Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

A total marmite game (you either love it or hate it). I'm hesitant to call it my favourite game in the series, I recognise why a lot of people don't like what this game does in terms of gameplay and story, but I'm fortunate that I either liked or was unaffected by what others found to be problems. If you've already played and enjoyed Borderlands 2, there's little reason why you wouldn't enjoy Pre-Sequel, this is a large scale expansion of that game.
Love the six vault hunters, the choices are total fan-service but that's not a bad thing. Love that they talk back to NPCs and some are treated to unique dialgoue. Great balance of serious world-building and character development, in-between very dated but charming humour. It's a shame the story they were building to was totally abandonded come Borderlands 3. Elpis's low gravity is so much fun to play around with, unlike other players I didn't mind how wide-open maps are to accomidate flying VHs. The grinder addresses the issue of low-tier loot being worthless, laser weapons are fun although I was concerned how many inaccurate some were at later levels. The new cryo element is so satisfyingly effective that you won't even notice the mistake that is slag has been removed.
When installing the game on Steam Deck, you get the linux build which seems to run great but it's outdated and doesn't allow you to play with all the nice normal people on Windows (this also means your characters on the windows build don't transfer to Linux and vice versa). I ran the game on Proton 9, switching to 8 briefly if the game ever crashed. With Proton the game runs fine with the occasional stutter, nothing a restart couldn't fix. I had vsync, maxed graphics settings and the Deck didn't break a sweat, I capped the game to 60 fps but I'm sure it could have done 90 to 100 if I so desired.

Look, my review wants to make it absolutely clear that, while this game definitely isn't as long and full of content as Borderlands 2 or 3 is, it has its own merits that I think overwhelmingly deserves that you check it out, especially if you like Borderlands 2 and want more of it.
The biggest merit by far is the playable characters. This game has the best skill trees of any Borderlands game in the franchise, and it embarrassingly kicks in the teeth of Borderlands 3's mundane and frankly boring skill trees and characters, by introducing some absolutely amazing and creative capstones and abilities that I guarantee you are going to enjoy at late game play.
Do you want to control a howitzer cannon on your shoulder that shoots tandem with your normal gun, it has that. Do you want to shove a disco-ball on your face and spew colorful lasers everywhere, or embody a pirate ship shooting cannonballs, it also has that.
Do you want to gain damage for picking up money? It has that too. Do you want to be a ruthless gladiator and dash across the battlefield slashing up enemies and dousing them in blood, it even has that.
This is only the tiniest piece of so many unique and creative builds you can make in this game, and the only major content DLC for this game is only going to amplify your bat-s*** broken and hilarious gunplay crusade even further.
I am truly saddened that this game got a short shelf life, because once you get into the character that you pick, you will undoubtedly see just how much fun there is to unpack in this game.
With so many Borderlands bundles out there, this is a brief but baller rockstar among them.
I extremely recommend that you give this game a try, especially while there are still very few people left playing it.

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

1st: theres no face mc Shooty
2nd: No Mission rewarding you for commiting suicide
3rd and the worst problem: still cant have sex with moxxi after 3 games.

As borderlands 4 is releasing in 2025, and its the 10 year anniversary of the pre-sequel i decided to replay the story on pc from xbox back in 2014. The visuals are excellent the game holds up quite well despite its age and the fact it was made to run on the xbox 360/ps3. I've always enjoyed the pre sequel but this time can see how much slower pace the game can be compared to borderlands 2 or 3. I also find that the map design is very tedious and not thought out well and can cause some frustration and sometimes the art design gets repetitive with not much uniqueness to areas or differences which is a draw back. The big plus for me is the story itself and the outer space theme and direction the team was going with exploring Pandora's moon. The music, gun play and loot are always top notch and wish there was more random encounters or bosses to loot from. Overall i'd rate the game a solid 7.5/10 its definitely worth a play through especially with friends and if the game is on sale its good value will take over 20H to complete the game with the side quests.

The game is miles better than it is believed by Borderlands community. Variety of weapons, the Grinder, classes and skill trees, heroes and story - everything is very versatile and up to best Borderlands standards. The game is not as popular as the others from the series so it is worth diving in from time to time as it is always a fresh experience

I don't know why; one of my least favorite Borderlands games I have the most hours in. Idk what to say but it's short, fun for challenge runs, etc.

Badass ranks make it too easy and the skill trees are insanely fun; I wish the air boost ability made it's way into other games if I'm honest.