Retro:Renegade Reviews

Borderlands 3

By Nico Cognata

Here is a quick summary of the last two games, in Borderlands 1, seven large scale weapon manufacturers have taken over a galaxy nicknamed the “Borderlands.” You play as four vault hunters: Roland the Soldier, Mordecai the Hunter, Lillith the Siren, and Brick the Berserker. They explore the war-torn planet of Pandora to find ancient alien vaults persumilly filled with riches. After opening the vault, they unleash a monster called The Destroyer. They defeat it and save Pandora but are disappointed with the lack of treasure in their hands. 

In Borderlands 2, you get to choose from the next generation of vault hunters: Axton the Commando, Maya the Siren, Salvador the Gunzerker, Zero the Assassin, Gaige the Mechromancer, and Krieg the Psycho. They are hired by the current CEO of Hyperion, “one of the seven corporations.” Handsome Jack, He tries to kill the vault hunters by blowing up the train they’re in. After he fails, you meet up with Lilith and Roland from the first game. They are now the leaders of the Resistance against Hyperion. You learn that Hyperion are trying to open another vault on Pandora. The vault of the warrior, Jack wants to use the warrior to purge Pandora and turn it into his own image. After defeating the warrior and Jack, Lillith tries to destroy the vault key to make sure that nothing like this can happen again. “But when she touches it”, it reveals a map of other planets with vaults on them. That is where it ends.

After the debut of Borderlands 2 back in 2012, the sequel finally appeared in september 2019. With likable characters and hateable villains such as the Calypso Twins, as villains they are based on the worst parts of influencer and streaming culture. These villains don't even compare to Borderlands 2’s central villain Handsome Jack. He was designed to be easily likable yet also very hateable. He is a superior villain when compared to the Calypso Twins. However, the story has some major flaws, such as a poorly written, one sided character that receives too much attention. (Spoiler alert) Ava is responsible for getting her mentor killed by Troy Calypso, instead of blaming herself and changing for the better so this could never happen again, she instead blames Lilith and says that she needs to find the Calypsos and kill them, Other than that the story is pretty good. With four vault hunters to play as, Zane the Operative, FL4K the Beastmaster, Amara the Siren, and Mooze the Gunner each have unique skill sets and easy-to-use abilities. The variety of planets are quite incredible- to the “Mad Max”-like wasteland of Pandora to the futuristic cities of Promethea. The comedy of the game,which is a Borderlands staple, is still funny as always. At the very end I would recommend this for any longtime fans and new arrivals of the Borderlands franchise. With fun fast paced action I would give this game and 8 out of 10.