Borderlands was as soon as poised to be considered one of gaming’s largest franchises, however the home that Jack constructed appears to be crumbling primarily based on latest kind. Can Gearbox’s looter-shooter battle for its life and are available again from the brink?
I am going to preface issues by saying this: I love Borderlands as a franchise. I used to be in on the bottom ground for the primary recreation and loved it despited its limitations, and Borderlands 2 was comfortably considered one of my most-played Xbox 360 video games, having looted with associates and strangers alike for numerous hours again within the day. However since then, it simply looks like Gearbox and the opposite groups who’ve been pulled in to assist out on the collection have did not recapture what made the early days of the collection so particular, so thrilling, so distinctive. Based mostly on how a lot pleasure I acquired out of Borderlands 2, I genuinely anticipated this collection to develop and evolve into one thing that might slot in alongside my different core gaming obsessions — the likes of Monster Hunter, Ultimate Fantasy, Future, Diablo, and Pokémon — however because the years have rolled on, it is grow to be more and more clear that Borderlands merely would not have the consistency to rub shoulders with any of these franchises, and again and again, it has struggled to ship something near the degrees of high quality that made me a fan within the first place.
There’s one notable exception right here, after all — Tales From The Borderlands was undeniably excellent. I would go as far as to say it was probably Telltale’s greatest recreation, with the point-and-click-style journey coming simply after gamers began to see by means of the smoke and mirrors that made The Strolling Useless work so effectively and leveraging that for some becoming fourth wall breaks and gags which managed to tessellate completely with the Borderlands vibe, and mocking the style with out being actively unhealthy within the course of… an extremely uncommon feat for jokes at a recreation’s personal expense. However that was means again in 2014, which means it has been near a decade since this franchise produced a real top-tier recreation, though the primary indicators of rot additionally began to point out that exact same 12 months.
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel was, frankly, a little bit of a multitude. We are able to begin with the identify, with the sport doing a joke earlier than you even get previous the boxart, however one that does not make it totally clear how this factor matches into collection chronology — one thing that extra lately did not appear to pan out so effectively when Goat Simulator jumped straight to quantity three as a gag, however that leaves final 12 months’s recreation with solely round 2% of the full TA gamers of the unique, which is a large drop even contemplating the primary recreation is in Recreation Cross. TPS was additionally a multitude mechanically, although, including 4 new Vault Hunters, two of whom may utterly ignore the sport’s lunar setting and lack of oxygen to only waltz round outdoors of air pockets as they preferred, with out a lot in the way in which of checks and balances to even this out. Jokes simply did not appear to land anyplace close to as usually (cricket gags are a reasonably area of interest area), new weapon components Radiation and Cryo have been simply objectively worse variations of Shock and Corrosive respectively, and it simply did not have that very same draw as the primary video games, regardless of being thematically pretty attention-grabbing. Coming off the again of the vastly profitable Borderlands 2, this simply wasn’t it.
Even going into Full Sequel Mode, the franchise dropped the ball once more with 2019’s Borderlands 3. Like every little thing that has come after B2, this felt very very like a recreation going by means of the motions to try to replicate its prior success. Good-looking Jack was at all times going to be a tough act to observe, however new antagonists the Calypso twins proved simply straight-up unlikeable, utterly lacking Jack’s occasional relatability to only have us face off towards a pair of odious self-serving pricks. That is a working theme for the sport on the whole, truly, with the roster providing up valuable few characters that we’re supposed to really like and most, if not all, being really detestable. Early video games gave us some fan-favourite characters, from the Vault Hunters themselves (with the primary recreation’s returning in 2) to secondary of us like Torgue, Moxxi, Tiny Tina… heck, even Shade and all his Hunter S. Thompson nonsense. Just about the whole solid of Borderlands 3 exists to be hated, and it runs towards the grain of the earlier video games that had needed you to be part of their ridiculous actions. B3 additionally made the warning indicators begin flashing with a few of its gags, with one specific bounty to kill Wick and Warty being the type of low-effort reference {that a} little one would possibly make… when you discovered it humorous then good for you, however I cringed so arduous that I virtually imploded. Not that it ever actually set an particularly excessive bar, however this collection ought to be higher than this. DLC deserves a point out too, with Borderlands 3 bringing a number of season passes with solely a handful of really respectable content material throughout them — a travesty contemplating Borderlands 2 had a few of the greatest DLC of all time, and that is one thing that might solely worsen.
I used to be delighted to study that we would get a Borderlands spin-off primarily based on Borderlands 2’s excellent Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Hold DLC, however the finish product was respectable at greatest. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands had worlds of potential, particularly given how rather more well-liked Dungeons & Dragons — the premise for each the unique DLC and follow-up recreation — has grown lately, however the closing product missed out on a bunch of what made our first foray into Bunkers & Badasses so good. The unique noticed us adventuring alongside the acquainted faces of the Vault Hunters, displaying us new sides of them in how they approached one thing wildly totally different to their typical adventures (or doubling down on their one facet, within the case of Brick’s insistence on punching every little thing, even in character), but in addition managed to sneak in a reasonably mature and affecting subtext of the entire recreation being a distraction from and methodology of Tina dealing with grief. Wonderlands has none of that, with us joined on our journey by two model new characters who aren’t even enjoying the in-game recreation (and considered one of whom is simply Andy Samberg as Andy Samberg, for higher or worse), with solely Tina herself and some anticipated cameos tying it to the broader Borderlands universe. That is to not say that it ought to essentially have caught extra carefully to the supply materials, however in deviating so little and barely making the most of its standalone nature, it fails to get the very best out of both strategy and simply treads an odd center floor for probably the most half.
Then got here the DLC, and oh boy… I’ve spoken earlier than about simply how unhealthy the Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands DLC is, however it bears repeating because it was in all probability the worst DLC of final 12 months, and one of many worst Season Passes ever. Whereas the mainline Borderlands video games provided a collection of standalone adventures as their DLC choices (with some being easier than others), Wonderlands gives mainly 4 of the identical factor — tedious generic dungeons with repeated goals and evolving bosses on the finish. Because the kicker, these have been designed to be replayed over the course of 4 weeks to see all of the boss types as a means of padding them out, however by merely going offline, you might rattle by means of every in about an hour and that was them completed. Worse but, a few of the new bosses are dreadful, and defeating them provides them to the pool of potential fights within the Chaos Chamber — the DLC successfully makes the sport’s core endgame exercise actively worse, even when the additional areas do supply a smidgen extra selection to a mode that did not actually have all that a lot to start with.
Most lately, we had New Tales From The Borderlands, which simply form of got here out of nowhere with minimal hype and launched quietly late final 12 months. Telltale’s unique format would mainly function a bottomless effectively for an anthology collection set in any universe, however New Tales actually feels prefer it squanders its potential with simply the second try. I am going to admit that I’ve tried and did not get into this a couple of instances so I am only some episodes in, however as soon as once more, it simply feels prefer it’s missing what made the unique so good. As with Borderlands 3, each character is so abrasive or obnoxious as to be utterly unlikeable, and whereas there’s the odd giggle alongside the way in which (largely courtesy of fancy murderer bot L0U13, who’s mainly only a well-spoken model of KOTOR’s HK-47), so most of the jokes fall flat that it is arduous to remain when the sport is clearly attempting so very arduous to be humorous. Right here, Borderlands’ cultural references get weirder than ever, too, with a notable instance being a whole mini-game that sends up Skylanders — a fad of a franchise that has been on the bench for the very best a part of a decade at this level. Good well timed burn there, guys.
Even the long-planned Borderlands film can not seem to escape the franchise’s downward spiral. It was first introduced means again in 2015 and did not choose up director Eli Roth till some 5 years later, and it lately got here to mild that Deadpool director Tim Miller has been introduced in to direct reshoots following check screenings late final 12 months… feels like these went effectively, then. The solid is wild too, with Cate Blanchett as Lilith, Kevin Hart as Roland, Jamie Lee Curtis as Tannis, and Jack Black as Claptrap, together with another fairly huge names. A film may actually assist get Borderlands again within the highlight if completed effectively — it is an avenue Sony is aggressively pursuing in the intervening time, with all of its key unique franchises set for main TV or film diversifications within the coming years (sure, even Gran Turismo) — however it may simply as simply put one other bullet within the collection ought to it flop, and that is the very last thing Borderlands wants at this level.
Whereas it won’t inform the total story, TA participant counts does not less than give a very good indicator of simply how a lot Borderlands has fallen off lately. The primary two Xbox 360 video games are each within the high 50 most-played video games on the location, with effectively over 300,000 gamers a bit (round a 3rd of all registered customers) and including one other 350k throughout the Xbox One rereleases, albeit possible with a good quantity of crossover as followers merely improve to the newer variations. Once we get to Borderlands 3, although, that drops to a bit of over 200,000 — nonetheless an enormous quantity all issues thought-about, certain, but in addition nonetheless a 50% drop-off in participant rely, and The Pre-Sequel sits at across the identical mark throughout its two variations. For Borderlands 3, we additionally see solely round 1 / 4 of these gamers get caught into the DLC in any respect, dropping to lower than 10% for the second season cross’ slim choices, which actually soured the collection for lots of followers. Wonderlands, in the meantime, solely hits a bit of over 60k, whereas New Tales From The Borderlands hasn’t even damaged 3,000 but… for context, Telltale’s unique has over 150,000 throughout the 360 and XB1 variations.
Borderlands is in a little bit of a tough place. The overwhelming success of two led to the crew repeatedly going again to the effectively and that ‘put Good-looking Jack in every little thing’ strategy wore out its welcome fairly quick, however on the identical time, each step away from the franchise’s pillar title has seemingly taken it additional and additional away from what made it so successful within the first place. It is just like the type of ennui that has set in with the Far Cry collection, with each recreation since FC3 successfully being a retread of the very same format, and unsurprisingly, it is getting previous, particularly with so many different main collection displaying actual development and evolution, for higher or worse — simply examine how totally different Valhalla is to the unique Murderer’s Creed, or on the opposite facet of the fence, take a look at how God of Conflict went from button-mashing gratuitous violence to open-ended mature storytelling. When so many huge video games are continually altering with the instances, it simply makes it all of the extra apparent when others aren’t, and whereas ‘extra of the identical’ is commonly what followers of one thing need, we nonetheless want one thing particular with every new iteration, else diminishing returns are inevitable. Borderlands, now greater than ever, wants to seek out that one thing particular.
Regardless of these huge slumps in participant counts, some horrible DLC practices, and up to date spin-offs placing in tiny numbers in comparison with the collection’ highlights, I do nonetheless assume we’ll see a fourth mainline Borderlands recreation. It feels inevitable, however on the identical time looks like a real make-or-break second for the franchise. The crew must discover a solution to recapture that magic that made the second recreation so particular to so many gamers, to reinvent the components in a means that makes it really feel like we’re not simply replaying the identical recreation over once more. And competitors goes to be stiffer lately, too. This triple-A title would possibly as soon as have been king of the FPS x jokes scene, however take a look at how simply Justin Roiland’s Excessive on Life — with a bit of assist from Recreation Cross, after all — simply sashayed in and stole that crown, racking up extra TA gamers in beneath a month than Borderlands 3 has accrued in over three years. One way or the other, towards all odds, that Wick & Warty gag simply acquired even much less humorous.
