"Like, follow, and obey!"
--Tyreen Calypso, Borderlands 3
Borderlands 3 introduces many changes. The Pre-Sequel had players travel between a moon of Pandora and the Helios space station orbiting Pandora, but in Borderlands 3, multiple planets beyond Pandora are accessible for the first time. A machine in the new Sanctuary automatically stores lost loot from missions until its capacity is full, which ensures up to a point that missed weapons can still be accessed. Expansions to a character's ammunition, backpack, and item bank are now purchased with money instead of Eridium bars. The Badass Token system has been altered and renamed. Now, the Guardian Rank enhancements, as they are called, are locked until the end of all story missions. With all of these changes also comes the return of characters from Borderlands, Borderlands 2, The Pre-Sequel, and Tales from the Borderlands, so it is not as if a familiar cast does not await series veterans. If it was not for the very obvious deficiencies in the game, this would be the best of the series by far. Borderlands 3 unfortunately has one of the weakest Borderlands stories, second only to the story of the almost narratively lifeless first game, persistent visual issues that have not gone away via updates even by 2022, and glitches that still have not been patched as of the last time I played.
Production Values
One of the first things that greets players is the three to five minute initial loading time upon staring the game from the PS4 menu. When first loading the game and first starting to play with a given character's profile, wait times of up to minutes are an ordinary experience. Even once the game does load, both cutscenes and walking around need time to transition from the blurry or incomplete parts of the environments or character models to the fuller version of them. The graphical performance consistently takes time to even show the detail of the world, from the beginning of the game to the end. Then there are the glitches where certain side missions appear on the map, only to disappear once you teleport to that region. Borderlands 3 is a game full of bugs. In addition to this, the developers made some very stupid design choices like making most of the challenges (like killing 500 of a specific enemy type) almost unviewable, as when the prompt appears to let players see a challenge they just completed, holding the prompted button to view the challenges does not actually take them to that challenge list. The characterization is also very lacking in the same ideological and linguistic flourishes that made the likes of Handsome Jack such excellent characters, but references to everything Rick and Morty to Biblical phrases to cultural trends regarding memes or cryptocurrency still make it in. The sarcasm and satirical pop culture references are still very much intact.
Gameplay
Though the basic mechanics are the same as usual, there are some very noticeable evolutions to enemy types, the weapon variety, and the optional activities. Some enemies now have two or even three bars worth of damage they can take, with the golden bar at the top of some health bar sets corresponding to biological or artificial armor levels (a new addition) or the blue bar corresponding to the shield of the enemies; armor and shields have specific elemental weapon vulnerabilities, such as how shock weapons drain the shields faster. Since, like in previous Borderlands games, you eventually can carry up to four equipped weapons at once, having diverse elemental types and weapon categories like a shotgun and a pistol all equipped in different slots makes you far more prepared for the enemies types that might appear. The guns themselves are splendidly distinct, with many featuring two alternate modes of fire or separate projectile styles. For instance, a random machine gun might switch between fully automatic firing or three round bursts, and a random submachine gun might switch between incendiary and corrosion elemental damage at player whim. Tediore guns can now walk or bounce around after throwing them to perform the reload task, some weapons have their own specific shield much like the playable character has theirs,
There are also now a multitude of new objectives that neither fall into story missions or side missions, a few of them being great ways to experiment with new or powerful guns. Searching for Claptrap unit parts, translating Eridian symbols for Tannis, bringing exotic vehicle parts to Ellie, killing special targets for Zero, and hunting exotic creatures for Sir Hammerlock are all new additions to the optional side of the game. While not full quests in themselves, these bonus objectives are scattered across the different planets and their sections. For all of the game's flaws in other areas, the gameplay is still extremely strong, and new activities help contribute to this. Adding to the diversity of the gameplay is one region set in an asteroid base with low gravity, which plays like the parts of the The Pre-Sequel on the surface of Elpis where you the gravitational attraction is low and you rely on oxygen tanks, but here, there is no oxygen tank mechanic required for breathing and faster mobility.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
Handsome Jack's death did not affect the presence of the bandits he was intent on slaughtering, and after other Vaults were suggested at the end of Borderlands 2, Lilith and the new antagonistic Calypso twins search for a map to more Vaults. Lilith had telepathically called out to mercenaries willing to join the Crimson Raiders, hoping to stop the twins from using the incredible influence they have gained over the bandits to find the Great Vault. Tyreen and Troy, the siblings, have amassed the reputation of gods as they pretend to care about the bandits, only to use them for financial offerings and soldiers when they want to attack certain enemies. However, the Calypsos are also sirens. They possess genuine power beyond just ordinary human abilities and the social loyalty of their massive follower base. In the midst of this pseudo-religious revolution, the Maliwan Corporation has gone to war with Atlas in a conflict that has ravaged civilian populations--and that lets returning characters play a role in stopping the Calypsos.
Intellectual Content
This time, while there is still plenty of attention given to corporate greed, the story focuses more on satire targeting social media popularity, cults of personality, televangelists, and fitheistic devotion. Tyreen and Troy Calypso, the "twin gods," exploit the common desire for community by pretending to love Pandora's bandits while taking their resources, using them as expendable warriors, and encouraging their self-endangering acts of devotion to the siblings. Their very high number of followers collectively form the Children of the Vault. The Calypsos are not presented as uncaused causes although they do have superhuman powers as sirens, which are not gods in Borderlands lore; a long-standing human character even becomes a siren in this game. However, since they do have supernatural powers to manipulate external objects with telekinesis at will or even sometimes by accident, they can perform miracles of sorts, which means there is sensory evidence of available to the Children of the Vault even if it is clear that sirens are not true deities and that the Calypso twins make it as obvious as words and actions can, without actually seeing into someone's thoughts, that they are only pretending to be "gods" for the social power it gives them. Beyond this, Borderlands 3 is somewhat lacking in the more explicitly philosophical humor and exploration of certain past games, but its typical emphasis on artificial intelligence and technology continues. A side mission about testing a glitch-riddled and microtransaction-heavy game, though, is an ironic to feature in a game with such extensive DLC and many deficient visual aspects!
Conclusion
Borderlands 3 could have been the utter height of the series in full instead of in part, but its technical issues, asinine design choices, and random story hold it back from persistent greatness. The direct follow-up to the masterpiece of Borderlands 2 called for a much more polished game and structured plot. In spite of these very clear problems with this third main installment, the guns and their features have never had more variety, and the scope of the regions has expanded through visiting multiple planets. Not everything is horrid. It is just unusual for a Borderlands game after the original to be so aggressively mixed in quality. The Pre-Sequel did not reach the same level of impact as Borderlands 2, yet it was a much better game overall than the end of the primary trilogy. For someone simply looking to appreciate a new arsenal, there is still plenty to do, even if attached to this new arsenal is a set of major problems or missed opportunities that Gearbox somehow squandered.
Content:
1. Violence: Borderlands 3 is fairy graphic despite its specific stylized animation. Enemy body parts can come apart upon shooting them, especially with headshots.
2. Profanity: "Fucking," "shit," and "bitch" are heard in the game.
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