The revival of a popular spinoff. A film adaptation (whose cast doesn’t make any sense at all). A mainline entry (which, against all odds, feels amazingly fresh). Yes, you can say that with certainty border areas is back and having its best year in a long time.
border areas, arguably developer Gearbox’s flagship series, has had a few bouts of popularity over the years. The first entry came out in 2009 and featured marriage to first-person shooting Diablocel-shaded style looting – a creative choice that has undoubtedly helped the series stand the test of time – and a performatively profane sense of humor. In 2012, Gearbox released a sequel and greatly improved the quality of the script. In addition to being a true all-time villain, Borderlands 2The story of was packed with real emotional weight that retroactively gave personality to the playable avatars from the first game. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequelnot developed by Gearbox, came out in 2014. It was nice. Get all three games a lot of extensions.
The series cooled off for a few years while developer Gearbox continued to work the unfortunate born in warbut reappeared for borderland 3 in 2019. This game has been replaced by four major expansions. In the meantime it has adopted a kind of live service model: at a seemingly unpredictable cadence, borderland 3 would host time-limited “events” where certain tasks are completed – for example Shoot your way through a cocaine-coated mansion– had a higher chance of rewarding you with rare loot.
borderland 4 is still nowhere to be seen – despite, um, made cryptic remarks by Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford last year – but the series made a splash at E3 2021 with news about a spin-off: Tiny Tina’s Wonderland. Set between the events of the second and third game, wonderland takes place in a fantasy tabletop role-playing game wrapped in the same game-within-a-game slide as Tiny Tina’s attack on Dragon Keepone of the best preserved Borderlands 2 extensions.
I’ll be the first to admit I imagined it wonderland, which released last month on consoles and PC, would just be more of the same. nope wonderland introduced a number of changes that make it an upscale sequel, rather than a phone fix between main entries.
border areas Games have always featured boring driving segments. wonderland has no vehicles at all but an RPG-inspired overworld. borderland 3 received some fair criticism for de-emphasizing the thrill of finding legendary tier weapons. for Tiny Tina’s WonderlandGearbox has toned down the drop rates of his rarest weapons, the game’s creative director, Matt Cox, told me recently, but declined to delve into the math behind the scenes. It also features new combat tools (spells and melee weapons), high-profile voice talents (Will Arnett, Wanda Sykes, Andy Samberg), and a hugely immersive endgame loop (a roguelike light mode called Chaos Chamber).
Continue reading: why Tiny Tina’s Wonderland Ain’t an M-rated Borderlands, a series first
but wonderland is just the beginning border areas‘ Reign of 2022. In addition to a series of short extensions – which have already started with the rollout a month after the release of the game – there is Another offshoots on the way. Last week, Gearbox announced a revival of the popular Stories from the Borderlands Series of adventure games. Developed and published by Telltale Games in 2014, the original was widely praised for its sharp writing style. If there’s any cause for concern about its resurgence, it’s that the next entry will be made internally by Gearbox. Hopefully the script retains the wit and depth of its ancestor. We’ll see when it comes out later this year.
Perhaps the least known is the upcoming one border areas film adaptation. Directed by horror writer Eli Roth and written in part by Craiz Mazin (known for Chernobyl and scary movie 3) to be released later this year. The cast is anchored by Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Jamie Lee Curtis; these are of course all megawatt stars, but if you only know your way around halfway border areas Lore, it’s hard to picture any of these actors in their respective roles (except perhaps JackBlack as the terminally troublesome robot Claptrap). Still, much in the same way jumanji found its way into visibility based on star power alone, it is likely border areas Film has the chance to cause a sensation.
All of it border areas may seem like saturation to outsiders, or to those who consider themselves passing fans, the folks who dive into the mainline entries to play around a bit before diving into the next thing. But for those of us who have been starving for a true resurgence for years, 2022 will be a pleasant surprise. As my colleague Zack Zwiezen noticed last weekit is the year of border areas. We’re just there for the ride.
