because of tepid reviews, but I’m enjoying that since it was bundled with BL2 remaster, and that’s certainly more, and the same. This looks gorgeous, there’s crazy loot, presumably a decent story, I’ll be getting it at launch most likely.
I never had enough people to really do the entire part of part 2 that involved the super high level baddies. I managed to kill that one superpowered creature (looked like a mean plant, I forgot the names) but it took about 25 minutes. It just got too hard to level up after a while. I did spend HOURS comparing inventory items…my favorite was when you’d find a gun that worked for you and keep it and keep kicking ass with it even though it was technically much lower level. Rocket launchers were especially specific to the player, my friend could only use the spray ones but I’d use them like sniper rifles…but he could really use sniper rifles. I hope they did something to make hand-to-hand less automatically damaging, there wasn’t a lot of incentive to melee.I played through most of the pre-sequel and liked jumping but found it lacking.I still only have a 360 so I’m betting I’d have to upgrade to keep going.
It’s confusing to me that someone who doesn’t appear to like this game would be tapped to write an article that would largely be read by people who do? Also, unable to tick and tie the quality of life enhancements and improvements / changes to the game noted in other previews to this article. Vexing.
The idea that only fans of games should write about or critique them professionally is baffling to me. I’ve spent a lot of time with Borderlands, I wanted to see what the new one does, I had a chance to go check it out and tell people about it, so I did.
I guess for me what’s weird about it is that you seem to show a little disdain for the series in general. If this was your first experience with Borderlands and you didn’t particularly like it, there’d be no reason not to expect you to not write something about it after the fact.But we’re talking about a very popular series with a bit of an intense fandom, where the sequel is kind of *meant* to appeal largely to people who are already fans of the series (or at least otherwise would be, had they ever tried it before). For a publication to send somebody out who doesn’t particularly like the series in the first place is just a really odd choice because you’re already obviously not the kind of person the game is being made for, and your opinion is just not going to be nearly as relevant to people who decide to come and check out articles like this. Saying that the game is “more of the same” can mean and be based on something entirely different than it would be coming from somebody who WAS at least a bit of a fan.So yeah, when covering a new instalment in a series, if a publication isn’t going to send someone who’s a fan to cover it, it’s definitely a bit bizarre to not at least send someone who’s able to treat it as a fresh experience.
As a super fan of the series (Loved 1 and especially 2, Pre-Sequel was a cash grab I liked anyway), I’m not sure what he was expecting the game to “say”. I get that the AVC is like, so much deeper than the rest of us unwashed, but someone poses a legitimate question and first they get snark, and then they get high minded bullshit.But we did get that it’s “more of the same” which is something.
The problem here is that the question you were supposed to ask is “Is this good Borderlands?” and not “Is Borderlands any good to begin with?”
Hi William I don’t disagree with that. I think it’s unfortunate that your voice is the only voice that AV Club choose to broadcast. The fact is we are talking about the 3rd game in a popular series that people like. When I see an article about a game I like on a gaming website that I like, I prefer not to be browbeaten about it. Change my mind.
This is how I feel about VR. Gaming sites always seem to give their VR assignments to the guys that admit they get nauseous easily .One that note: Borderlands 2 VR on the playstation is really fun, especially with the Aim Controller.
I bought Borderlands on Steam a couple month ago, and they did us all a solid by offering all the DLC for free as part of the Borderlands GOTY Enhanced a couple weeks ago.Borderlands is one of the only shooter-looters I can run on this XPS 13, so hopefully I can port my Mordecai into the new game somehow.
So it is good?
This is exactly what I was hoping for in Borderlands 3, but I was afraid there was going to be too much pressure on being like the games that have come out since. From what I’ve seen of the game so far, I’m very excited.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the author, per se, but the evolution from the first and second games was sort of a joy to behold. It was unique. It didn’t continue the story of the first game, so much as it ran parallel to it. Maybe by design, maybe just because they were written by different people. Regardless, it worked, and for me it made for a fascinating story along with a fun game to play.My primary complaint about Borderlands 2 was that the art design was so MUCH, visually noisy, even when playing an audibly-noisy game. The first game didn’t have that problem.tl;dr 2+3 being identical or more of the same is a let down in an artistic sense. In a primal man-boy sense, I’m going to set fire to some psychos and have fun doing it. C’est la vie.
I’ve played a couple of Borderlands games and they have the same problem as most action RPGs – getting to the end-game content is a tedious, dreary slog. Fine for one play through on normal difficulty to see the narrative to a close but you’re missing out on 75% of your character’s skill-tree.
As far as I can tell the only game that does this right is still Diablo 3, though Grim Dawn seems to have made some moves in the correct direction recently.
Sounds like an expansion pack with upgrades. I’m ok with that.
Borderlands always struck me as the sort of aesthetic you go for when you just broke up with your youth group and you’re angry all the time for reasons you can never articulate.Anyway, not only is it boring (say what you will about loot shooters, they change [very slightly] with the time) but Gearbox is a shady fucking company that does not deserve to be financially supported
“How do you artistically evaluate something that has no interest in being art?” “It has no soul, and does not seem to require one.” Dang, that’s some fairly stupid and cruel hyperbole. It’s hard to take a reviewer seriously when they needlessly swerve into such disparaging territory. I’m sure there’s many little things to differentiate this one from the last, but do you hate a new baseball game that still plays the same ol’ dang baseball again?Then after shitting all over it, you say in the comments you wanna play it with your friends more? WTF
The only thing I’d like to see radically changed in B3 is the inventory management. You grind away for backpack upgrades until you max them out; and then suddenly there’s no longer any way to improve that aspect… …just when you’ve reached the point where it should no longer be an issue. And after that, every time you’re in an area with too few vending machines (which there are a few of), you start having to dump loot, which sucks in any game. Story-wise, the loot is either digitized or it isn’t, so it makes no sense to hit a hard limit like that, once you’ve established there’s no mass involved.I feel like once you’ve flipped the story/levels once and are on the “ultimate” character levels, carrying capacity should be unlimited ( or at least tripled).
Love the Artwork, I played the first two games, definitely won’t miss this one! Great article mate!