That One Borderlands Gun You Got Early On: The Definitive Review
It was so good you kept in your inventory until the ending cutscene and everything
It was while watching reviews for the Borderlands movie that I began to reminisce about my first encounter with the game, way back in 2009. It was my Christmas treat for that year, which meant I had a clear run of four or five days to really sink into the game and, wonderfully, I wasn’t disappointed. The game’s promise ran beautifully through to its vault-opening ending, giving me the kind of generational excitement about the series’ possibilities that’s always been rare. For Borderlands in 2009, it immediately struck a resonance as a kind of anarcho-comedic Halo, being a series of Silent Cartographers cast in cel-shaded visuals with nods to the post-apocalyptic aesthetics of Mad Max, only rinsed through the lens of the traditional western. It had such a strong presence in those respects that it felt new, almost breathtakingly so. A genuinely bold vision for the action FPS, a deliberately fun and comedic world and, best of all, motherfuckin’ procedurally-generated guns. Billions of them!
It’s absolutely the guns that make Borderlands so great, hence the title for this piece. I distinctly remember getting a pistol with such ludicrously overpowered effects that it lasted way beyond its formal level range, and was still viable at end-game. Pretty sure it was some corrosive effect or other, but it had some stacking multiplier or whatever that simple enemy level couldn’t mitigate. It felt broken, but that was part of the glee. It was like winning the lottery and, of course, this was all entirely new. As this underlying backbone of constant acquisition throughout the game, the weapon collecting was so much fun. As was juggling between sniper rifles and shotguns, pistols and automatic rifles, all in those ludicrous colour schemes and Y2K aesthetics, with the Wipeout-like faux manufacturers and their signature corporate styles. It felt very rich, really well-considered, a game that had studied plenty of what came before it and applied the lessons it had learned. And yet, the game crept out in the middle of the quarter without much fanfare. It was a late October release, so fell foul of bigger fish, being sandwiched between Halo ODST, Way of the Samurai 3, Uncharted 2, Assassins’ Creed 2, Bayonetta, Food Network: Cook or Be Cooked, Modern Warfare 2 and the annual FIFA release. This is probably why it slow-burned itself a steady fanbase, skipping past 7/10 oddities like The Saboteur1 to earn itself a bigger, brighter and much more heavily marketed sequel. The sequel, of course, being the one that everyone remembers.
Perhaps the maddest thing about the original Borderlands is the template it sets for the looter shooter. It’s almost the defining document, the reference from which Bungie and Ubisoft/Massive draw upon to craft their aggressively long-tailed projects. In a sense, Destiny and The Division are actually Borderlands clones, which seems fucked given the general status awarded to the Borderlands series as a whole. Naturally, a deliberately annoying NPC as a focal character will do that for an IP, but it’s more likely the depressing sense of design stasis that afflicts Borderlands’ sequels that perhaps smear its reputation. It was interesting seeing comments about the teaser for Borderlands 4, mostly for the repeated account that several series fans simply gave up at some point in Borderlands 3, which was my precise experience of the game. Despite opening up with entire planets to fight on and a big old spaceship as a home hub, Borderlands 3 was just too much of the same. Although my real beef with the game was in its lack of appealing player characters, it was obvious that the game was just following the template, as if the original design was so marvellous that it didn’t need to change, or grow, or improve. The original 2009 sheen had worn thin, the gameplay that was once exciting and vibrant now felt tired and workmanlike, offering big old slogs through instances that felt more of a chore than a challenge. Now, I can mash through the same old shit2 for hundreds of hours if I’m having fun, but the canned set of characters for Borderlands 3 had nothing that really satisfied my stealth-sniper peccadillos, which previously I was able to bastardise with Mordecai and Zer0 in the previous games. I was left with a fairly unsatisfying run with Moze, as something really put me off the formal sniper pick, Fl4k. Probs something to do with its focus on animal pets and not enough snipey delight. But perhaps it’s this lack of being able to settle into a canned character that prevented me getting properly stuck in.
I would say the general issue across all the Borderlands games is the tension between offering singleplayer choice with well-balanced multiplayer teams. It’s something that Redfall would also bash its head against. I can understand that canned characters may be easier to balance, but who gives a shit if every character is a kind of undercooked compromise between various archetypes? Not to mention ditching better characters from previous games to introduce markedly more boring ones. In a hilarious turn, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is perhaps the only game with a multiplayer squad co-op option that I’ve played which seems to have made the perfect balance for my preferences. I should also mention that it also lets you switch classes at will without affecting character level or loadout. Plus it has brilliant inter-weaving skills for sniper, Echelon (stealth) and drone classes. It seems horrifically unfair that one of Ubisoft’s most magnificent failures should contain wisdom that distant cousins could learn from, but probably never even noticed. Of course, at the time of writing it remains completely unclear what Borderlands 4 will actually be, aside from a return to a single planet. This is hardly interesting or exciting, though I suspect that given the series form and the deft hand of the (fucking) Embracer group3 watching over it all, the route it will take will likely be the most risk-averse. And it’ll probably try to be more hilarious than ever!4
If you’re looking for some deep insight to apply to Borderlands, it’s to pay attention to what the game does with its best asset. I’ve already mentioned the guns, but what’s interesting is how little the game cares about the player’s relationship with them. Bethesda’s open worlders have been offering players the chance to fill display racks with fondly-regarded combat tools for over a decade now, yet as far as Borderlands is concerned, the guns that you fight with are meaningless. They are ultimately disposable according to their simple, mathematical utility (or not, as the enemy levels creep up). I do remember some annoying economy to upgrade favourites to keep them capable, but I also remember longing for somewhere to store the more storied boomsticks that got me through so many scrapes. Surely they deserve more than annoyingly taking up space in inventories? And perhaps that’s the Borderlands problem. It never really cares about the ‘more’, even though it offers wondrous environments where perhaps ‘more’ could happen. Of course I’m talking about expanding sideways into more complex action-RPG territory, or perhaps giving players the sense of an actual stake in the worlds you fight in by building a place and an army (think Metal Gear Solid 5’s capturable, playable soldiers5). It would be nice to have something of actual substance rather than some arbitrary narrative arc towards opening another fucking vault. And you could always go deeper still, and have the guns you use become something far more complex in relation to the world. Go on - steal from Disgaea and get really funky with procedural weapons and their levelling. And would it be too much trouble to track the notable kills for each one? Could you feel the flush of pride when admiring some display of guns and being told which one took down which tricky boss, which over-level enemy? Would that work as a means of further investing the player in the game itself? I think it would for me, but what the fuck do I know? As for Borderlands, if it can’t be fucked to really care about its greatest innovation, nor did it care to ever expand it6, why should we really care about a fourth instalment? All I can think is it’s kind of great that the movie was terrible. Because otherwise, the game might start copying it. At least with one foray into other media a proven disaster, we know that the continual series sin of merely offering more of the same might, just might, be too risky to embrace.
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Seriously, you should see the play durations on some of my Musou saves.
Hit Points crew represent for Nathan’s raw fury.
I mean, it just tries SO hard, doesn't it? Bless them. For the record, Borderlands has never made me laugh.
CAN YOU FUCKING IMAGINE IF FUCKING BORDERLANDS HAD FUCKING FULTONS? HOLY FUCKING SHIT.
Do I need to spell it out? Ditch character classes, do classing via equipment, procedurally generate gear the same way as weapons.