There’s an argument to be made that 2014’s Tales from the Borderlands is definitely the perfect sport within the Borderlands sequence. Now, maintain on. Don’t go typing up your indignant feedback simply but. Hear us out.

Sometimes you simply desire a capital V capital G Video Game that’s about working and leaping and taking pictures and looting and the right Borderlands video games are a secure choice to select up and play on that entrance. But it’s laborious to disregard that the franchise has a considerably inversely proportional relationship between the tightness of the gameplay and high quality of the writing: because the taking pictures obtained higher, the dialogue obtained worse and the jokes grew extra irritating.

Within their respective genres, bearing in mind what they got down to do, Tales might be probably the most profitable sport within the sequence: it’s humorous, with an attention-grabbing story, likeable characters, and at occasions it’s genuinely shifting. Nobody was as stunned as us about that. A Telltale Borderlands sport? Madness! But it labored.

Fast-forward eight years and right here we’re with New Tales From The Borderlands, much less a sequel to the Telltale unique and extra of an alternate actuality model of the identical concept. What would have occurred in 2014 if as an alternative of partnering with Telltale of their prime to make a extra story-focused sport within the Borderlands franchise, Gearbox simply made it themselves? Well, that is the consequence. And it’s garbage.

Taking place after Borderlands 3 however with out actually requiring any data of any earlier Borderlands video games to grasp the story, New Tales has three playable characters that you just’ll management at varied factors all through the ten hour journey.

There’s Anu, a wise however anxious scientist who’s a pacifist inexplicably working for a weapons producer. There’s Fran, a frozen yogurt vendor in a hoverchair who has anger administration points. And there’s Octavio, a hipster moron who’s launched to us in a cutscene wherein he rebukes a pizza vendor for his or her “problematic” exaggerated-a Italian-a accent-a. It’s as cringe inducing because it sounds.

The three heroes aren’t a lot characters as they’re merely vessels for the following insipid gag. Anu, for instance, is the intelligent one within the gang proper up till she must be an fool for a joke to land. One minute she’s fixing difficult physics issues, and the following she doesn’t understand how a door deal with works. And that’s the punchline. LOL.

Fran and Octavio are equally troubled. Fran’s total persona is predicated round her speaking about frozen yogurt, creepily providing to offer individuals mouth-to-mouth once they clearly don’t want it, and punching individuals actual laborious. That’s it. Octavio simply does the stupidest factor possible in each scenario to pull the story out somewhat longer. At one level he forgets what the place he works at — the place he is spent half the sport, by the way in which — appears like. They get about ten minutes out of that zinger.

The facet characters are a combined bag. There’s a robotic murderer going by means of an ethical quandary about how they make their residing and so they’re most likely probably the most well-rounded and attention-grabbing character within the sport. There’s a lady who shouts lots. There’s a speaking gun that claims “Bang!” each time it shoots. Most of the facet characters both disappear for half the sport after which flip up for the final chapter or just go nowhere.

Rhys from the unique Tales from the Borderlands has a small function within the first chapter and if you happen to assume what they did with him in Borderlands 3 was a slap within the face to followers of the Telltale sport then this isn’t going to make you’re feeling any higher. Not content material with ruining their very own characters, New Tales from the Borderlands retroactively ruins the unique Tales from the Borderlands by turning its protagonist into simply one other Borderlands gag™. So thanks for that.

Every from time to time between inane comedy routines there’s a narrative to be instructed. It includes a magic rock that has the facility to assist humanity however there’s baddies who need to use it for their very own nefarious ends. It’s a slight, low stakes narrative and even at solely ten hours it feels drawn out, with lengthy, boring sections the place nothing remotely attention-grabbing occurs to push the story ahead.

By the ultimate chapter we simply didn’t care any extra. None of the expansion feels earned or deserved. And then as a remaining insult, after we obtained to the ending we had been instructed that one of many primary characters had died, off display, with no clarification in any way for a way or why. It was like Poochie flying off to his dwelling planet and dying in a crash in that episode of The Simpsons. Utter nonsense.

Everything about New Tales looks like a poor model of the unique, even right down to the music. The first sport featured a licensed soundtrack that was at occasions expertly employed. Here, there’s licensed music but it surely’s thrown collectively seemingly at random. There’s a tacky montage scene of the gang attending to know one another backed by a low key, virtually dream-pop monitor, and later a quiet, extra reflective scene backed by a jaunty, extra upbeat piece.

Gameplay-wise, you’ll primarily be strolling about and fixing quite simple puzzles, speaking to individuals, and making decisions. There’s minigames, too, for issues like hacking and fixing issues, however these are borderline unattainable to fail so we’re unsure why they exist. There’s quick-time occasions to care for the motion scenes however these are equally forgiving, and even permit you to hit the unsuitable button after which simply strive once more till you get it proper.

One such fast time occasion — which we’ve got to say as a result of it’s so absurd — includes a personality preventing sharks. But as an alternative of seeing them struggle the sharks, we see Octavio commentating on how the struggle goes whereas button prompts pop up on display. It goes on for approach too lengthy and it’s so wildly unfunny that we do not know if it’s even supposed to be a joke.

We’re unsure if the developer simply couldn’t be bothered to animate the struggle with the sharks or if this complete bit is a few kind of subversive commentary on the futility of fast time occasions that simply doesn’t land, however regardless of the motive for it, let your ol’ buddies at Push Square provide you with a fiver’s value of free recommendation: when you have a shark struggle, you present the shark struggle. Everyone needs to see the shark struggle. It’s a f****** shark struggle!

Conclusion

We can scarcely recall an event the place we had been extra dissatisfied by a sequel than New Tales from the Borderlands. We needed to like this. We’d have accepted liking it. But we hate this sport. This is a ten-hour narrative journey that feels 4 occasions so long as it must be, with dreadful characters, and appalling, relentlessly unfunny jokes. It’s a spectacular misfire, its solely success to talk of being the uncommon instance of a sequel so dangerous that it ruins the unique, too.