The new loot shooter Borderlands 3 has received its first reviews. We have looked at how the impressions and reviews from various gaming websites and Metacritic pan out.
After the first reviews for Borderlands 3 came out today, Monday, September 9th, many sites immediately published their opinions. We have captured and compiled some of the voices to present them to you.
This is how the ratings are on Metacritic: Borderlands 3 currently holds a rating of 85/100 on Metacritic (as of 6:30 PM). So far, there are:
- 15 positive reviews
- 1 mixed review
- 0 negative reviews.
Borderlands 3 officially releases on September 13, which is why no user scores are available yet. Some of the ratings are listed here in detail:
- XGN (Netherlands) 95%
- IGN 9/10
- Forbes 9/10
- Destructoid 9/10
- GameInformer 8/10
- GameStar 88%
- Gamespot 8/10
- PCGamer 63%
- Gamersky (China) 9/10
- USGamer 4/5
This is our rating: You can read what MeinMMO thinks of the new shooter in our detailed test of Borderlands 3 by Leya.
Worthy successor or stuck in time?
Borderlands 3 has received mostly positive feedback so far. Only one outlier highlights the sides that are not received as well, somewhat more clearly.
What is praised
The positives in short: The majority of reviews agree on the positive points regarding Borderlands 3. Frequently praised are:
- The action-packed, fast-paced gameplay
- An elaborate and rewarding skill and progress system
- The selection and enormous variety of different weapons
This is how the gameplay is received: The gameplay of Borderlands 3 ranges from cutscenes, in which you can gain background knowledge about the characters or hear funny stories, to numerous quests, up to the naturally abundant shootouts.
The latter, according to the reviews, makes up a large part of the charm of Borderlands 3 and also a good portion of the game itself. The shootouts are not always challenging, but entertaining. GameStar writes about this:
Borderlands 3 rarely provides a truly demanding challenge – and that is completely fine! It aims to be a shooter-Diablo, and that naturally includes mountains of cannon fodder that we can slaughter to our heart’s content.
This is how the skill system is received: Particularly for players who want to enjoy the co-op mode of Borderlands 3, the skill aspect is interesting. The four available heroes of the game all come with unique abilities and skill trees.
Depending on how you skill, the characters play differently and a little more individually.
Borderlands 3 offers more flexibility than ever before to create the character you want. For the first time in the series, an active skill is linked to one of the three talent trees of the vault hunter. […] As a result, you and a friend can easily play the same character but have completely different builds and roles in the battlefield.
Gamespot
This is how the weapons are received: However, the aforementioned weapons are the highlight for most testers. Previous installments of Borderlands 3 have already amazed with a plethora of weapons that are worth collecting, testing, and using.
In Borderlands 3, the weapon manufacturers have given their products special properties. This leads to each brand playing differently. For every play style, you can choose your very own favorite weapons. Leya says in the MeinMMO review about this:
With the random combinations of features, every weapon drop is a surprise. The weapons feel extremely different. Every player will likely experience at some point a specific weapon with too low a level dragged along much longer than anticipated because it feels so perfect for them.
What is criticized
The negatives in short: On the other hand, there are also some points that are perceived negatively. In most reviews, the advantages comfort the testers over minor flaws. Only PCGamer is harsher in its judgment of Borderlands 3. The magazine particularly criticizes:
- The flat characters and only somewhat engaging story
- The childish scatological humor
- Boring endgame and frequent occurring bugs
This is what bothers about the story: Regarding the characters, PCGamer writes that they are often introduced quickly, say their lines, and then disappear or are made to disappear. It is as if the characters are supposed to be already familiar, and you should be happy that they appear briefly.
This is what bothers about the content: The humor seems to be one of the biggest points of criticism that PCGamer raises. It might have been funny a few years ago, but it no longer suffices to convince today:
It is stuck in the ’00s, when superficial vulgarity was enough to be ‘extraordinary’ – Borderlands 3 really goes for the poop jokes. Back when the series first gained traction, that was sufficient. […]
It is simultaneously attractive and repulsive, an FPS-RPG that stands out when its weapon generation system spits out weapons that feel wonderful, supplemented with additions that turn hordes of minions, bugs, and soldiers into clouds of red mist […] And then it tells one of its long, bad jokes, and the cloud disappears. I have a terrible trauma.
The endgame is deemed boring as it simply requires more and harder grinding or a replay of the story. However, some bugs mean that players may spend longer in certain areas than they would like.
As the “best and worst part of the series” Borderlands 3 simply comes too late.
