Gearbox showcased gameplay of Borderlands 3 for the first time at an event. Our author Leya was able to play Gearbox’s new loot shooter for a total of 3 hours. She thinks: It’s Borderlands 2, just more extreme and better.
What kind of event is this? Gearbox invited various media representatives to Los Angeles on April 30 to test Borderlands 3 for the first time. Along with us were Maurice Weber for our sister site GameStar.de and myself, Leya for MeinMMO.
When is the release? Borderlands 3 will be released on September 13, 2019.
How long and what could we play? I played for a total of 3 hours. We had two characters to choose from for testing: Amara and Zane.
In the demo, we were able to play a part of one of the first quests and were a bit further into the beginning. The first skills could be unlocked, and we already had good equipment available to start shooting right away.
Our first impression in the video with gameplay
What is this video about? The GameStar video editor Christian Fritz Schneider interviewed Maurice and me right after we played Borderlands 3.
We describe our first impression, and you will get to see freshly recorded gameplay material. The game was played on PC with an Xbox controller.
Below the video, you will find a personal conclusion.
It feels like Borderlands 2 – But more extreme
This is my connection to Borderlands: The franchise is one of my favorites. I played every Borderlands title and spent quite a few hundred hours in Borderlands 2.
I feel at home in Pandora, and Borderlands 3 was able to give me that feeling too. The heart of Borderlands has remained, and Gearbox does not change anything drastically about the formula.
Borderlands 3 retains, as usual:
- the dark, absurd humor
- the absurdity
- the MMO shooter feeling through co-op focus and fun loot grind spiral
- the lovingly crafted characters and game world
- guns, guns, and more guns
This makes Borderlands 3 more extreme than its predecessors: The game overall will be bigger, more colorful, and even bloodier. The entire atmosphere now leans towards a stronger cyberpunk direction, and much is bathed in vibrant neon colors.
It might be that Borderlands 3 feels bloodier to me because the graphics have improved significantly. I can now observe in detail how heads explode or how an NPC crawls out of an animal carcass, dragging a huge puddle of blood with them.
- There are multiple planets that we travel to in a spaceship, which is also our home base. For the first time, we are leaving Pandora.
- There are many more weapons and bosses to fight against. How many specifically has not been revealed yet.
- The weapons can receive individual upgrades.
- The bosses are now two in number and have a complete cult under them: The Calypso twins Tyreen and Troy. Tyreen directly absorbs life energy from her opponents and wants to do the same with vault monsters.
This is what I particularly liked: While playing, I often had to laugh and was just happy that the dark and absurd humor has made its way back to Borderlands 3.
It’s the little moments when one of the NPCs sends me on a super important mission to get their coffee because otherwise, they would be too grumpy to fight. When I arrive with the coffee, a robot with a mustache and an ideology about ecological coffee, which an authentically hipster bartender could not convey better, is already waiting for me. In such moments, I love Borderlands 3 right away, because there is so much love in these details.
The gameplay feels fantastic! It’s simply fun to run around with the Brawler Siren Amara and beat enemies with her strong arms. Blood is spraying, everything explodes in a spectacular fireworks display, it’s just great fun.
This still worries me: It’s cool that there are now more planets to explore. However, I wonder what that will look like in detail. Is there a line to follow, or does everything split too much across the planets? What about loading screens? From spaceship to planet and back? Other testers I spoke with shared this concern, as it’s not clear-cut.
The first boss I fought, a flying brain, was a bit bland. There are smaller enemies in the demo that have more exciting mechanics than Gigamind, the boss enemy. Unfortunately, we have not been told much about further bosses yet, and this is one of the first opponents. I’m waiting patiently here.
The outlook is good: So far, I am confident that Borderlands 3 could be a hit, attracting both fans and newcomers alike. The loot shooter genre has been well established and popular, especially since Destiny 1 – even if Borderlands is actually the mother of it.
- the story looks promising
- there are lovable NPCs in it
- the gameplay with characters and weapons is fun
- it looks good if you like the shading cell style
- 4 DLCs are already planned, which speaks to longevity
- the comfort improvements and modernizations are well thought out
- In the release window (September 13), there are no other major releases.
