Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 is living proof of how a game can have great gameplay, but still be bad overall.
The first thing you'll immediately notice when you start playing is how buttery smooth the gameplay is (this is especially true for those coming from Borderlands 2). Gone are the floaty/stiff gunplay and movement from the previous games, which were instead replaced by controls that immediately click. Everything feels better, from just running from point A to point B, to moving around during combat, dodging enemy projectiles, and getting right in the enemy's faces for those point-blank shotgun hits. You can now also not only slide on the ground, but also vault over objects, which just adds to how fluid the gameplay feels.
They also made a lot of QoL changes. Probably the biggest one is that you can now fully level up your character in just one playthrough, thanks to Mayhem mode, which can be toggled at the end of your playthrough, and scales everyone up to your level. Other changes include things such as auto ammo/currency pickup, gear auto-selling, a lost loot machine (for when the bosses inevitably drop loot outside the map), and many others.
Finally, as you're getting used to the new controls by moving, and looking around, you'll also notice that the world has never looked better. The game features those distinct cartoony looks Borderlands fans are used to, with saturated colors and flashy visual effects, while also having upgraded environments that feel more realistic and detailed.
Unfortunately, the positives just about end here.
In order for this review not to be too lengthy, I'll just go over some of things that I personally disliked the most, otherwise I could go on forever.
- The writing is terrible. This section deserves an entire Steam review dedicated to it, but to sum it up, the new characters are lame and forgettable, the old characters are dumb and incompetent, the villains are pathetic tryhards (which feels especially bad coming from BL2's Handsome Jack), the plot is full of holes, and the dialogue is so bad, most of the idle conversation from unnamed generic NPCs in Sanctuary will be more entertaining than 90% of what the important characters have to say. They quadrupled down on some of the characters' worst traits, to the point where some who were teetering on the edge of being unbearable last game are now actually not tolerable. Overall, this game is the perfect microcosm of untalented millenial writing, although weirdly enough it's more sterile and unfunny than woke
- The characters are, with few exceptions, all uglier. The worst offenders are probably Moxxi and Brick. The former looks like their face is just a big glob of botched plastic, and the latter looks like an entirely different person
- The UI is horrible; It's ugly, buggy, and about 30% of the time it seriously does not work. You'll click an item you have equipped in order to replace it with another one from your inventory and it just... 'forgets' you clicked it, and it's extremely irritating. The map, fast-travelling, etc. menus are also all bad and confusing
- Although I still think the game looks pretty, the visual pollution in this game is overall very bad. Gearbox needs to tell their VFX team to chill out, or at least add a transparency slider for all the crazy laser beams and explosions
- Last (and least, because BL's music was never that good to me), the music is not as good as in the previous games. Not only that, some songs don't fit Borderlands. That isn't to say there aren't some great tracks here, though
With that being said, this probably still is my favorite Borderlands game. The gameplay loop is quite addicting, and the QoL changes fixed some of the things I disliked the most about previous games (multiple mandatory playthroughs being one of them).
My advice is, just mute the dialogue, and enjoy the game. It has a crap ton of content, enough to keep you busy for potentially hundreds of hours if you're a completionist nerd.

Steam User 98

Reviewed last year

The gun play is by far the best in the series.
The story is by far the worst in the series.
Steam User 89

Reviewed last year

Most of this game it pretty good, but there is an extremely game breaking bug that prevents me from shooting Ava in the face.
Steam User 50

Reviewed last year

i gotta ignore what gearbox is doing and ignore the wack ass story and dialogue. i kinda love the way the guns feel in this game. still gets mogged by borderlands 2 like CRAAAZY and im not buying borderlands 4
Steam User 38

Reviewed last year

gameplay is good, lobotomize yourself and pretend the main story doesn't exist.
Steam User 62

Reviewed 4 days ago

Borderlands 3 is living proof of how a game can have great gameplay, but still be bad overall.
The first thing you'll immediately notice when you start playing is how buttery smooth the gameplay is (this is especially true for those coming from Borderlands 2). Gone are the floaty/stiff gunplay and movement from the previous games, which were instead replaced by controls that immediately click. Everything feels better, from just running from point A to point B, to moving around during combat, dodging enemy projectiles, and getting right in the enemy's faces for those point-blank shotgun hits. You can now also not only slide on the ground, but also vault over objects, which just adds to how fluid the gameplay feels.
They also made a lot of QoL changes. Probably the biggest one is that you can now fully level up your character in just one playthrough, thanks to Mayhem mode, which can be toggled at the end of your playthrough, and scales everyone up to your level. Other changes include things such as auto ammo/currency pickup, gear auto-selling, a lost loot machine (for when the bosses inevitably drop loot outside the map), and many others.
Finally, as you're getting used to the new controls by moving, and looking around, you'll also notice that the world has never looked better. The game features those distinct cartoony looks Borderlands fans are used to, with saturated colors and flashy visual effects, while also having upgraded environments that feel more realistic and detailed.
Unfortunately, the positives just about end here.
In order for this review not to be too lengthy, I'll just go over some of things that I personally disliked the most, otherwise I could go on forever.
- The writing is terrible. This section deserves an entire Steam review dedicated to it, but to sum it up, the new characters are lame and forgettable, the old characters are dumb and incompetent, the villains are pathetic tryhards (which feels especially bad coming from BL2's Handsome Jack), the plot is full of holes, and the dialogue is so bad, most of the idle conversation from unnamed generic NPCs in Sanctuary will be more entertaining than 90% of what the important characters have to say. They quadrupled down on some of the characters' worst traits, to the point where some who were teetering on the edge of being unbearable last game are now actually not tolerable. Overall, this game is the perfect microcosm of untalented millenial writing, although weirdly enough it's more sterile and unfunny than woke
- The characters are, with few exceptions, all uglier. The worst offenders are probably Moxxi and Brick. The former looks like their face is just a big glob of botched plastic, and the latter looks like an entirely different person
- The UI is horrible; It's ugly, buggy, and about 30% of the time it seriously does not work. You'll click an item you have equipped in order to replace it with another one from your inventory and it just... 'forgets' you clicked it, and it's extremely irritating. The map, fast-travelling, etc. menus are also all bad and confusing
- Although I still think the game looks pretty, the visual pollution in this game is overall very bad. Gearbox needs to tell their VFX team to chill out, or at least add a transparency slider for all the crazy laser beams and explosions
- Last (and least, because BL's music was never that good to me), the music is not as good as in the previous games. Not only that, some songs don't fit Borderlands. That isn't to say there aren't some great tracks here, though
With that being said, this probably still is my favorite Borderlands game. The gameplay loop is quite addicting, and the QoL changes fixed some of the things I disliked the most about previous games (multiple mandatory playthroughs being one of them).
My advice is, just mute the dialogue, and enjoy the game. It has a crap ton of content, enough to keep you busy for potentially hundreds of hours if you're a completionist nerd.
Steam User 41

Reviewed last month

-great gameplay
- bad story , some parts were fine like Promethea and Eden-6
- the bad story parts are really bad
- amazing DLC
- great vault hunters
- if you play the games for the gameplay this is a great game, if you play for the story then you will despise it
Steam User 67

Reviewed last year

10/10 gameplay
10/10 end game
10/10 Tina's Back B**ches!
0/10 Story Writers
0/10 They killed off a certain character to give a new ANNOYING character a backstory.

6/10 is a good game.

Borderlands 3

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