It took seven years for Gearbox

Software and 2K Games’ long

awaited first person shooter

sequel, Borderlands 3, to come

out, but it was well worth the wait.

The main villains in this entry

are Tyreen and Troy, twin sirens that

have the ability to leech the power

of any living thing. They run the cult

The Children of the Vault. However,

they are not very compelling villains.

The jokes they make throughout the

game don’t really land and are very

stale. It’s also very difficult to feel

threatened by them throughout the

story.

The original characters such

as the siren Lilith, humans Ellie and

Tannis, and of course Claptrap, the

robot friend you have throughout

the games, still feel like the same

characters we knew back in the old

games.

The jokes in the rest of the game

aren’t always the best. Sure you can

have a few chuckles here and there,

but overall the humor portion famous

in the Borderlands series simply

isn’t there, which is sad because

Borderlands 2 definitely had some

good laughs.

As with every Borderlands game

there are new main characters or vault

hunters.

They are Zane the operative,

Amara the siren, Fl4k the beastmaster

and Moze the gunner. Each has their

own unique special abilities. However,

you can now equip more than one

special ability, but it will take away

one of your grenade slots. As you level

up, you gain skill points that you can

spend on your characters’ skill trees.

Each character has three skill trees for

each ability making your abilities and

character stronger.

Borderlands is also known

for its weapons. There are nine gun

manufacturers in the game that each

have their own special attributes that

affect the power of the weapon. For

example, when you reload Tediore

guns, you can throw them like a

grenade. There are five different

rarity levels – common, uncommon,

rare, epic, and legendary. And every

single gun sounds, looks and feels

different. They did a really good job

designing every weapon and making

every weapon feel unique. Guns can

also have an alternate firing mode

that can switch between elements or a

different weapon type and this adds a

lot to the game.

Vehicular combat in the

Borderlands series has never been

the best, but Gearbox made it a little

better by adding more vehicle types

and vehicle weapons.

Combat overall has also been

improved. The developers added

sliding to the game to make combat

more smooth and flow better. Also,

vaulting has been added, so you can

finally vault onto surfaces and do

not have to do as much scaling and

parkour as you had to previously. The

actual combat in-game is very fun

and more challenging than previous

entries in the series, making the need

to do side missions more frequent so

that you are at a high enough level to

succeed.

Borderlands 3 adds a new

depth of customization, letting you

customize almost everything about

your player – guns, vehicles, and

your room onboard the Sanctuary 3

spaceship. You can even customize

your echo device, a device that

shows your inventory, skill level, and

loadout. You can get customizations

from the vendor Crazy Earl, who will

sell them to you for a special currency

in the game called Eridium, or you

can loot the trinkets and skins from

enemies.

World exploration has

dramatically improved in the series.

In the older games there wasn’t much

in the world except for side missions

and main quests; however, in the

new entry, the game encourages you

to explore the world with a slew of

different things to find. For example,

Claptrap unit parts so Claptrap can

build a new friend, or new vehicles,

and logs from the very first vault

hunter scattered throughout every

map and section in the game.

Borderlands 3 is a warm

welcome back to the series and is a

very good game overall with tons of

new additions, as well as still being

familiar. Even though some aspects of

the game weren’t so hot, it’s still is a

game I would definitely recommend.

I give it 4 Mr. Maroos out of 5.