Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

The Review: Borderlands the Pre-Sequel is a good game. You should at least try it.
Now, the main reason I am writing this. No, the game is not spyware. It’s a misunderstanding based on updates to the terms of service. What happened was the games publisher, Take Two Interactive, updated the terms of their end user license recently. Several actors in the Borderlands community misread these changes as them turning the currently released games in the franchise into literal spyware. This is not true. The games are perfectly safe to run and your data will not be stolen. The codebase for the games is unchanged, all the update did is add an advertisement for the upcoming fourth game and you have to agree to the new EUL before you can play online. That said if you feel uncomfortable playing due to this controversy, I understand. I post this only to clarify the situation and will update as needed.
QnA:
Will the game spy on me?
– NO. The codebase is unchanged from before the update. The game itself will not collect any information.
Will I need a Kernal Level Anti-Cheat which will spy on me?
- NO. You will not need to install any anti-cheat to play Borderlands the Pre-Sequel. The update did not change this.
Will I be banned from multiplayer or sued by Take Two for using mods?
- NO. The game is a 10+ year old co-op shooter. Take Two does not care if you mod it. This part of the EUL is relevant for modern releases and in active development projects such as Grand Theft Auto Online where cheating via mods is a very real problem. Besides, this part of the EUL is targeted at cheat creators, not individual users who use mods.
Will I be banned from multiplayer for using foul language?
- NO. Again, this is a 10+ year old game. Take Two does not care if you trash talk your teammates. Again, this part of the EUL is relevant to more modern projects. Still, please respect your teammates.
What data does the new EUL cover?
- Emails, phone numbers, username, name, IP address, and passwords if relevant. If this sounds concerning, know that this is standard for many EULs where you need to create an account. You provided all this information except the latter to Steam when you created your account, Take Two just asks Steam to look at this information. The password clause is only for your Gearbox Shift account, it will not steal banking passwords or your Steam password.

“They put spyware in Borderlands!!”
Nah, they didn’t.
Let’s clear this up:
There’s no malware or spyware in your existing Borderlands games. No code’s been shipped in over a year, and unless Gearbox has mastered dark magic, nothing has suddenly materialized out of thin air. The games you already own? Still safe.
What did happen is a new ToS/EULA. Why? Because Gearbox is now publishing under Take-Two, and like every publisher under the sun, they need to use the corporate boilerplate legalese. Yes, it’s long and kinda sus-looking—just like the ToS for Steam, Discord, your phone, your toaster, and probably your smart fridge.
A bunch of terminally online doomsayers misread (or deliberately twisted) some sections to spin outrage for clicks. The data policy? Same as always. It applies to things you willingly give them (email, name, birthday, etc). No, they’re not harvesting your soul through your GPU.
There’s even panic about government-issued IDs—but that only applies in countries like China or Korea, where local laws require it. Not relevant to 99% of players, and certainly not some evil Take-Two plot.
TL;DR:
No spyware. No shady data grabs. Just another EULA update people overreacted to. Touch some grass and go shoot psychos on Pandora.

It’s the third game in the Borderlands series but essentially Borderlands 1.5. From the perspective of the first game, it’s a sequel. From the second game’s perspective, it’s a prequel—hence, a "Pre-Sequel."

It was five years ago when i started this game and i gave up becoz i didnt like it. but i decided to give it another chance and after sevrl hours i noticed that i want to play more and now i got all achvmnts

While Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel feels more like a big Borderlands 2 expansion than an actual sequel due to a lack of significant changes to the series formula, it remains an enjoyable looter-shooter despite not quite reaching the same heights
Out of all main titles in the franchise, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (or Borderlands: TPS for short) always felt like the odd one out, as most fans usually tend to talk about Borderlands 1-3 instead. This might be because developer Gearbox Software wasn’t solely responsible for Borderlands: TPS since 2K Australia co-developed the game, but also because Borderlands: TPS didn’t really do anything to progress the franchise formula – which makes it feel less like a mainline title but more like a big expansion instead. Coupled with the unusual storytelling that takes place before and after the events of Borderlands 2 at the same time, it seems that Borderlands: TPS was mostly made for fans of the looter-shooter franchise in order to bridge the long time before Borderlands 3 would arrive.
As the name suggest, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is split into two parts narratively: The actually playable portion of the game is set before the events of Borderlands 2 and allows players to experience how popular villain Handsome Jack rose to power. However, the non-flashback parts of the story happen a lot later, after the events of Borderlands 2, as these cutscenes are set between the third episode of Tales from the Borderlands and Borderlands 3 instead. To keep things simple, all of this just means that Borderlands: TPS should only be played AFTER Borderlands 1 & 2, if you want to experience it’s story in the best possible way.
While the story and writing of Borderlands: TPS never really hit the same heights as other franchise titles - especially Tales from the Borderlands - for me, it’s still an enjoyable yet drawn-out trip to Pandora’s moon Elpis and the Helios space station. Having played through the game once during its launch on PlayStation and now once more on PC many years later, what most stuck with me is how nicely many of the prequel elements actually added to the events in Borderlands 1&2: There’s Jack’s story of course but there are also other notable answers to open questions like what is actually powering the Helios laser, for example.
On the downside, the story of Borderlands: TPS unfortunately suffers from big pacing issues. Even if you’re not the type to tackle all side-quests the minute they appear, the main story still moves at a snail’s pace at times, as fulfilling simple objectives usually turns into an unnecessarily lengthy affair. Coupled with the same mission objectives almost every time (“shoot X, stand here, press button”) and a visually-boring setting, it’s fair to say that Borderlands: TPS can occasionally test the patience of even the most devoted fans. If the gameplay received some meaningful updates, the feeling of repetitiveness might’ve been less of an issue, but unfortunately this isn’t the case.
To put it bluntly, Borderlands: TPS feels way too similar to Borderlands 2 in terms of UI and gameplay, to the point where it might as well be a huge expansion. Apart from the new locations and story, the main differences between Borderlands: TPS and Borderlands 2 are the inclusion of O2 kits, a new vehicle (“Stringray”), a new elemental effect (cyrogenic instead of slag) and a new weapon type (laser). Furthermore, the “Grinder” machine allows the player to “recycle” weapons and receive new ones in return.
While most of these additions are self-explanatory and mostly okay – I personally never cared for the Stingray – the O2 kits are a different story. Due to the space setting, many environments in the game feature low gravity and no air, which is where the O2 kits come in: Not only do they provide air for a certain time until they need to be replenished (thankfully, running out of oxygen only makes the player’s character gradually lose health instead of instantly killing them), they also function like a jetpack and allow for various air manoeuvres (e.g. hovering, air dashes) as well as ground slams.
This might sound like a huge gamechanger on paper but in practice, O2 kits are more of a slight modification to the core Borderlands gameplay. Searching for air is nothing more than a slight annoyance and the increased air manoeuvrability is certainly nice to have but also limited to the point where you’re still mostly going to stay on ground. Overall, Borderlands: TPS still mostly plays like Borderlands 2: do quests, fight the same few enemy types, level up, invest points in three skill trees, use increasingly better procedurally generated weapons and so on. The gameplay loop is still fun, sure, but if you’ve played a lot of Borderlands 2 before, you probably want something a bit more different instead – like the refinements that Borderlands 3 brought to the gameplay.
There’s one aspect of Borderlands: TPS that proves to be a real downgrade compared to Borderlands 2 however: It’s level design. While the map UI is as unhelpful as ever, especially since you can’t track objectives of multiple quests at once, the individual levels range from way too big and boring to small and needlessly complicated/annoying to navigate. As mentioned before, they’re also visually boring, with the same few barren environments more or less repeated instead of doing something more interesting – a shame, compared to the many different environments showcased in Borderlands 2.
On a more positive note however, Borderlands: TPS runs well on a SteamDeck OLED using Proton Experimental: My playthrough at a native 1200x800 resolution and with almost all settings maxed out resulted in a nearly flawless 60 FPS experience. Strangely, the game likes to restrict itself to just 45 FPS upon a restart at times – this was easily fixed by adjusting the SteamDeck screen refresh rate from 60hz to another number and back to 60hz in the SteamDeck settings however. I found the SteamDeck to be a great fit for Borderlands: TPS, although I have yet to try using it during a co-op playthrough.
Concluding, Borderlands: TPS is a decent title for fans of the franchise that just want more Borderlands. It’s not suited for newcomers due to its story structure and might feel a bit dated if you’ve played Borderlands 3 beforehand, but it’s quite enjoyable if you’re not expecting it to be more than a slightly adjusted Borderlands 2 experience.

I came back for the second time and the game is still good, if not better, as the first time.
Great fun with all the characters, satisfying visuals without stressing gpus, funny for the most of the gamers and community still alive for fun or coop achievements.

What else to ask?

When this game came out it got a lot of undeserved hate, because "it's not Borderlands 3", and "it has the same engine", and "this could have been a DLC", etc.
But, at least to me, this is like a 'Borderlands: New Vegas'. I really like the story, the character portrayals, the vault hunters and their skill trees, the environments. Heck, I think I even like it more than BL2. I'm not saying it is the better game, because BL2 is a great game, but I really, really enjoyed this game and feel a bit sad about the bad rap it got and still gets sometime.
Absolutely a recommend from me.