Original Publication Date: 30/06/2019

Republished 24/06/2022.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!

Borderlands has been on my mind constantly in the past weeks. With the sudden new DLC for Borderlands 2 and the oncoming Borderlands 3, I’ve been digging into whatever I could get. So, I finally decided it was time to push through Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, a game I heard mixed things about, but never played myself, and man, I realized I was really missing out on some real fun.
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is in a weird place – not developed by the core Gearbox staff who were busy with other projects, the game was developed by 2K Australia, giving the game a much more Australian-focused flair that made it stand apart from the first two games in the series. The Pre-Sequel focuses on Handsome Jack before he became Pandora’s dictator, set between the first and second game. Generally, I heard mixed things about the Pre-Sequel; some championed it as the best of the series, whilst some said it wasn’t even worth playing. Hell, I didn’t even mean to play it when I first bought the Handsome Collection, but only really interested in Borderlands 2. I’m glad I sat down I gave this game a try – what I found was something truly fun to play, and with an Australian twist on the series’ humour, one of the funniest games I’ve played in recent years.

At a baseline, I think the majority of people aren’t playing Borderlands for it’s storyline, and I’d never say they were particularly strong. Borderlands 1’s was extremely forgettable, and whilst Borderlands 2 had some great setpieces, again, it’s story wasn’t so interesting. Overall, I think Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel has the strongest story of any Borderlands – the struggle against The Lost Legion, and the real feeling of building up a force and gathering allies to take back Helios felt really good; this, coupled with seeing the descent of characters from Borderlands 2 into villany like Jack, Wilhelm and Nisha, creates a really engaging narrative that wasn’t really playable in either of the mainline entries of the game. I felt the supporting cast of the game was possibly not as strong as the previous games – characters like Jerry Springs or Pickle don’t really stand out compared to the more established characters we met in the previous games, but there were very few of them I felt were actually a pain to deal with. One common complaint I heard about the game that it was too liberal, featuring a number of gay couples in the game, but when I went into it, I expected a lot more of that kind of thing, from what I’ve heard, when at the end of the day, dialouge regarding those kind of topics is quite minimal.

The quest variety has never been better then in Pre-Sequel – the days of ‘kill X enemies’ is pretty much gone, and I’m all the happier for it. The focus of Pre-Sequel’s is all over the place, doing a thousand and one different things. In one quest, you’ll find yourself retrieving a cricket ball, receiving an insane, factually correct version of how cricket is played; in another, you’ll be hunting for material to help a slightly deranged and very lonely woman write an inappropriate children’s book. It’s almost always hilarious, and in a few cases, can be very touching. I was super surprised that they gave The Vault Hunters a pretty significant amount of dialogue that popped up throughout the game, making the Vault Hunters feel less like player characters, but more actual characters with agency in the game itself. Surprisingly, Pre-Sequel goes some very dark places with it’s characters, and a huge part of how captivating Handsome Jack is as a protagonist in this game is the very violent, yet self-justified actions he does to further his plans to save Pandora (and beyond).

If I had to think of a complaint regarding the quests, is in the main story and DLC there is a little too much ‘Oh no, this door got locked/sealed/destroyed, we’ll have to go a long way!’ going on. I understand they have to struggle to defeat the overpowering Lost Legion, but it’s just frustrating for it to happen over and over again – it just felt lazy. But at the end of the day, it’s a pretty small complaint. Additionally, I feel the boss design wasn’t great in this game – many of the bosses in the main story felt like after-thoughts, whilst the DLC bosses push this in the opposite direction, being spongy, insta-killing tanks that feel like you need to overlevel to defeat. Borderlands 2 seemed to grasp a balance between these two sides, and I really hope Borderlands 3 doesn’t take a page out of Pre-Sequel’s book here.

On the topic of quest variety, I have to give praise to the only major DLC The Pre-Sequel received, Clap-Tastic Adventure. With the exception of the Tiny Tina DLC from Borderlands 2, I feel this expansion is among the best in the franchise. It’s just utterly different to anything else in the series, taking place within Claptrap. It’s a new faction, the computer virus themed enemies, feel completely unique and gives you something new to try your weapons on. It’s story is fine – just your typical adventure inside a rather inane robot – but it’s it’s locations and fantastic side-quests where the DLC really shine. Though, as I said earlier, it’s bosses are generally pretty unfun to fight. With pretty much all versions of the game now coming packaged with the DLC, due to the Handsome Collection, you’d be stupid not to play Clap-Tastic Voyage. I was also thankful for it’s ending tying into the very beginning of Borderlands 2, giving Pre-Sequel Claptrap a plot thread that seems to be running through the entire franchise.

The playable Vault Hunters, at least of the ones I tried out, feel among the best in the series as well. I mained Wilhelm, a former boss from Borderlands 2, and the fantasy of a man obsessed with becoming a robot was perfectly realised in his movesets – by the end of the game, I was mashing up enemies with my robo-punch and blasting them into atoms with my shoulder-mounted cannon. It was an extremely tanky skill build that could dish out a ton of damage whilst constantly being under fire. Coupling this in with his supportive drones that form the core of his kit, Wilhelm is without a doubt my favorite Vault Hunter in the series. I played around a little with Athena and Nisha, and they both felt truly unique in the way they were set up to play, but neither pulled me in the way Wilhelm did – though, the friend I played a little with suggested the idea of playing as four Clap-Traps, who feature a more… random form of playing, and the chaos that could unfold from such a composition gets me excited for future playthroughs of the game. With how strong and well-made the Vault Hunters are in this game, and assuming some of the talent behind their designs are present in the development of the upcoming sequel, I’m super excited for how the player characters are going to play in Borderlands 3, since this series does nothing but improve with each iteration.

I think a huge, huge subjective reason I enjoyed this game so much was because it was developed by an Australian studio, and just how hard then went on the Australian humor in this game. Being Australian, there were at least a dozen times I was absolutely rolling at how much they lampoon my country's culture and the idea of what Australians sound like. – – Several of the side quests, such as the Don Bradman, Steve Irwin, or the one where a drunk bandit is searching for his friend, are easily some of the best and flat out funny quests the series has ever had, but I can understand how this kind of humor might fall a bit more flat for someone who isn’t as knowledgeable about Australian culture or humor, but I feel the writing and trademark Borderlands humor is there enough that I think the majority of fans will enjoy it.

It’s something you see again and again from fans – many people want to see more games where you play or work with a villian. But when it comes down to it, very few of those games that exist are actually good. In fact, I’d say Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is among the best that fall under that kind of category. The basic premise as having the option of playing as bosses and antagonists from previous games is simply fantastic that builds on the initial concepts portrayed by them in their original premise. Additionally, seeing Handsome Jack’s slow decay into true villainy is always cool, since when I played Borderlands 2, whilst I enjoyed Jack’s hilarious presence, he felt very ‘evil for evil’s sake’. Jack is not a good man in the Pre-Sequel – he’s power-hungry, and ambitious, but there is a layer of him in there that is genuinely trying to make Pandora a better place for all – but in ways that doom his soul.

At the end of the day, my biggest problems with the Pre-Sequel lie with it’s area diversity, something that has been a serious problem with the entire franchise since the original. It’s starts off fine – spending time on Elpis, exploring the moon’s surface feels really fresh and unique after the normal environments of Pandora… but then that lunar surface doesn’t really change for the next ten hours. Sure, it might be a bit more fiery in one area, or a little icy in another, but it all felt and looked the same. And it doesn’t help that the in-between areas aren’t much better – we’ve all seen run-down factories in previous games. It’s only in the final acts of the game, set in the space station Helios and the true goal of the game – The Vault – truly feel unique and are without a doubt the best sections of the game. Thankfully, it felt the developers realised this after the game’s release, as the entirety of the major DLC have sections that vastly outstrip the rest of the game, and honestly, the rest of the franchise, featuring a variety of digital-based landscapes that feel like nothing else.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, in my opinion, is required playing for Borderlands fans. It isn’t perfect – some of the plot progression can feel a little frustrating, but it’s in it’s side content the incredibly Australian humour (which, again, isn’t for everyone) shines, and you get the real meat of the game. With a strong story, fantastic DLC, and the best player characters in the series, The Pre-Sequel is perfect fun to tide you over before Borderlands 3 rolls around – and I can only hope the best of this game winds up in what could be my Game of the Year.