One of my biggest criticisms of the Borderlands mainline series is its humor. I’ve had a few good laughs while playing, but Borderlands’ jokes land more like a shotgun blast, with some hitting and some not. That’s okay in bursts, but shotgun after shotgun can get exhausting. Tales From The Borderlands, Telltale Games’ version of this universe, has remedied this by offering a more nuanced and subtle take on the humor that runs through the veins of the franchise. It has become one of my favorite Borderlands games, with a great story and unforgettable characters.
I’m happy to announce that Gearbox takes up this formula in New Tales From The Borderlands, maintaining the same sense of humor with a vastly improved visual style that’s more in line with the last few entries in the series. It also has an equally memorable cast – I want more of this already. Unfortunately, however, the entire package is let down by a lackluster, uncohesive overarching narrative, and I wish Gearbox had given these characters a better story to exist in.
New Tales From The Borderlands features some familiar faces and names, including Tales From The Borderlands’ Rhys, now CEO of weapons manufacturer Atlas, and other mega-corporations like Maliwan and Tediore. Most of the game takes place on Promethea, which Borderlands 3 players should recognize.
The altruistic but internally selfish scientist Anu joins forces with her quick-witted adoptive brother Octavio, his murderbot LOU13 and Frans Frogurt owner Fran. Together they want to protect Promethea from a Tediore invasion, secure a hidden vault treasure and finally try to create and change the world with a weapon defense device. The story builds this up pretty well in the first installment of this five part story and I was excited to see where it went. But just a few hours later I was confused.
Without spoiling anything, the story bounces between seemingly random subplots that feel unimportant to the main conflict. At one point I’m desperately trying to avoid a Tediore invasion. Then an hour later I’m on a Shark Tank-like game show trying to introduce investors to Anu’s device. And then, it seems to me, the primary concern is to open a shop amidst the debris of the Tediore invasion, which is still ongoing. I wanted more of the save the world narrative built in the first episode, but the side beats and footsteps along the way are distracting and loosely connected more than anything.
The story closes well, with a sweet moment of a bow at the top, and as the credits rolled I was glad to have experienced what this group of characters has been through. I only wish the entire game had that cohesion that I felt in the first and last episodes.
Story aside, New Tales From The Borderlands features four of my new favorite characters in this universe. Anu is witty and quirky in a classic way that gets in the way as a scientist, and some late-game revelations add depth to her personality, which I appreciate. Octavio plays it cool, and I had fun shaping the kind of cool he is with my choices. Fran is a sexually confident, middle-aged woman who puts aside subtlety to tell people squarely, “We should bone.” She feels the closest thing to a classic Borderlands character — with a few fart jokes too (admittedly, one of them made me laugh a lot).
However, LOU13 was my favorite. His wry humor and his attempt to break free from the parameters of his assassination programming kept me smiling the whole time. Each character shone in their own way when in isolation, but together, my favorite conversations happened throughout the game, with each riff interacting with the other in unique ways.
The success of these moments was, of course, thanks to Gearbox’s excellent character writing and the choices the game offered me at both trivial and pivotal moments of the narrative. I could make a remark on Fran with a big power play when she’s apprehended by Tediore troops, or I could just have her answer questions by making fart noises. I enjoyed developing my take on each of these characters, and Gearbox, much like Telltale, excelled in that regard.
The Telltale “This person will remember” notifications are mostly gone. In theory, this is a nice touch as it removes that gamified element from the formula and allows the player to live with their choices without knowing how they affect the story. In practice, however, I missed them. Without these clues, aside from a few random ones that pop up with no explanation, I felt like I’d lost an ounce of agency. Sure, I made the choices I wanted, but I struggled to figure out how my actions affected the larger narrative. The immediate reactions were there; it was easy to tell, for example, if Octavio didn’t like what Anu was saying. But how exactly my actions altered the broader narrative remained a mystery. I had suspicions all along, but I’m wondering if decision X led to consequence Y.
I also wasn’t impressed with what I was doing when I wasn’t selecting any dialogue options. Gameplay boils down to swiping left, right, up, down, or pressing a button, crushing it repeatedly, or holding it down. Occasionally you can wander around a small area to find money or talk to locals but these didn’t do much for me. This type of adventure gameplay was the standard years ago at the peak of Telltale development, but now it feels old and I wanted more variety.
The occasional mini-game, like a parody of a turn-based JRPG or another that required me to hack into a computer by cleaning out NSFW spam on a screen, helped in that regard, but I still wanted more.
A minigame that appears multiple times in each episode, Vaultlanders is a fun minifigure-based fighting game, but only for the first few times. There are Vaultlander figures to collect in each episode, and each has their own stats and abilities, but it doesn’t matter. I never struggled to defeat an enemy and never worried about my skills or stats. That’s because playing the game involves mindlessly spamming the attack button and occasionally dodging by swiping in a direction when the enemy attacks. Like all the other minigames, this one is completely skipable, but I was excited to find a purpose for its inclusion in the game and played through each one. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any purpose, and these quickly became nerve-wracking annoyances to contend with if I just wanted to get back to the story.
However, when my 10-hour journey in New Tales From The Borderlands ended, I was glad to have experienced it. There’s good in there, but it’s sometimes muddled by outdated mechanics that feel more mandatory because Telltale made them in the previous game, rather than something necessary for its fun. The cast is excellent, and as a character-driven experience, this game excels. I only wish Gearbox would back them up with a story as strong as their individual arcs.
Ultimately, New Tales From The Borderlands feels like more of the same and fans of the first will likely enjoy it, but as it’s been almost eight years since the first, I wanted more of an evolution.
