Borderlands 3 is notorious for its biting, dark humor and the certainty: “If you do the morally right thing, you’re doing something wrong!” But in this quest, everything is different than it seems, as our author Jürgen Horn found out.
That’s why I love Borderlands: Borderlands 3 is one of my favorite games precisely because of its humor. I just enjoy the wonderfully wicked way of storytelling, where there is always a nasty twist at the end.
For example, in a task where a psycho (one of the enemy types in the game) unusually calmly and clearly speaks to you and promises to give us his aluminum hat (a quest item) if we make sure the “voices in his head” finally stop. To do this, you destroy all broadcasting antennas in the area.
The psycho is happy because finally these “terrible, soothing voices” are gone and he can finally ride his “meat bicycle” again – meaning to violently hack people to pieces and revel in their remains.
Of course, it all ends with a load of buckshot in the face and the death of the poor madman. That’s how fans of the Borderlands series know and love: A seemingly clear, positive situation is ultimately counteracted by an absurd twist.
One almost always expects a darkly humorous surprise at the end, and a (seemingly) good deed is usually punished rather than rewarded. This is the classic Borderlands formula, upon which many of the stories and quests in the game are based.
The possibly saddest quest in Borderlands 3
This quest is about: There are also other situations that are so good precisely because they stand out sharply from the rest of the game. In my example here, it is about the quest “Life of the Party”.
What do you have to do? The quest actually starts quite typically: You are supposed to help the NPC Mordecai celebrate a birthday party. He has taken a little girl named Grace under his wing and wants her to become a future vault hunter. “Cool, she will surely be a playable character in the next Borderlands!” I thought to myself.
And a birthday party in the desert world of Pandora with the sniper Mordecai and his quirky bird-monster pet as guests? That’s sure to be a riot! I was looking forward to a lot of crazy party games and a cool little girl as a future badass.
That was the first nasty twist: But after I collected flowers for the girl in the usual brutal way, the first big twist came at the girl’s house. Instead of the birthday girl, her father was standing in front of a grave. Because Grace – as the mourning father said – was recently eaten by wild insect monsters.
Nevertheless, he wants us to celebrate the party. That’s what his little girl would have wanted. “Wow, a birthday party for a dead girl, that’s really bitter,” went through my mind. I expected pretty much everything, but not that. But yes, even pitch-black humor at the hard limit of tastelessness is part of the Borderlands formula. Let’s see what will happen next.
So the quest continued: Next, I’m supposed to try the whimsical party games that the father had prepared. If one succeeds in all of them, there’s even supposed to be a very good and unique legendary weapon. It starts with a cake-eating contest. Grace would have eaten “as if she had a tapeworm,” the proud father says. She devoured a whole 11 pieces of cake last time. That’s the record, and he bets that not even a badass vault hunter like me could do better!
“Challenge accepted!” reflexively echoed in my head, and I already ran out to mercilessly stuff every piece of cake I could find into my virtual mouth. But something felt off. While the father encouraged me to break the record, he also didn’t seem happy about it at all. There were passive-aggressive remarks like, “Yeah, go ahead, you really want to break my little girl’s record, right?”
Should I really break the record? At some point, even Mordecai pipes up and says, “Dude, really? Don’t be a jerk and let the father have his girl keep the record.” I’m puzzled. There’s still a piece of cake left, which would really break the record. The record of a dead girl.
That seems wrong and really jerkish to me. But at the same time, this is damn Borderlands! Something crazy must happen at the end that pulls everything back into the absurd.
Nevertheless, I can’t bring myself to do it and declare myself beaten. The father is happy and moves on to the next task. There are more party games, including grenade throwing and a shooting contest. Here too, the deceased Grace set impressive but breakable records.
Every time I’m just about to break the record, there come more passive-aggressive comments from the father and moral admonitions from Mordecai. “And yes, damn it, I see it!” Even though I really love breaking records and especially farming achievements in games, I just can’t bring myself to do it here.
Does the Borderlands formula apply here again? At the same time, I’m absolutely sure: Once this is all over, there will be a nasty twist that bites me hard in the ass. Then the father will probably rub in my face what a weakling my vault hunter is and that I can’t even break the record of a little girl.
He’ll probably even post that in the ECHO-Net and the damn Calypsos (I have rarely hated villains more than these two jerk-offs) will probably make fun of me in a live stream. I definitely want to look forward to that – Not!
On the other hand, it could also be that the father will be totally offended in the end because we let his dead little girl win and she might not have wanted that as an up-and-coming badass. What a dilemma! Nevertheless, I ultimately decide to do what I think is right: I lose big time and let Grace keep all her records. At the same time, I mentally prepare myself to be ruthlessly criticized.
Borderlands 3 can also be more than just nasty and sarcastic
So the quest ended: In the end, all tasks were botched, and I expected the worst: humiliation, mockery, and scorn. But here, Borderlands 3 breaks with the usual formula. The father and Mordecai are totally grateful to me for allowing Grace to take her record with her to the grave.
“So my little girl will always remain the greatest!” exclaims the mourning father and for the first time in this quest looks a bit more cheerful. Mordecai also pats me on the shoulder appreciatively and thanks me for letting Grace keep her honor and the father his pride.
And as a thank you, I still got the awesome Jakobs weapon “Amazing Grace” as a reward. And I joyfully used this pistol for a long time and finally hung it up as a memento on the trophy wall in my cabin on the spaceship.
That’s why this quest is so good: With the quest “Life of the Party”, the writers at Gearbox have once again proven that they are masters of storytelling. By clearly subverting a carefully built expectation, the quest gives me as a player a good feeling. Sure, one could have ended the task exactly as I feared.
That would have been brilliantly nasty in a way. But in that case also somehow tasteless. In any case, I had to both laugh in relief and shed a few tears at the end. Because sometimes, even in a brutally dark game like Borderlands, it feels good to do the right thing and be rewarded for it.
