Borderlands – The Return to Pandora
So it's been about a week since I started playing Borderlands 3, and I am absolutely hooked. It's still a bit too soon for me to write up a full review, but I've been taking notes on the experience. In the meantime, I figure I could share my initial reactions.
So this is the first Borderlands I am playing through entirely with someone else. My friend Beth is a big trophy hunter, and we planned on doing this platinum together. She's never played a Borderlands game at all, so her experience and approach is vastly different than mine. But we've been steadily moving through and making progress and are a little over halfway through the story now, with a decent chunk of side quests complete as well.
I became invested in the story with the introduction of one of the antagonists, Tyreen. She fits in perfectly with a lot of my other favorite fictional characters, so it makes sense when reflecting on it. I'm regularly left wondering what her motivation is. The lore of the Borderlands universe has been shown in several games, but there is still a lot to be told.
The gameplay loop is pretty par for the course for the franchise, but I can't really get a good ranking (compared to BL2) until the late game. Throughout the grind of the base game, your build changes regularly, along with your playstyle. I've also been playing through the game with three characters, so it is still very new and just different. I tend to rate the gameplay based on the endgame routine, so there isn't much to say yet.
As mentioned, I have three characters. Two are for different co-op playthroughs and the third is a solo character. I'm eating this game up. I'm sure I will make the fourth character as well, just for maximum flexibility for raid bosses. My initial thought is the fourth character will be used for public co-op to see how the community grind goes.
I also picked up a PS4 pro, so I'm experiencing the game with improved performance, and can say it looks and feels smooth most of the time. It might drop frames due to tons of particles, but it isn't too distracting compared to the drop on the base PS4.
Hopefully by the end of the month, I'll write a full review for the game. Keep an eye out!
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