Quick Look: Borderlands 3

My only real complaints for the game are the inventory/skill menus being really laggy/slow, that needs fixed asap, and that I'm bummed they didn't carry forward Presequels way of junking loot, stores let you just sell everything that's not favorited and there was no 'junk' status. It made things much more convenient and I'm bummed they didn't use it for 3.

Outside of the menus the game has run perfectly fine for me, playing as Amara in the Brawler skill tree has me literally jumping and sliding around just punching dudes or using an explosive shotung to explode dudes as I slide past them. It's fun as hell.

Outside of the performance issues, I'm really loving the game. More Borderlands is exactly what my friends and I wanted.

Yeah that part is weird to me to. The game looks like more of the same which can be held against it I guess, but calling it bad is just silly. That and complaining about the timed mode being timed is "a lot"...

Oof. No wonder they didn't send out console versions. This looks muddy and blurry and all the textures look like they haven't finished loading, the resolution looks sub-HD and it still somehow runs really bad. What happened??

@steveurkel: Disagree, I like Marmite and my taste buds aren't destroyed, so do a lot of people. (Also note that marmite is different in different countries, although a lot of people would still think it tastes like dog feces because of a lack of corn syrup. Also very healthy for you BTW). But I manage my marmite by using it sparingly mixing it with ample amount of butter, or even Honey. Think of that as a metaphor of dealing with Borderlands flaws. But I also get that people just don't and won't like marmite. I think that the description holds. Also I'm talking about actual opinions on the game, not reactions to those opinions (i.e. Rick & Morty).

Presequel had a loot shredder that you could stuff trash guns into and it'd produce something of higher rarity, I take it that feature didn't make it into 3?

Presequel also seemed to have better writing but that may be because I hadn't played the same sections as often as in 2 so the jokes weren't as tired. Also the central story was about Jack's descent from wannabe hero to villain so it had some character development by necessity.

@hippie_genocide:

100% agreed. i didn't intend to have a take in one direction or the other- i was mostly just amused that this game seems to be polarizing despite it appearing to be very middle-of-the-road.

knowing myself, i'll probably avoid this as i still have borderlands 2 if i get the itch . i like these games, but the aesthetics and writing were always off-putting to me so i'm just not passionate in either direction (neither disappointed nor super stoked to have another).

I picked up BL2 on PS Plus a little while back and played through it. It was fun, but it definitely showed its age and the writing was impressively bad.

I don't understand the widespread Tiny Tina hate, though. She was bad, but so was everyone else who opened their mouth. Maybe I didn't play all of her missions or something, but I don't remember even interacting with her very much. Did everyone hate play her DLC or something? When I beat that game I was super done with it, no NG+ or DLC for me.

If I ever get a hankering for more Borderlands I'll just give the Pre-Sequel or the BL2 DLCs a shot. Really don't see much of a difference between this and the remastered BL2, other than this seems like way more of a technical mess.

I feel like Borderlands’ biggest flaw, for me, is that all of the guns feel like shit. For a series that’s supposed to be about the joy of finding all these guns and killing things with them, there’s a remarkable amount of shitty guns. Plus I feel like it’s really difficult to see at a glance whether one weapon is better than another, which makes finding loot more of a pain in the ass than anything.

glad I never played any of this series, looks fucking terrible

@nthnmllr: I dunno. looks like a fun, grindy FPS shlooter.

You're missing out

This is a weird thing - it is mostly in line with the rest of the series and hasn't changed too much, which is fine by me. But also where some of it has changed it looks to be for the worse (such as those super clunky menus) in a way that makes me feel like they could've committed fully and kept it even closer to the look of the old games to have it run better.

I'm still on board - I replayed BL2 when it came to Plus and it turns out I still love that game in 2019, for all its flaws. I'm also someone who doesn't get bothered by the dialogue even when it's bad (it just kinda washes over me). The glitches and poor performance are the most concerning thing, but ultimately not enough to turn me away from it.

For the first time I'm glad there's a 6 month exclusivity, this still seems stuck in early access. I'll get the goty edition in a sale or something.

n o t h a n k s

I’ve been loving the game.

To call it more of the same is dismissive. Vastly improved movement and gun play, meaningful vehicle parts collection and customization, bigger and more varied zones, better ai in enemies, more options for spec customization, alt firing weapons, artifacts that give you new powers like leaving fire behind when you slide.

And generous cosmetic loot through gameplay, no mtx shop.

Honestly, not sure I wanted BL to become a “modern” looter game, because most modern games are a front for mtx shops.

Now the performance sucks, playing on PS4 pro and it needs a patch. There are also some very annoying bugs.

However, I can see myself playing this game for a long time. Hopefully it improves.

Their criticisms are valid. I found writing to be hit or miss, but I didn’t go in expecting a literary masterpiece.

Contrary to what was said re: Digital Foundry on the podcast, this runs perfectly fine via resolution mode on Xbox One X. Granted this is with the social stuff trick (turn it all off), which also smoothes out the menus, and it's still just 30fps...but at least a solid one, unlike the erratic 20-30 on PS4 Pro's resolution mode.

I want to buy into Jeffs criticisms, but don't know what other game he's thinking about since 2. It seems he has a whole other design doc mapped out on his head since 1.

I'm actually curious to what that might look like.

Man this game looks pretty bad.

I have only had minor performance issues on PC. I'm on a i5-7500 and RX 580 gpu. Im on high settings, 1080p, and the fps occasionally drop bellow 50. That being said, I can run Destiny 2 on ultra 100+ fps. This console performance is terrible. Maybe the XoneX is okay, but holy crap this is bad.

I have been enjoying the gameplay, but the story and characters are bad. The villains have some of the most telegraphed plot points that I can remember in games. An hour into the game I could tell what their (crappy) back story was, and how their character would change over the game. Just poor writing. And I say that as someone how really liked the writing in BL2.

Jeff is right in that every character is combination of over confidant and murder crazy, and that's the whole joke. For 40 hours. I even liked claptrap in BL2. But in 3 he is as bad, if not worse, than everyone said he was in 2. I can best describe my feeling on the characters and story by making fart noises with my mouth.

If this game had come out in 2015 then it would have been much less disappointing. I knew the story would be bad after Anthony Burch left. The pre-sequal made that painfully obvious. But this game is just not innovative enough to justify the 7 year gap between 2 & 3.

@puppymehard: definitely not excusing it, but it should only be a problem for another year until the new consoles come out.

I’m very wary about buying games at launch with my base PS4 and Xbox One

For how Giant Bomb is, I'm surprised about how they call the beastmaster "Him".

It doesn't bother me, I just assumed GB wasn't like this

I am having a good time with this game. They gave more options in the skill department, upgraded some of the slow movement from previous entries, and at least the "humor" isn't as bad as the Pre-Sequel. To each their own though.

Better inventory management, better menus, a more useful quest log/map screen, better writing (because that can be done, even in the style of this game's humour). A more meaningful implementation of random loot, maybe armour or cosmetic slots. You could also take stuff from Diablo's rifts, or Destiny's Strikes, to have meaningful content to repeat without having to lean into the Games as a Service model. It doesn't have to be different, but it can be more and it can be better.

To pretend that what they want is incongruous with the core of the game itself is willfully ignorant. And FWIW, I'm enjoying the game, but you can't pretend that they couldn't have done more.

If Jason likes this game why doesn't he ever argue against Jeff? Is he afraid? I mean Jeff is very harsh in his critique of the game. God damn Jason stand up for yourself and don't let Jeff run all over you. This seems to happen with every game Jeff dislikes no one argue against him in the same way he does. They just lie down and get trampled on. I love Jeff he is probably one of the best parts of GB but this is so annoying.

They made Borderlands 2.5.5. I was kind of hoping for more of a revolution on the style, but it seems they've made Morderlands. That's fine, I'm sure people will enjoy it, but I wanted something more of a step up.

Sup. I'm a fellow hardcore gamer. I'm all about the shooty looties and getting those tasty drops. Always down for a Bordersesh so feel free to add me on PSN. That'd be chill AF. Just don't tea bag me if we play together ROFL! Sick.

Is the humor in BL3 targeting Generation Y? Am I just too old to think it's funny?

Huh I honestly to this point had no idea FL4K was non-binary. There's a good chance they weren't aware either unless they fervently kept up with Borderlands news.

It's been all over BL news, with players outright being banned ingame for calling the BM "Him" in voice chat.

@omatictoast: none of the real scripted humor has even been funny in Borderlands. However, the combat barks are okay sometimes. “My chili recipe dies with me” is dumb enough to be borderline amusing.

It’s sad to see so many begging off because they saw poor performance in this video. The game is what the game is (I have been playing it for a week and think it’s great), but I have yet to see a single slowdown on Xbonex, and I have it set to favor graphical fidelity over frames.

Playing this with my wife, the shooting feels good and actually has weight to it when firing as opposed to the earlier games. The sound of the guns seem improved as well instead of toy-like sounds of its predecessors. Having said that, the menus are a terrible laggy mess especially in local co-op. There's a several second lag when one person is playing and the other tries to access the menu. Also, its still really laggy when both players are trying to mess with their inventories, skills, perks, etc.

didn't want to ask this in the Sims Magic QL cause it's probably getting some crits so I went here.

Any word on the Greedfall quick look?

@sombre: Ben consistently referred to FL4K as "they" throughout the video, often within seconds of Jeff or Jason referring to FL4K as "him." They probably just didn't know.

This looks incredibly tired and old.

@zinkn: There are def bugs. Every sidequest you do has a repeating bark that continuously repeats some plea for help that never ends, regardless of circumstances. Maybe this is just on PC? No way that isn't a bug.

Not sure this game was playtested. It's basically Anthem, the combat is OK, everything else is bad.

Sorry the insane inventory mechanics don't allow for your reasonable recommendation in this literal loot game. You can't do the thing that you should be able to do because this game is designed by people who don't know why inventory limitations exist.

That's a great idea for Destiny though!

@iamaparade: i agree with this, well said.

With all the things Gearbox has done since BL2 including some of the shady BL2 DLC and "heads" skins and shit..... I had no faith in them as a developer anymore. This looks fine for BL3 as BL goes but honestly.... They should have actually tried to evolve the game at this point. 1 to 2 was a nice jump just enough and added enough. This looks more like 2.5 or a large expansion for 2.

Thank you for keeping Abby out of this one.

@north6: You can easily do what he suggested? You have 4 equippable guns, have a gun equipped for each type. I personally have an assault rifle, shotgun, and then two elemental weapons equipped at all times and swap accordingly. The only real issue with the inventory is the slowdown imo.

So you're saying the lategame reward is 4 equippable guns, thereby solving the game's tiny inventory problem? Neat! It sounds like it's super easy to just flip through the 4 guns too, just a mere 4 button presses to get back to that intial gun. Who needs a quick select? I'm like 7 hours in, 2 gun slots, so I can't do that yet. Anyway, the combat isn't deep enough at this level / enemies not bulletspongey enough so it doesn't matter.

About that slowdown, that's a pretty small issue with the uh, inventory/skills screen. Where you can't do anything for 15 seconds whenever you open it. Would kinda suck if you get a cool new gun and you need to swap it into one of those rad 4 slots, huh?

@bloody_skirmish: they didn't "keep Abby out of it" its a West Coast quick look. Abby's great and this is a shitty thing to say.

@north6: I didn't say the menu slowdown was a small issue, it's a big one that should get fixed asap. The game has some problems, I'm not denying that, the only one to actually hamper some enjoyment though is the menu slowdown.

Early game you're fine if you don't want elementals, or you can just have one equipped if you feel they're necessary. The slots unlocking as you progress in the story is a bad change imo, I just recently got artifacts unlocked around level 35. I miss the dpad weapon swap too, learned that tapping the swap button quickly skips the others and is basically the same thing so it's not as big of a minor issue as it was at first.

Fair enough, I'm pretty down on this game but I'm glad others are getting some enjoyment out of it.

Why not just roll a different character after looking at the skill tree's online? I wouldn't stick with a character I didn't find fun. I ran into that problem in the first game, and just quit and started over. Way better time.

This game is a jenky, buggy piece of shit that doesn't warrant a $60 price tag. The multiplayer experience is pretty bad and gets tiring/tedious after you encounter the same bugs repeatedly. It truly boggles my mind that people will look the other way for the love of nostalgia. If this were put out by EA or any other dev not tied to the BL franchise then pitchforks would be raised over the state of the game.

There are some good things to the game. The boss fights are a huge step up but everything else is severely lacking or just straight up bad. Given how long they've been working on this game and they've managed to not add anything intuitive or with the times for the genre is disappointing.

They could literally release BL2 and slap a 3 on it and people would be eating it up.

On Ben's point about Clap-Trap: it sounds like Clap-Trap and his antics could be a self-loathing, self-insert written by Randy Pitchford...

...from a parallel universe, that is!!! (continuing the theme of awkwardly shoving-in surface-level 'Rick and Morty'-related stuff here.) Self-reflection, personal improvement and a sense of shame don't seem to be the strong suit of our universe's Randy.

For him and for other reasons, I wouldn't ever want to play this. But thanks for the QL, all!

Too true.