Borderlands 3 PC, PS4, Xbox One
Developer Gearbox Software Publisher 2K Games Format PC (tested), PS4, Xbox One Release Out now
When Borderlands scorched its imprint onto the landscape in 2009, it did so as an inspired proof-of-concept: a loot-powered shooter. Ten years later every game is a Skinner Box, coiled and ready to shower colour-coded nonsense on its players in a coolly calculated drip-feed. And every game is an RPG full of skill trees and stat screens, from Far Cry to FIFA. Borderlands 3 couldn’t possibly make the same impact, could it?
Instead, Gearbox goes about making it all so slick and hypnotically enjoyable that you don’t care you’ve played it all before, three times now. It polishes the established experience to such a sheen you could see your own disaffected face in it, if you were ever to focus on anything but shooting Varkids with a sniper rifle that screams when you reload it.
The story picks up some time after Handsome Jack’s demise at the end of Borderlands 2, and the fall of Hyperion on Pandora in Telltale’s wonderful spin-off Tales From The Borderlands. The bandits of Pandora have united and rebranded themselves The Children of the Vault, slavish devotees of, more or less, a postapocalyptic YouTuber. Tyreen Calypso reminds her death cult to “Like, follow, and obey” after each wasteland broadcast, and if that sounds a little on the nose, it’s at least enjoyably cathartic to face off against an insidious influencer.
Once again you’re a grizzled Vault Hunter, one of four archetypes: Amara, a Siren with heavy elemental attacks able to fling and slam enemies; the Beastmaster FL4K, who summons robotic pets to the fray; Gunner Moze and her stomping mech; and finally Zane, the Operative with Zero-like powers of stealth and deception. As a quartet their powers combine, if not deftly, then certainly spectacularly. Although their special abilities offer visibly different approaches to the essential problem of ‘too many bandits onscreen’, they feel like four all-rounders next to Borderlands 2’ s nuanced builds, aimed more towards the newcomer than those who got elbow-deep in the prior games’ complex DLC classes.
Nevertheless, the endorphins flow when you turn the tide of a dusty Pandora fight in a blink by summoning a specced-out war mech and pulverise every jabbering Psycho in sight. Or silence the synthwave-soaked streets of Promethea with a decoy hologram and an airborne SNTNL bot picking off Badass Guardians. There are clear and identifiable new additions, such as the Vault Hunters’ newfound ability to vault and kneeslide, which make every encounter such a joy, but it’s the intangibles that really do it.
Gearbox knows how to make health bars deplete and hit points haemorrhage from enemy skulls in just the right way. It knows how to elicit pornographic fascination over weapon statistics and rarity ratings. The feedback loop is the same as it ever was: shoot, loot, pore over microscopic improvements to your DPS, repeat. It didn’t need fixing.
That numerical mastery over your chimp brain is matched by some fine enemy design and environmental variation courtesy of Borderlands 3’ s planet-hopping main questline. Stepping down onto lavender-tinged, faintly medieval Athenas is just the kind of palatecleanser you need after a couple of hours pounding Maliwan mercs on Promethea, which likewise dispatches the punishingly beige climes of Pandora. The resident fauna and invading forces in each location bring out a different meter of gunfight: one minute long-shots on oblivious Guardians, the next frenzied shotgun blasts against a swarm of rapidly multiplying Ratches who heal themselves on their dead kin.
But for all the expertly crafted shootouts, it’s also a game with glaring technical funk holes which stable FPS numbers seem to fall into with frustrating regularity.
Borderlands 3’ s poorly optimised and unpredictable PC performance at launch frequently steps in to ruin the moment. It’s a maddening affliction in particular to snipers, who see framerates tumble every single time they zoom in with a scope, while the console release is hamstrung by splitscreen issues and similarly inconsistent framerates.
These are problems which can and surely will be patched out within weeks. But tone is something
Borderlands 3 seems to struggle with from the opening cutscene and its barrage of fan service to its dwarfism jokes and discount-supermarket-grade banter. It’s an artistic voice that frequently falters, wavering in tone and often punching down or throwing out weak popculture references just as you’re on the verge of starting to like it. Previous series entrants were hardly the Richard Pryors of their day, but the characters they produced endured. They even coaxed out the odd grin. The class of Borderlands 3, from Tyreen’s stock influencer schtick to your many forgettable allies’ incidental chatter, feels like it’s been assembled using the spare parts of better characters.
You can sit there nodding to yourself at having decided to dislike its writing, and also sit there immersed in its world of warring corporations and mythical loot, almost indefinitely. That’s Gearbox’s sleight of hand. As you do, memorable encounters keep surfacing. Journeying into a VR version of a bandit camp to rescue a head in a jar who’s being tortured in it, presented in pixels-too-close-to-your-eyes-o-vision. Overrun by an ever-multiplying Ratchling swarm while grave-robbing for Eridium with Maya’s adopted sister. All the while your inventory shimmers with new fortunes, and your sense of investment crystallises. It might not have much to say, but Borderlands 3 gives you a lot to talk about.
So slick and hypnotically enjoyable that you don’t care you’ve played it all before, three times now