Buy Borderlands 3

Borderlands hit the scene about 10 years ago, and it instantly resonated with people. The reductive description of the game would be Diablo with guns or Doom with loot, and they would be somewhat accurate in explaining why people liked both the original game and the sequel. It makes sense, then, that there would be some excitement for a new entry specifically made for this console generation, and on the surface, Borderlands 3 delivers on expectations. Whether it surpasses those expectations is a different story.

If you're familiar with the previous entries in the series, then you already have a good idea about the story in Borderlands 3. You arrive on the planet of Pandora as a vault hunter, galactic treasure hunters who open giant alien tombs in the hope of finding unspeakable treasure amidst all of the dangers within. You decided to join up with Lilith, a siren and fellow vault hunter who leads a militia known as the Crimson Raiders. She was lucky enough to obtain a map that leads to vaults all across the known solar system, but the map has been stolen by bandits who are going to offer it to the Calypso twins, leaders of a cult known as the Children of the Vault. With a united bandit clan behind them, the twins would use the map to unlock the vaults for themselves, turning this into a fight for possession of the map and a race to unlock all of those vaults first.

If you want a somewhat offbeat but still apt description of the story, think of it the same way you would like any of the recent "Fast and Furious" movies. You have a reunion of sorts with all of the remaining living characters you've met from the first game onward. You see a good number of the characters grow into their new roles while they display the same traits that made them loveable in the first place. You also have a strong sense of family instilled among the ragtag group. Scattered among all of those moments of character growth and heartstring-tugging is writing that appeals to some base sensibilities with some jokes that don't land like you think they would. The writing also means that some of the new characters you meet can be hit or miss in terms of likability. The former leader of the Sun Smashers bandit gang, for example, can be quite annoying while his second in command is enjoyable to be with if you've already taken a liking to the personalities in the Borderlands world. The same goes for most of the enemies, as you'll care less about them here despite some of their quirks.

Speaking of which, the portrayal of the Calypso twins Tyreen and Troy is disappointing. Troy does fine as the more serious part of the duo, while Tyreen is much more personable. However, their combined portrayal as famous streamers able to unite the bandit clans isn't particularly compelling. Their attempts at cracking mean jokes always fall flat, and their attempts at being villainous don't seem that menacing. They're present, and you know they have to be taken out, but you don't feel a great impetus to do so. Compare this to Borderlands 2, where you have an innate desire to kill Handsome Jack, but you don't mind him chiming in every now and then because he'll say something absurd or solidify his evil attitude. In short, the Calypso twins are forgettable adversaries unless you're not a big fan of streamers in the first place.

As in prior outings, you start off the game by choosing a class, and each one is different not just amongst themselves but amongst the ones from prior titles. Amara is a Siren with the ability to pull off elemental attacks or large spirit-based melee hits. Zane is more of a ranged character but also defensive since he can put up a big shield for the group and make clones of himself. FL4K is a beastmaster, so his pets do the attacking for him. Meanwhile, Moze is rather standard until you summon her mech and have her jump in with a triple-monitor viewpoint, similar to what you see in Titanfall.

From here, you have the familiar gameplay loop that kept the Borderlands titles in rotation for so long. With a semi-open world at your disposal, you can freely roam the environment and take out roaming gangs and packs of beasts, but you'll likely take on a bevy of main and side missions. In the midst of all the killing, you'll gather up cash to buy ammo, health, and the ability to respawn. You'll gain XP to boost your abilities among three different skill trees, but it'll take more than one runthrough of the 30-hour campaign (or plenty of multiplayer sessions) to complete all of the trees for one character. 

Most importantly, you'll get guns and, as promised, you can snag plenty of firearms from bosses or dead bodies, or chests as mission rewards. The guns have their own power levels and rarities and a bunch of unique features. You may find a pistol that is single-shot or semi-automatic. You can find a shotgun that spits out flaming shells or a machine gun with homing bullets. One rifle can fire smaller rifles to act as turrets while, a rocket launcher can shoot multiple mini-warheads. There's even silly stuff, like guns that get so hot that you need to cool them down with a water pistol or guns that can explode in your hand if you hold down the trigger long enough. There are enough guns that the idea of sticking with one gun for long, even if you want the bonuses from staying loyal to one manufacturer, is almost impossible since you'll frequently find better and different guns. You'll curse the game for starting you off with such a small inventory, so you're often forced to compare stats in the middle of a firefight.

That's really all there is to it. It may be reductive to say, but when you compare Borderlands 3 to Borderlands 2 and the original, there's not much that's different between them. For the most part, the gunfights are still solid enough that you don't mind the gameplay loop feeling familiar. While each fight is exhilarating, the later boss fights can get tedious due to their bullet sponge nature. It's nice that you can go between planets to encounter some different environments, but the abundance of loot remains the game's biggest hook and impetus to keep playing. With that said, there are a few changes, both small and large, that keep Borderlands 3 feeling good.

On the combat side, fights feel more dynamic. Enemies gladly take cover and slide into places, and you can do the same exact thing. If you're in multiplayer, you can ping enemies or other places of importance, so those without mics can still execute some strategies instead of blindly guessing what to do or where to go. Visiting different planets also means that the enemy variety is wider, so while you may start out by shooting at some bandits in Pandora, that'll change into trained private security personnel on the more civilized and corporate planets.

Although the game can be beaten solo, this is better suited for multiplayer, and while good online performance is a signature of the series, there are a few tweaks to accommodate all players. If you crave the classic style of the series, you can create online encounters where everyone sees the same loot, and it's first come, first serve in terms of who can grab it. If you'd rather not fight about loot, then you can create something similar to Destiny, where everyone sees their own loot stash per fight and everyone walks away happy. There's also tweakable difficulty, so if you team up with someone at a way lower level than you, you aren't going to spend the entire time carrying them until they reach an even level.

Finally, the game has some post-campaign content for those who aren't willing to invest in future DLC yet. Beating the game once unlocks some more difficulty levels and modifiers that alter the campaign in different ways for a chance to score better guns. If you're looking for something less involved, the Proving Ground challenges give you a variety of things to kill in 30 minutes or so. No matter which route you choose, you'll also level up your specific post-campaign ranks for chances at even better stats.

As expected, the audio is top-notch. With the wide variety of guns at your disposal, it is especially important that they all sound distinct, and that's exactly what happens. Even among the pistols, each of the firearms sounds about as different as it feels, which shows some real dedication. Elsewhere, the music sounds good, especially with the variety of genres on display due to some of the different bosses and planets. While the jokes can be hit or miss depending on your sense of humor, the performances are just as excellent as before.

Graphically, however, Borderlands 3 is confusing. The title retains its graphic novel look, so it looks similar to the games that came before it. The game also has two different options if you're playing on the PS4 Pro, so you can either go for a more stable 30fps to boost resolution or go for a game that tries to hit 60fps if you're fine with 1080p. No matter what you choose, however, you'll still get bouts of slowdown when things get too busy, and this is much more apparent if you're playing in split-screen. Vegetation and a few other objects can spring up out of nowhere, and the game has more than a few instances where texture details load in slow enough to be noticeable. Combined with some lip sync that isn't great, and you'll wonder if this is running on Unreal Engine 3 instead of Unreal Engine 4, since some of the display issues were signatures of the former throughout the prior console generation.

Borderlands 3 is a solid game for fans. It relishes in the multiplayer moment-to-moment combat, and the multitude of guns and the post-campaign game give players enough reasons to keep playing long after the credits have rolled. It won't convert those who disliked the series into fans, but it also does everything it can to keep itself true to what players liked about the originals. For those who are still deciding whether to jump in, Borderlands 3 is a good place to do so.

Score: 8.0/10