When I first started my journey back on Pandora's wastelands in Borderlands 3, I was not surprised to find Claptrap leading me on a merry chase into a fortified compound filled with the Children of the Vault. After picking my usual class of the Siren, I went on to slaughter a screaming group of bandits in hilariously over-the-top ways - ways that only a Borderlands game could get away with. After overcoming the onslaught, I quickly realized just how much I felt at home with its familiar brand of violence and comedy. For all intents and purposes, Borderlands 3 is a lot more Borderlands, and that might just be perfect for fans.



Borderlands 3 treads remarkably familiar territory, though oddly feels fresh enough to earn its sequel badge. The upgraded, crispier visuals make for the best graphics that the series has seen to date, and the zany world design is textbook Pandora, but with a few twists since the new villainous duo, the Calypso Twins, have taken their fair share of land and made it their own. The opening montage retells a slightly skewed history of the Borderlands games from the perspective of the NPC, Marcus, who does his best to gloat about his "involvement" in the game, perfectly setting up the tone. After choosing your preferred class out of four, you're slapped with a gun and asked to mow down some bad guys. Substance is clearly not a factor, but can you really blame Gearbox?

All classes are perfectly balanced with their strengths and weaknesses, and well-catered to players' preferred gameplay style.

Borderlands 3 introduces four new characters to invest in. Zane Flynt is an Operative class character that can create a doppelganger of himself as a distraction for nearby enemies, while the new Siren, Amara, uses a range of devastating AoE ultimates and telekinetic special abilities to pummel enemies. Moze the Gunner can summon a mech called Iron Bear, which provides her with high defense and more firepower, and finally, FL4K is a Beastmaster who can send out tamed animals to do his bidding. All classes are perfectly balanced with their strengths and weaknesses, and well-catered to players' preferred gameplay style.



Most of my review will be covered from the perspective of Amara, since I've always favoured the Siren class in the games. Those familiar with how skill trees work in Borderlands should feel right at home with Borderlands 3's various builds and skillsets. Each character can pick one of many trees that significantly boost a certain aspect of their combat, from healing and high defense to more upfront assault. Amara, in particular, has a few builds at her disposal, but opting for the healing tree ensures constant health regeneration and longer range of damage with further enemies - but there's so much more to uncover.

With over a billion guns that Gearbox Software proclaims will be in this installment, I was curious to see how procedural generation would work with the weapons. Surprisingly, they all looked and felt great to use, which is the biggest compliment I can give Borderlands 3. In fact, the combat is impressively smooth and each shot fired feels like it packs a punch. Since cooldown timers in the early stages of the game meant that I don't get to abuse my ultimate abilities much, I relied heavily on the weapons and the kind of offensive capabilities that it brought to the table - and colour me impressed, because this is the most enjoyment I've ever had in terms of gameplay from a Borderlands game to date.



There's plenty of new planets and open-world areas to explore, but in fear of spoiling anything, I will only mention the starting, flagship planet of Borderlands, the wastelands of Pandora. Not much has changed in these dreary times other than the arrival of the Calypso Twins, the new big baddies of the game, which we'll get to in a bit. However, this helps as it means we see plenty of familiar locations and faces in the opening hours - especially for those who are well-versed in extended Borderlands lore and might recognize some well-placed cameos. With a new engine and the benefit of current-gen hardware, Pandora is far more intimidating in scope this time around, but the keen sense of exploration is still ever present.

Borderlands 3 seemingly sidesteps the trappings of having Handsome Jack take the spotlight (again) in favour of not one, but two new antagonists to headline the game: Tyreen and Troy Calypso. While my encounters with them have been somewhat brief so far, they do leave a pretty good impression. Tyreen, with her trendy social media babble and ramblings, is the standout of the duo. Her dark and deprecating sense of humour reminded me of GLaDOS' gleeful barrage of insults from Portal, only less subliminal and a lot more brash. Tyreen always seems to steal the attention from Troy, making him a bit of a background voice. This might change as I progress through the campaign, though they're still a far cry from the suave of Handsome Jack.

Tyreen always seems to steal the attention from Troy, making him a bit of a background voice.

For as much fun as I'm having playing Borderlands 3, a couple of things still haven't quite improved from the shortcomings of the previous titles. Vehicle controls are still unintuitive and bothersome to get the hang of. You use the left analogue stick to accelerate and the right to steer, which just so happens to be the camera as well. This can make juggling the simple act of driving a pain, even more so when confronted with random enemies on the road (and a third hand is required for gun controls). It might just be a personal gripe of mine, but I don't think I'll ever get the hang of Borderlands' wonky vehicle controls.



It's still pretty easy to also get sidetracked with dozens of side quests and activities while out in the open. I'm usually one to complete them before tackling the main story missions, but they can become just a tad bit much, especially after a few hours when they begin to pile up and every new area becomes a complete objective in and of itself. With enough time management, though, you should be able to balance the main and side missions. The highlights of the game are evidently in the main missions, so you want to make sure you don't burn yourself out as it's very easy to do so after a few hours.

So far, my return to Pandora and the wastelands has been quite a pleasant surprise. Borderlands 3 is pure fan-service, right down to the on-the-nose humour and unapologetic cartoon violence. I found myself laughing quite often, not because the comedy is well-timed, but just because I was having a lot more fun than I expected to. Borderlands 3 is turning out to be a great continuation of the Borderlands formula we've all come to know and love. You're in for a wild ride this weekend if you're picking up the game. Stay tuned for our full review coming soon, and make sure you watch Endseeker707 and I tackle the opening hours of Borderlands 3 below!