MeinMMO spoke with the developers of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands about the endgame of the crazy Borderlands shooter with a fantasy setting. And as expected, it gets wild.
Here’s what it’s about:
- Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is a spin-off of the Borderlands series and is set to be released on March 25, 2022
- Publisher 2K let us play for a few hours and organized an interview with the developers
- In the interview, we talked about the endgame, unicorns, rabbits, and plenty of chaos
Wonderlands tells psychotic fantasy stories of madness
How does the game play? In Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, you experience a wacky fantasy story and are a character on a game board – Dungeon Master Tiny Tina provides the extra kick of insanity.
As the story progresses, you visit several worlds with different sub-settings: There’s a pirate world, an area full of goblins and dragons, or the standard castle setting with knight stuff.
For a deeper insight into the game, check out our video on Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands:
But what happens when you visit all the Wonderlands and finish the story? MeinMMO spoke with Wonderlands developers about the endgame and can tell you: Just like in the previous parts of the Borderlands series, there is still plenty to do in Wonderlands.
- 20 chaos levels increase the difficulty
- Myth ranks improve your character’s stats
- Build optimization through targeted loot
- Chaos chambers generate random dungeons
In the following sections, you will learn what the endgame of the wacky fantasy shooter has to offer. Here you can find our short preview report on the demo:
No New Game+, but a lot of “Chaos”
Who did you speak with? The interview focused entirely on the endgame of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, and 2 developers answered our questions:
- Matt Cox
- Creative Director
- Kent Rochefort
- Lead Designer – Chaos Chamber
When does the endgame start? The endgame theoretically starts upon completion of the story. However, if you are not yet at max level 40, it is more of an endgame-light.
At that point, you can still play more worlds that you haven’t encountered yet or grind side quests in familiar areas until you reach max level.
Once you reach 40, then the “chaos” is worth it! The developers explained to us that the “Chaos Chamber” and the “Chaos Levels” make up most of the endgame content.
How is the endgame structured? Instead of relying on several different activities like Borderlands 3, Wonderlands eliminates many of these features and solely relies on “Chaos Chambers”.
The chambers feel like a mix of the endgame activities from Borderlands 3 – except for the “True Vaulthunter Mode”. New Game+ is not offered in Wonderlands – but you can set a high difficulty from the start (or a low one).
In the “Chaos Chambers”, you play through random dungeons and collect crystals, which you can exchange at the end of a run for the type of loot you are currently hunting for. In the next sections, we will delve deeper into the dungeons and targeted loot.
Also on board are the “Guardian Ranks” from Borderlands 3, with which you can specifically enhance individual character attributes – in Wonderlands this is called “Myth Ranks”.
Additionally, you can increase the difficulty with the “Chaos Levels” even further once you have unlocked the corresponding level through the “Chaos Chambers”.
The “Chaos Chambers” are random dungeons with bosses
How do the Chaos Chambers work? These “chambers” are central to the endgame of Wonderlands. The activity transports you to randomly generated dungeons, each with its own enemies and flow.
Different rooms are chained together and filled with various threats that you may already know from other areas. A normal run takes about 20 to 30 minutes and you have 3 lives to get through.
At the end of each room, you must choose between 2 portals, and your choice affects how things proceed. You can also decide whether to activate curses or boons.
A curse increases the difficulty, but also your reward in the form of crystals. You use these crystals at the end of a run to request specific loot – the more you have, the more loot you get.
During the run, you can also use the crystals to activate boons to secure advantages. This makes the dungeon easier, but you will have fewer crystals for loot.
At the end of a run, you will face boss fights, which are sometimes hidden by puzzles.
For the bosses, the developers focus on more action and expand the mechanics so that you have to move and dodge more while beating down the boss’s health points.
We are embedding a short trailer of the “Chaos Chambers” with gameplay here:
4 types of runs create “chaotic randomness”
Lead designer Kent Rochefort stated that the developers aimed to create a kind of “chaotic randomness” to make the dungeons feel different and new each time. Overall, you can choose from 4 versions:
- Normal run
- Extended run
- Featured run
- Chaos Trial
The normal run consists of 6 dungeon rooms, a mini-boss room, and a boss room at the end. In the extended run, there are already 12 rooms.
The “featured” run is a community activity: For a week, the featured run is the same for all players and not random. Things like damage, used builds, or completion time can be compared.
With the “Chaos Trials”, you find another random dungeon that can increase your chaos level. This works similarly to Borderlands 3 with the “Mayhem Mode”.
If you unlock a chaos level, you can increase the chaos level at any time, which raises the difficulty of enemies in the “Chaos Chamber” dungeons and in the rest of the world and improves the loot you find.
After that, you need to play another “Chaos Trial” to reach the next level.
At launch, you can go up to Chaos Level 20. With later updates, the max level will be increased. Creative Director Matt Cox explained to us that the chaos levels are designed in such a way that they can theoretically be increased infinitely.
Summary of Chaos Chambers
In the interview, we jokingly showed some disappointment that “rabbits” distribute the best loot. We would have preferred the “skag” – a loot-spitting unicorn from the “Borderlands 2” DLC Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep.
However, Creative Director Matt Cox was able to reassure us: “You will see plenty of skags in the game, so don’t worry.” However, we are now more concerned than before – but in a good way.
That was the big overview of the endgame of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. If you have any questions on the topic, feel free to ask. We are happy to clarify any uncertainties and can also request further details from the developers.
Also feel free to leave us a comment with your opinion on the new endgame. If you want to read more about Wonderlands, check this out: Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands introduces 2 new classes – gun-toting mages and brutal hammer swingers
