In each story the place a want is granted – whether or not by some primary-coloured goon protruding a lamp, a creepy piece of fairground leisure, or a bit of cursed bushmeat – there’s at all times an ironical sting within the story. You want for well being and it seems you possibly can’t die. You want for a private chef, but it surely seems he solely does offal. You want the whole lot you contact to show to gold, then it’s going to flip on the market’s no method to flip it off – or it kicks in simply as you go to the bathroom, that form of factor. You ought to, because the saying goes, watch out what you would like for.

I’m sorry I wanted for New Tales From the Borderlands, everybody.

Tales From The Borderlands is an interactive narrative journey set within the Borderlands universe, the place you select dialogue choices, actions, and go or fail quick-time occasions. These accumulate over the course of a number of episodes and finally contribute to the end result of the story. It is, and I can not stress this sufficient, incredible, particularly as a result of how good it’s got here as a shock when it launched in 2014. Tales From The Borderlands just isn’t solely the most effective Telltale recreation, but in addition the most effective Borderlands recreation, most likely as a result of it wasn’t made by Gearbox. I’ve wished extra Tales From The Borderlands for nearly a decade now. Gearbox have seen match to make one, in-house, and presumably out of revenue reasonably than need, or any affection for the title.

New Tales From The Borderlands is an interactive narrative journey set within the Borderlands universe, the place you select dialogue choices, actions, and go or fail quick-time occasions. And it fuckin’ sucks.

As earlier than, you play a number of characters, switching management between them as they do various things within the story: anxious pacifist scientist Anu, her (heavy air-quotes) street-smart adoptive brother Octavio, and bloodthirsty fro-yo store proprietor Fran. They are additionally accompanied by a robotic referred to as LOU13, pronounced Louis. For causes I will not go into, the unlikely trio group as much as steal a therapeutic crystal from a vault, attempt to monetise their discovery, and ultimately save the world from each the bloodthirsty head of the Tediore megacorp, and an odd entity dwelling contained in the crystal.

I truthfully do not like being very imply about video games. So within the pursuits of each brevity and readability, I’ve determined to current the remainder of this assessment as a listing of issues I like, and a listing of issues I didn’t like.

Good issues about New Tales From The Borderlands

• The character designs are cool. I preferred that Fran, who will get the most effective elective skins, is a wheelhoverchair person however can also be a really bodily character who will get essentially the most historically heroic moments
• The voice appearing is generally respectable, and the mocap means a whole lot of the animations really feel idiosyncratic, as is befitting the universe and characters
• The banter between the Tediore drone guards is fairly humorous, though it occurs each time two or extra Tediore guards are on display screen and is subsequently topic to diminishing returns




• I just like the weirdo Tediore guard who’s a superfan of the in-universe miniatures recreation Vaultlanders, who turns up in more and more unlikely locations to battle the characters (this like doesn’t prolong to the mini-game in query itself)
• There is one (1) joke executed by the above character involving Octavio hiding in a field that made me snicker out loud
• There’s an offended shouty gun on legs referred to as Brock, who goes “bang!” when he shoots; he can keep
• LOU13, who’s an murderer bot, can even keep. Although he is on skinny ice due to the played-out jokes about plugging into information ports being like intercourse

Things about New Tales From The Borderlands I didn’t like

• Rhys from the unique Tales is in it, after he was introduced again for Borderlands 3, and I do know it is not the New Tales devs’ fault, however the entire thing may be very “Look how they massacred my boy!” for me
• If there are a number of situations the place characters say one thing like “oof, capitalism, am I proper?”, that is a sign that you haven’t created an efficient or insightful critique of capitalism
• Octavio’s introduction has a run of jokes that made me immediately hate him, together with telling a late middle-aged girl that her new cybernetic leg is “fireplace!” after which she lifts it up and it is also a flamethrower, omg, lol




• There are a number of situations the place a joke begins after which they type of… loop again and do the joke once more, in the midst of nonetheless doing the joke the primary time? Like, it is arduous to elucidate. There’s a bit the place Octavio is in jail and Brock the shouty gun is yelling at him to be much less depressed as a result of it is not as enjoyable torturing him, and Brock and the guards maintain stating that at completely different factors throughout the bit, however Brock additionally will get mad when the guard offers Octavio a scented candle to cheer him up
• IDK, simply, generally it is like among the folks concerned had no expertise of jokes, but needed to write some after the idea of jokes was defined to them. Possibly by Randy Pitchford
• Similarly, it’s typically clear {that a} joke was conceived with out actual reference to the folks within the scene or their characterisation, which means e.g. Anu will routinely turn into extraordinarily silly for about 30 seconds to facilitate a humourous and/or literal misunderstanding (the misunderstanding won’t be humourous)
• LOU13 is concurrently a brilliant superior murderer bot who’s able to monitoring the participant characters’ relationships by particulars as small as facial expressions – to the extent he grades these relationships with a rating – and, fucking, Drax from Guardians Of The Galaxy




• Multiple characters don’t get a decision, together with the recurring Vaultlanders fan that I really preferred
• The most attention-grabbing issues on this recreation occur off display screen, in a approach that whispers of not being allowed time or finances. Fran fights a bunch of sharks and you aren’t getting to see it.
• Even so, New Tales From The Borderlands can consider fuck all so that you can do as a participant. I needed to do a QTE to bang helplessly on the bars of a cage. At least as soon as I bought bored sufficient and routinely tried to skip ahead on a video progress bar that did not exist.
• The essential MacGuffin is a crystal that immediately heals, rendering the bit the place a fatally wounded character does the “go with out me, there is not any time” sacrifice virtually insultingly silly
• A essential character died on the finish of mine, off display screen, and I don’t know what I may have executed otherwise or which elements performed into that
• Also a bunch of instances if I failed a QTE it resulted in success anyway, or instantaneous dying and reload – reasonably than like, consequence to cope with, which I assumed was the entire level of this type of recreation?
• At one level LOU13 asks one other character “Are you enjoying a type of insipid interactive narrative video video games?”
• It does not even do the cool music video bits firstly of chapters correctly! That’s like the most effective little bit of precise Borderlands! How do you mess that up?!

Look, I do know making virtually any recreation is a labour of affection, however I spent like every week being unhappy and never figuring out why, till I completed this recreation and realised I used to be comfortable as a result of I did not must play it day by day after work anymore. All this does is show that Gearbox can’t be trusted with their very own IP anymore. The very existence of New Tales From The Borderlands is a more practical critique of company construction and the pitfalls of capitalism than any of the content material of any Borderlands recreation. Apart from the most effective one. Just play Tales From The Borderlands.