Borderlands 3 is a comic style loot shooter developed by Gearbox Software and continues the action of Borderlands 2. The game was released by 2K Games, released on September 13, 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and on October 30, 2019 for Apple macOS.
At first glance, Borderlands 3 is just more Borderlands, from comic style to gameplay, everything is reminiscent of its predecessors. As before, we shoot tons of cannon fodder in gaudy battles and let the good old motivation spiral drive us with better and better items and more XP.
At second glance, Borderlands 3 is still more Borderlands – but improved in exactly the right places! As mentioned at the beginning, a lot has happened since the last part, but Borderlands 3 doesn’t just follow every trend that has since become established in the genre. It is still not an MMO and has no shared or even open world. It demonstrates self-confidence to stay true to its roots and does not simply upset the Borderlands principle just to stay “modern”. Exactly the right decision, because we missed exactly this classic recipe! And it still works perfectly today.
Finally good gameplay?
Sure, we already know this variety from Borderlands or Borderlands 2. In Borderlands 3, on the other hand, the Gunplay finally feels reasonable. If you often had the feeling of running through the area with a soft air, especially in Borderlands 2, the weapons in Borderlands 3 offer a really resounding feeling, which makes the gameplay look even more satisfactory. The opponents are as varied as the weapons.
Although they are not quite as varied as in Borderlands 2, we still get enough cannon fodder in front of the shotgun. Every now and then we run into boss opponents who already represent a much more blatant challenge. But hey, who wants to gamble a loot shooter if all the opponents are a real headache? It doesn’t matter much, that the enemy AI occasionally has dropouts.
The pleasure of mass killing the enemies
As usual, “Borderlands 3” focuses on the action, in which you often face larger enemy waves in arena-like battles. The enemy AI acts rather blunt, which is why the greatest challenge arises from the sheer mass of adversaries. “Borderlands 3” has to catch up (at least on the console) with the general movement and in parts with the Gunplay. The latter turns out to be pretty massive, but sometimes suffers from an artificial inertia in the controls caused by the weapons. The aiming aid function, which is either too strong or too weak depending on the distance and target, is also not optimal.
The system is certainly not bad overall, although the weapons sometimes take up too much of the field of vision. Compared to other loot shooters like “Destiny” or first-person titles like the “Call of Duty” series, the new “Borderlands” cannot keep up. The sometimes sluggish controls, which contrast with the otherwise so fast action, would have been one of the areas in which “Borderlands 3” could have increased to a great extent. This also applies to the still bulky vehicle controls.
New heroes?
There are 4 new heroes for a new era. The new classes may be the best demonstration of the mix of old school virtues and sensible improvements in Borderlands 3. The series always had cool heroes and motivating skill tree development, but there was always the feeling that more could be done – especially because each hero had to limit himself to just one active skill. And lo and behold, part 3 clearly expands his figures here!
Again, each class can develop over three skill trees, but this time almost all heroes also have three different active tricks to choose from. Siren Amara, for example, either magically holds enemies, unleashes a powerful melee melee attack or fires an astral projection that cuts through all enemies in a row.
More comfort less efforts
One of the points in which “Borderlands 3” has increased is the overall playing comfort. While in the predecessor you still had to manually bag the ammunition for your weapons with each loot box, opening a box is now sufficient. If there is still space in your ammunition storage space, which you enlarge with in-game money, the magazines move automatically into your inventory after opening without the need to press a button.
Brand new guns and more brand new guns
When it comes to variety of guns, Borderlands was already part 2 of the genre primus, but part 3 really does go one better! Almost all shooters now come with an alternative fire mode. Assault rifles switch between fully and semi-automatic, elementary weapons switch from fire to frost and a rocket launcher can also become a mortar.
On top of that, the developers have massively expanded the special features of each weapon manufacturer. Hyperion weapons now project a protective shield forward when aiming, and Atlas guns can burn enemies’ tracking chips on their furs. Then our bullets track the enemy around corners! Instead of reloading, we simply throw Tediore weapons away and they then become grenades or turrets. And even those are the simpler weapons.
Then there are completely unique things like a rocket launcher that shoots … poisoned burgers. But probably the greatest feat with all this variety is that all these firearms actually feel fantastic across the board: gaudy effects and massive sounds make it a pleasure to use them. And with that, Borderlands 3 actually sets a new genre standard in terms of weapon variety, against which all other shooters will have to measure themselves in the future.
Who is the boss?
If you feel too safe, you might get a bad awakening from one or the other boss! The first Borderlands was a sad disappointment in this area, the second made things a lot better and the third continues on this path.
The game brings up the most impressive and demanding bosses in the series so far. Again, Borderlands 3 deliberately doesn’t want to be mercilessly tough, but the enemies pleasantly loosen up the game and accentuate the story with impressive highlights. Only one or two fall a little out of the ordinary and knock the player out of their shoes so quickly that they don’t really want to fit the rest of the game flow.
Action with a lot of comedy
Only explorers will see some of the funniest missions as Borderlands 3 is brimming with side quests. Anyone who takes the turn away from the main story on a jungle mission suddenly stumbles across dinosaurs with laser weapons. And a complete side storyline about stupid scientists who created and incited a gang of hyper-intelligent monkeys and a dinosaur over-civilization that escaped the concerns of meat, including their own bosses.
Almost every quest in Borderlands 3 tells its own little story, and the series’ bizarre humor typical of the series makes even playfully banal fetch quests entertaining. And most of them are pretty simple in terms of play – it’s the little stories that still make them something special. Sometimes we take part in a bandit game show, sometimes we shoot whole army divisions over to get coffee for a colleague. At times, the humor is a little more effort than in Borderlands 2, especially for veterans who just know some of the jokes. Yep, Claptrap is still a fool. But Borderlands 3 still has enough fun ideas to keep you entertained.
Rage moments here and there
Discovering all side quests can sometimes be quite annoying. Because one area in which Borderlands 3 would like to remain a little less true to the series tradition is the interface. It has never been really comfortable in the series. Part 3 also seems to have recognized this and makes some really meaningful improvements, but in part even deeper revisions would have made sense. For example, we can now use a hotkey to switch between our active missions instead of jumping into the quest log.
But it would be much more practical to be able to display several missions at once. This is not even possible on the full-screen world map, and the quick-change hotkeys do not work there either. So if you want to plan the perfect route on a map to take all quests with you, you have some fiddling ahead of you. And with that a lot of annoying back and forth slippers. Borderlands 3 makes it easier for us than before because we can travel quickly everywhere and jump to our car in addition to the fixed destinations.
Size matters
The fact that Borderlands 3 does not reach the class of its predecessor in one area does not change the fact that it has become a fantastic sequel to all the others. Incidentally, also in terms of scope. Anyone who explores everything is busy with the first run for a good 40 hours or more.
And after that, a series of endgame arenas open up, in which for the best rewards you either have to hold out against enemy waves for as long as possible or fight your way through as quickly as possible. If you just want to grind longer to create the best possible character, you can do that too. Guardian ranks are extra-end game levels, with which you continue to earn more value bonuses similar to the badass ranks you used to.
And then there are the chaos difficulty levels, which drop more loot and exclusive items when we stand up to particularly strong opponents. In addition, a series of random modifiers complicate this, making them stronger against certain types of weapons, for example, and thus forcing us to rethink. A nice pinch of endgame dynamics! All in all, Borderlands 3 has become a worthy comeback: true to its roots, but bigger, spectacular and better in – almost – all areas.
Borderlands 3 :Bloodmoney (DLC)
Great Story…
That’s what the DLC is all about : In the course of the action, we travel to the harsh desert planet Gehenna to hunt down a brutal gang of bandits – the so-called devil riders who terrorize the small town of Vestige.
The story is reminiscent of the spaghetti western “For a Fistful of Dollars” with Clint Eastwood, because together with the townspeople, we have to face the Outlaws to bring justice back to the Wild West – and as the first players commented on Reddit, it is the great strength of the new add-on.
…but is too Short
Despite all the enthusiasm for the story, there is also criticism – only 55 percent of all previous reviews on Steam have been positive. The most frequently mentioned problem that the players have with the new expansion: For the price of 15 euros, it is simply too short with a playing time of two hours (without additional tasks). But story and characters are also not well received by all players.
Bottomline
Fans of the “Borderlands” series will definitely get their money’s worth with the latest series part because, in addition to a few minor improvements, they will get more of the same: spectacular fights, a real cornucopia of weapons and a coarse, stupid humor that only Gearbox software can offer mastered in this form.
The US studio, however, dares not to do large experiments seven years after “Borderlands 2” and after all five after the “Pre-Sequel” developed by 2K Australia and ultimately does not continue to develop the series decisively. This doesn’t make “Borderlands 3” a bad game, but it does show signs of wear that could have been avoided with more courage to try something new.
The old weaknesses in the movement and parts of the gunplay also remain (on the consoles), which “Borderlands 3 “makes it less attractive especially for inclined series beginners. The bottom line is that the third part is a good loot shooter, but not a must-have.
TLDR : Just go for it. You won’t regret a bit of purchasing Borderlands 3. Even if you haven’t played earlier versions, the game explains its story-line quite well so you can quickly jump into it.
Borderlands 3 PC Specs Detailed
- OS – Windows 7/8/10 (latest service pack)
- Processor – AMD FX-8350 (Intel i5-3570)
- Memory – 6GB RAM.
- Graphics card – AMD Radeon™ HD 7970 (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB)
- HDD – 75 GB.
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