Borderlands 3 (PS4) Review: A shoot-and-loot party where everyone's invited

Borderlands 3 is one of our hottest titles this year for a variety of reasons. But here's the most important one: it's actually here. It's been seven long years, but it seems our lengthy wait for a real sequel (that little side gig we had on Elpis doesn’t count) has finally paid off! 

There’s A LOT to talk about, and with there being more than one planet to explore this time, the HWZ team decided to dispatch a second Vault Hunter, Tim to help investigate the Children of the Vault as well. 

With that, let’s climb aboard Sanctuary, grab a drink at Moxxi’s and find out what those pesky bandits are up to. Best be prepared for a long flight.

Who's who in Borderlands 3?

If you know thyself, thy bandit and thy gun-with-legs, you need not fear the result of a hundred Vaults...or something. Point being; it’s good to know who you’ll be bringing to the fight, and what tools they have at their disposal. So, before we dive into the Vaults proper, let’s do a stocktake of our four new Vault Hunters. 

Moze the Gunner: Moze is a former Vladof Ursa Corps soldier whose team was sent on a suicide mission and left for dead. However, she survived thanks to her trusty mech Iron Bear, and now roams the galaxy scavenging for parts (and money) to keep her best pal in one piece. 

Amara the Siren: Amara is one of the universe’s six Sirens and a well-known brawler called the “Tiger of Partali”. Her reasons for coming to Pandora are simple: she’s just looking for a good fight. 

FL4K the Beastmaster: Arguably the most enigmatic of the four, FL4K roams from world to world, following his instincts and the thrill of the hunt. Of course, he’s not alone. He commands four different pets in battle: a skag, jabber, spiderant and a pair of rakk. 

Zane the Operative: Zane is a retired corporate hitman and the youngest of Pandora’s three Flynt brothers. As an assassin, it's only natural that many people want him dead, and so he's opted to lay low on Pandora for a while.

So what's going on in the Borderlands?

Just to get everyone up to speed on events since Borderlands 2 - the tyrant Handsome Jack has been defeated, and the Crimson Raiders came into possession of a map showing the location of other Vaults across the cosmos. 

However, they lost it soon after. Typical. 

Now a new threat has risen on Pandora in the form of Troy and Tyreen Calypso, powerful Siren twins who lead the Children of the Vault bandit clan. Their aim is to harness the power of the Vaults, but we'll leave you to find out the "why" for yourselves. *wink*

Across the board

Frankly, not much has changed in terms of how the game looks, apart from a modern facelift to the cel-shaded aesthetics we’ve all grown to love. Still, credit should be given where it is due, and Gearbox has put in an impressive amount of work into both environments and enemies. 

There’s Pandora with its arid wastelands, Promethea with its high-rise skyscrapers and the murky swamps of Eden-6, among others. Each world you visit has its own unique “flavour” so to speak, making the whole experience even more dynamic than you would expect a Borderlands game to be.

Enemy variety has also increased exponentially from previous iterations, which is awesome considering players will be traveling across several planets. After all, it would be dull if every other planet had naught but skags, rakk and bandits.

Fortunately, our intergalactic menu now includes flying robot spheres, giant dinosaurs, teleporting soldiers and the odd Eridian warrior - there’s no shortage of interesting adversaries, each with their own unique attack patterns and weaknesses to exploit. Go figure!

The morality amidst the mayhem

On a separate note, what we really did notice (and liked) was having little snippets of morality here and there. Borderlands 3 presents several occasions where players can opt to do what their gut tells them to, instead of just being ordered around by the NPCs. It's a stark, but pleasant contrast to the utter lawlessness of the Borderlands - something we found quite lacking in the previous games.

For example, there’s a side quest you can accept regarding a young girl’s birthday party. However, when you get there you find out from her dad that she’s been killed by varkids, and he’s only organised the celebration in memory of her. So, he invites you to take part in some of his late daughter’s favourite activities like rakk-shooting, mentioning her impressive records. 

Although the game allows you to break them, it didn’t feel morally right to do so, so we held back on purpose. At the end, if you left all of them intact, the young girl’s father tears up and proceeds to thank you for keeping his daughter “just a little closer” to him. It was a real heartbreaker, but a nice addition nonetheless.

Borderlands 3 is no Mother Goose

Let's move on to the story, which unfortunately is the one area we felt a little shortchanged. The Calypso Twins' development as antagonists, or lack thereof was startling, considering the series has always prided itself on having solid storylines and characters amidst all the wanton destruction. 

It's perfectly fine to depict them as power-hungry streamers with a maniacal cult, but having them cram Twitch-style lingo into every nook and cranny because of that? That's shallow, borderline lazy, and something we felt we could do without. Granted, we understand the need to make them appear as asinine as possible, but too much of a good thing is usually bad, and this is an excellent example. 

At this point, the Calypso Twins are barely a shadow of the antagonist that Handsome Jack was, but in their defense, the latter is a really tough act to follow. After all, they’ve had around three to four games’ worth to build him up, versus just one for the Calypso Twins. Going by that train of thought, perhaps we all should close an eye here, although there is still the feeling that Gearbox could, and should have done more to flesh them out.

Since we're on the topic of old characters, we really weren't pleased with how they...dealt with some of them. Pardon the bluntness, but at some points the plot just seemed a little too convenient. The build-up to the climax was pretty straightforward, and worse still, it was predictable. Putting two and two together was peanuts if you were attentive enough. Simply put, we felt such treatment reduced not only the gravity of the narrative, but that of the game too.

No Borderlands review is complete without a section devoted to gunplay, so without further ado, let's get into it.

On the whole, BL3 largely sticks to its guns (pun fully intended), albeit with some amazing variety and convenience changes. From new ways to get around, to fleshed-out manufacturer quirks and guns that shoot other guns, there's a whole lot to cover in this section. 

For starters, the folks at Gearbox weren't kidding when they said they'd added a whole new dimension to gunplay. Of course, conceptually it's still the shooter-looter that Borderlands has always been, but it's so much more dynamic now!

Let's talk about movement first. Getting around and exploring the various maps has always been a centrepiece of adventure RPGs, and Borderlands 3 is no exception. The ways in which you can move around, though - those have been thoroughly expanded and streamlined from previous games. 

Powersliding and mantling are the newest additions, while the ground slam mechanic introduced in The Pre-Sequel returns to the fray. Needless to say, with new mechanics comes new ways to kill stuff. From creating giant snowballs, or chucking corrosive needles at opponents, Gearbox has turned even the very act of movement into weapons.

Granted, it isn't the first time we're seeing these mechanics in a game, but it is the first time they've been utilised to such a degree. Fast fact: players can now powerslide into barrels and they'll...well, barrel towards enemies and explode. 

Speaking of which, mantling is especially nice too, and some areas of the game are only accessible by jumping towards a ledge and climbing up. Essentially, it is this addition of a "height factor" to the game that makes Borderlands 3's explorative and combat experiences feel more three-dimensional than those of its predecessors. 

On top of that, the Fast Travel system has received a much needed overhaul, in the sense that you no longer have to find a physical Fast Travel station to do so. Being able to warp to various areas from your ECHO device was a feature many fans wanted and perhaps forgot to ask for, but Gearbox has been nice enough to toss it in anyway. Do we need to detail into how much time this saved? We highly doubt it - we're just thankful it's there.

Vroom, vroom!

When it comes to vehicles, the Catch-a-Ride no longer limited to just regular technical trucks - players can unlock new vehicles as they progress through the story, not to mention numerous skin and weapon customisations specific to each of them.

Our personal favourite in this regard was the Cyclone, a nimble vehicle that can be equipped with machine guns, turbo boosters and a wide assortment of different mods. It's especially exhilarating when you're piloting one on the streets of Promethea, swerving and dodging enemy fire in between the city streets. It makes you feel like you're in a sci-fi action movie, and we daresay doing it in a technical just wouldn't give the same adrenaline kick.

Speaking of which, the guns themselves have also been updated to an impressive degree. There's our usual fare of rifles, lasers, spread projectiles, so on and so forth, but what's really interesting is the way that Gearbox allows us to use them. The new Anointed classification, as well as alternate fire modes for some weapons are but two such features - there are lots more cool shenanigans to discover.

On top of that, we also found that the revised manufacturer quirks tie in very well to each of their aesthetics and playstyle. For example, scoring a critical hit with a Jakobs pistol allows the shot to ricochet to other enemies, and who doesn't like "bending" bullets like those agents in the 2008 shooter film Wanted?

Long story short, imagine having all of this in tandem with each Vault Hunter's own skills and interactions, and there you have it - a game that lets you feel truly powerful. It's fantastic fun, and that's the point in itself - you'll have a good time playing Borderlands 3 regardless of what happens.

By constantly handing you the tools to feel like the most powerful psycho-smasher in the galaxy, players can have an absolute ball throughout. Coincidentally, that’s why the co-op formula works especially well here - crushing bosses and mobs of enemies always feels great with a friend. 

Last but not least, the Post-Game. Like its predecessors, Borderlands 3 comes with its fair share of it. There's the usual New Game+ that we know as True Vault Hunter Mode (TVHM), a replacement for BL2's Badass Token system in the form of the new Guardian Ranks, Mayhem Mode and of course the Eridian Proving Grounds. To be honest, those are hefty enough for an article of their own, so let's just take a look at Mayhem Mode for now.

Mayhem Mode

Here's where BL3 tries to differentiate its post-game from the normal playthrough. Essentially, it's an additional modification on top of regular gameplay - something like Overpower Levels in BL2.

In MM, enemies are stronger and tougher than usual, loot drops are of better quality, and players have to abide by random, planet-specific conditions like increased resistances to elemental effects and suchlike. 

Naturally, the long-term value of it might not seem that appealing, since there's no new content per se, but let us stop you there - it's actually extremely replayable. The constant reshuffling of effects makes every single exploration back to a given planet different from the last, and while you don't feel as overpowered as you might in Normal mode, a game won't age well without a sense of challenge imbued somewhere.

Of course, Gearbox isn't just leaving everyone hanging like that. They've been trying to fill in the supposed replayability gap with seasonal events like those in other games. There's the ongoing, Halloween-themed Bloody Harvest event, for example, not to mention the upcoming Takedown at Maliwan's Blacksite, which are both free for all players to enjoy.

Bye bye, Borderlands?

Phew. We’ve come to the end of our journey, but let’s have a look at what everyone has to say about their BL3 experience so far. 

Tim: In my opinion, Borderlands 3 might have tripped and stumbled on its way out the door, but make no mistake: this is a fantastic video game. It’s so much fun and it delivers a truly addictive gameplay loop of ‘shoot things, get better guns, shoot more things’ in a way that never feels tired. 

By and large, the series is one that keeps doing the same thing with a new coat of paint in every instalment, but somehow that fun factor is still as evident no matter how long has passed. Admittedly, BL3 might be a step backwards in terms of story, but it’s a huge leap forward for gameplay and visuals in the series. Simply put, I can’t get enough of it. 

Kenneth: Indeed. This game is an adventure that I can’t help but love. It may be a little rough around the edges compared to some of its predecessors, but believe me when I say this is a title I’ll be playing for many months, even years to come. There’s so much to explore, so many things to do, but more importantly, so many ways I can do it. 

In that sense, I feel Gearbox has truly captured the essence of “adventuring” itself, an achievement few developers can attest to. With that said, I believe it’s fitting to end off by affirming that BL3 is without a doubt, an amazing game. One I would love to come back to over and over again.

Well, you know what they say: no rest for the wicked.

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