[Hands-On Preview] ‘Borderlands 3’ Feels Like More of the Same, But Could Be Bigger and Better Than Ever
Most early takes on Borderlands 3’s initial reveal trailer occupied the—to borrow an analogy from another series that spends a lot of time on a dangerous desert planet—Beggar’s Canyon between, “It’s more Borderlands. Yay!” and, “It’s more Borderlands. Yawn.”
After watching about an hour of the early game and playing an-hour-and-a-half with a mid-leveled character, I can confirm that Borderlands 3 does, indeed, appear to be more Borderlands. It also, crucially, seems to be better Borderlands.
This hasn’t really come through in any of the trailers that Gearbox has shown so far, but almost as soon as gameplay began at the press reveal event in Hollywood on Tuesday (which was basically a dress rehearsal for the gameplay reveal the rest of the world saw live on Wednesday) it was clear that some important changes had been made to bring the series in line with the standards that modern first-person shooters have established. And if they weren’t immediately obvious, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford and Borderlands 3 Creative Director Paul Sage were onstage providing a running commentary.
Graphically, Borderlands 3 is like the game as a whole: more, but better. The thick, black outlines; the cel-shading; the colorful comic book character models — they’re all still here. But, give any object more than a cursory glance and the details start to pop. The rusty lilac-like flowers that flank Claptrap in the tutorial area flapping believably in the breeze. The wavy tire tracks likely left by a Bandit Technical imprinted in Pandora’s sand. The white masking tape holding together “General Claptrap’s” rundown antenna.
Fittingly, the (billions of) guns seem to have received just as much attention. The textured metal firing pin on the triple-barrel rifle the demonstrators used during the Tuesday reveal shone with an intricacy of detail that would likely have been impossible last time around. The white paint of the Tediore logo on one of the mega-corporation’s disposable (literally, you throw it when a clip is empty) SMGs realistically follows the cracks and contours along the gun’s chamber. Even before playable character, Amara, picks up a weapon, we get a quick look at her newly detailed hands, painted with black fingernail polish and a Siren’s purple body markings; cracked with bold brushstrokes at the knuckles and along the lifelines of her palms.
Quality-of-life changes have also come to the game’s familiar loot-and-shoot combat loops. Moving around Pandora has never been this smooth. Your Vault Hunter can mantle up surfaces now (instead of needing to bunny hop over waist-high cover), and sprinting into a crouch produces a satisfyingly Apex Legends-ish slide.
Care has been taken to make this world feel significantly more reactive. Cover now degrades as it takes fire (though time will tell how much that actually matters in Borderlands 3, a game that is not a cover shooter in any way other than that you shoot and there is cover in it). A point-blank shotgun blast reduced an enemy’s head to a shower of red chunks. During the gameplay reveal, the demo-er used Amara’s force push-style melee attack to hurl a combustible barrel into mini-boss Shiv, instantly killing him.
“That’s the first time he’s been able to kill him like that,” Pitchford, clad in a black shirt with a huge number ‘3’ in gold sequins on the back, marveled. “It’s cool when the cool stuff happens when you’re doing the live demo.”
And Vault Hunters will have more weapons in their arsenals this time around, both literally and figuratively. Literally, many of the weapons have alternate firing modes. A pistol that fires bullets, might also be able to blast off mini-rockets. A Maliwan elemental might switch between fire and ice damage.
“The players who maximize this feature will be able to have, like, double the guns of before,” Sage said. (I can’t do the math, though… what’s double a bajillion?)
Additionally, each Vault Hunter now has three action abilities — up from one in previous games—with each one residing atop a distinct skill tree. In the current moment in AAA, every game is an action RPG and every action RPG has to have three skill trees that you’ll be able to max out by the end of the game. Borderlands 3’s approach promises a greater degree of customization and, as a result, more interesting choices.
“If two people want to team up and play the same character, they’re likely to have completely different abilities,” Pitchford said.
Randy Varnell of Gearbox Talks Borderlands 3’s Story, characters, and replacing Handsome Jack.
During my hands-on time, I was eager to take control of Zane, the mercenary with an Irish brogue who has worked for every corporation under the sun, and the only character who, by sacrificing the grenade button, can wield multiple action abilities at the same time. These abilities. As I began the demo, I stood on the outskirts of the Meridian Metroplex, a massive cyberpunk city on the planet Promethea, bathed in neon pinks, greens and blues.
The city is controlled by Atlus, one of the mega-corporations that effectively function as nation-states in the world of Borderlands. This particular nation-state is under siege by the Maliwan corporation, known for (as mentioned above) creating weapons with powerful elemental effects. This is what a hostile takeover looks like in a world where corporations control entire planets. We learn quickly that Atlus’ CEO is Rhys, former Assistant Janitor for Hyperion, onetime Handsome Jack fanboy and protagonist of Telltale’s Tales from the Borderlands, and that we are responding to a distress call from within the metroplex.
From my vantage point, outside the city, these massive problems are invisible, save a few vid screens flashing “SEEK SHELTER” in alarm clock red and a garbled radio transmission that occasionally blinks up on my HUD. With Lilith instructing me, I slide under an overpass and begin moving towards the city, blasting away at skag-like beasts that occupy the tunnels beneath the main thoroughfares leading into the city. I empty a Tediore gun into one of these beasts, which Zane automatically throws when the clip is finished. It sits for a moment on the ground, targeting an opponent with a laser. Then it begins firing, sprouts a pair of tiny metal legs and chases the monster down, exploding on contact.
As I continue to move along the trough, a hulking, Big Daddy-like enemy, a “Pyrotech Heavy,” appears, spitting fire at me with a massive flamethrower. My shields and health quickly hit zero and for the first time, I sink to my knees. As in the games that came before, I have the opportunity to redeem myself and revive by getting another kill. The movement speed during these sections has increased in each game—in the first Borderlands you were rooted to the spot where you went down—and in Borderlands 3 your pace is roughly equivalent to your speed while crouched. I kill one of the monsters, and get back on my feet, but am quickly on my way to being overwhelmed again. This seems to be for Story Purposes, as Lorelei, a badass woman with a cockney accent and purple warpaint is quickly introduced, appearing alongside me to help fight off the remaining baddies. She, we learn, was the voice in those garbled radio messages and the source of the inciting distress call.
She offers to take me to Rhys, and we head to a Catch-a-Ride station to digistruct a vehicle. The customization options have been greatly expanded in Borderlands 3, offering variations on armor, wheels, guns, color, build material and modifications. Most significantly, you can eschew cars entirely in favor of a hovercraft or a big ass wheel. In the demo build that I played, hovercrafts were unfortunately not unlocked yet, so I opted to drive the wheel (the steering of which feels uniquely suited for the wobbly, kind of last gen feeling driving controls that Gearbox is sticking with in 3).
After battling some Psychos in vehicles—who will now jump on the hood of your car if you’re not careful—we make it to Lorelei’s hideout, where Rhys appears in hologram form. Rhys is desperate for help in the fight against Maliwan and is whiny and disappointed when he finds out that, nope, it’s just me, not the army he imagined. After making him sweat, I agree to help despite his attitude. I follow a waypoint that leads me to—and this was a big applause moment that appeared in both the live reveal and the playable demo— Zer0, the fan favorite Vault Hunter first introduced in Borderlands 2.
We team up to track down Gigamind, a mysterious object that Zer0 believes is a Maliwan AI possessing much of the corporation’s important information. Zer0 wants help tracking down an upgrade for his signature sword.
On our way to Gigamind, we’ve got to fight a bunch of enemies. The Heavies are back, shooting fire and dishing out burn damage with a powerful AOE attack. I take this fight as an opportunity to try out Zane’s dual action abilities, equipping his portable energy shield and body double ability, which allows me to create a doppelganger and then swap positions with it. I set up the shield and fire at a Heavy from behind it. Then, once its attention is drawn toward the shield, I swap with my double, teleporting behind my unwary opponent. I fire at him until he notices my new position and then blink back to safety.
I cycle between this tactic and straight-up running-and-gunning until I eventually bring the Heavies down. Zer0 and I move on, taking on some Maliwan bots as we go, lowering an energy barrier and opening our path to the upgrade for his katana. Zer0 uses his newly upgraded katana to cut through an energy shield and we head toward the waypoint where Gigamind has set up shop.
How does an AI set up shop, you might ask? Simple, Zer0 was wrong and Gigamind isn’t an artificial intelligence, at all. They’re a very material intelligence: a squishy pink brain in a glass helmet set on a diminutive green and purple frame. When I approach, Gigamind is sitting on a throne, but quickly descends, using flying saucer-shaped drones as stepping stones. In the fight that follows, Gigamind uses these drones as weapons, sending them soaring like a discus in my direction, riding them around the battlefield like a hoverboard and forming big emojis above their head. I dodge, bob and weave, and the little brainy boyo is quickly dispatched, exploding in a shower of loot.
“Vault Hunter, you are worthy of that name,” Zer0 tells me after the battle. “Good hunting with you.”
I return to Rhys to turn the mission in and the demo ends shortly after.
If you’ve played previous Borderlands games, you’ve seen much of what Gearbox is doing here. But, the world they’ve crafted this time around is bigger, more varied—I can’t wait to see more of Meridian and the jungle planet they’ve shown off in trailers—and more reactive. The story they’re telling, which takes aim at streamer culture, cults and, as always, mega-corporations has me more interested than ever before. And, the quality-of-life improvements make the game a tighter, more enjoyable experience.
However, this is an open world game, and so far we’ve only seen the intro and played one mission. Given that Gearbox is promising 30 hours of main story (and plenty more off the critical path) I’m curious to see how the tight core loops hold up across a massive game. But, right now, there seems to be a lot to be excited about.
Borderlands 3 is out September 13 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
