Lock the door, shut the blinds and get ready to call in sick for class. Borderlands is back and it is ready to take away gamers’ social lives once again.
“Borderlands 3” is the fourth installment from the 2K Games looter-shooter franchise, “Borderlands.”
Fans of the franchise had to wait five years for the newest release but oh, boy, it was worth the wait.
The “Borderlands 3” story takes you away from the previous campaign journey of hunting Handsome Jack and introduces you to a new wave of villains.
The galaxy-famous live streamers, Troy and Tyreen Calypso, are the new antagonists on the planet Pandora as they try to use their streaming fame to expand their vault raids to new planets.
It is up to your chosen character and the Crimson Raiders to stop them from gaining any more power and spreading their fanbase.
The game is full of familiar faces that longtime fans will be more than happy to see back in the franchise, but fear not Borderlands newbies, there’s plenty here for you.
Although there has been plenty of lore and story in the prior games, “Borderlands 3’s” story can easily stand alone for newcomers to follow.
The game is filled with quippy jokes and the CL4P-TP unit, Claptrap, steals the show once again.
The games story and map are massive with playthroughs taking over 60 hours. For the first time in Borderlands history, you leave Pandora behind and travel to other planets.
The huge campaign to travel through is only enhanced by how fluent the game feels.
The gameplay is familiar but fresh enough to separate itself in a video game industry that has evolved in five years.
Small quality of life changes like wall climbing, sliding and a pinging system that mirrors “Apex Legends” may not seem like a huge deal, but they makes all the difference.
These changes make for faster paced gameplay than any prior title in the franchise. That plus the most unique
guns that a gamer could ask for makes the game hard to put down.
The Borderlands company has always claimed that its games have more than a billion gun variations and “Borderlands 3” keeps that promise.
A gun that overheats and you cool it off with a separate squirt gun? This game has it.
A gun that you throw when reloading to make it become a heat seeking missile? Yeah, this game has that too and it’s amazing.
Each firearm is made from a different weapon manufacturer that has a distinctive feel to each gun.
I found myself sticking to guns that may not be as powerful as newer ones I found, but because they felt so unique to shoot I couldn’t help but go on with it.
On top of a wide range of guns to shoot, there are four different character classes to choose from, each with multiple abilities they can use.
Amara the siren, Moze the gunner, Zane the operator and Fl4k the beastmaster play vastly different from one another enough to make each playthrough feel completely different than the last.
“Borderlands 3” takes the crown for looter-shooters back and makes for the most unique game experience so far in 2019.
If you are a long time fan or someone interested in seeing what the franchise has to offer, “Borderlands 3” is perfect for just about every first person shooter fan.
