Tiny Tina’s Wonderland unleashes a torrent of intriguing narrative ideas, a true world of possibility full of intriguing concepts and mind-blowing potential outcomes. And then… it doesn’t do anything to them, culminating in an ending that falls short of its own potential. Let us talk about it.
Spoilers follow for the end of Tiny Tina’s Wonderland.
a twist-away from gearbox border areas series of loot shooters, Tiny Tina’s Wonderland is chronologically set between the events of the second and third main games and is physically almost entirely set in a fantasy role-playing game called Tabletop Bunkers & Badasses (a fun twist on a certain influential IRL tabletop game). The divisive Tiny Tina plays the role of the jailer; You’re a “Destiny Maker,” basically a catch-all for “gamer hero.” Your only look at Pandora, the main setting of border areasis about the setting device of the action: the cave in which you play Bunkers & Badasses.
wonderland features a standard “save the empire from the villain” storyline, reinforced by some top-notch singing talent. Wanda Sykes and Andy Samberg play your Destiny Maker companions (a fully sentient robot and a fully unlucky bounty hunter, respectively). Meanwhile, Will Arnett voices the game’s villain, the Dragonlord – a role that suits him like a glove.
Early on, the Dragon Lord suspects that he, not Tiny Tina, is in control Bunkers & Badasses. “Psst – newbie. Don’t worry, those idiots at the table can’t hear me. It’s just us down here,” he says in an early mission. Tiny later remarks to Tina that “this wasn’t supposed to happen” after the Dragon Lord abruptly beheaded Queen Butt Stallion, the ruler of the realm – a deviation from Tiny’s script. Similar moments where the Dragonlord clashes with Tina’s carefully crafted narration and then brags about it abound throughout the rest wonderland.
You have the feeling wonderland races towards an inevitable conclusion: the Dragon Lord actually detaches from the game and wreaks havoc on the “real” border areas World. Maybe you fight him outside Bunkers & Badasses as the required final boss fight of the second stage. Or maybe he really does escape (possibly as a villain in the inevitable next main line border areas? Or—fuck it, why not—a cameo in this year’s theatrical adaptation?) Either way, how damn cool!
But no. In the game’s final missions, as you stage an attack on his stronghold, the Dragon Lord begins to speak openly about how he can influence the game. It’s a cool concept, although the wind is immediately sucked out of its sails. Although the Dragon Lord is actually able to change what Tina sees as “intended” by summoning waves of enemies and environmental hazards for you to deal with, she simply uses her powers as a dungeon master to bring him back to put in place. He’s stuck like a pawn no matter how badly he wants to be a chess champion.
And then comes the real end. Well, first the pushy dragon lord turns out to be a total weakling in the culminating boss fight. Maybe it’s because I specified it that way the strongest class in the game– and also played with someone rocking an equally powerful build – but we sliced through the Dragonlord like butter. Queen Butt Stallion comes back to life, not decapitated (decapitated?). There’s a brief cinematic moment where it seems like you have a choice about the Dragonlord’s fate; Her character is, after all, a fate maker. But where any other game would allow for an ending with multiple conclusions, you don’t have that freedom of choice. You let him live Queen Butt Stallion orders him 200 years in prison. His role then is to serve as administrator for the endgame chaos chamber mode (which, for what it’s worth, is absolutely, irrefutably brilliant).
He doesn’t actually erupt like you’d expect for most of the game Bunkers & Badasses and let all impact on the broader border areas narrative. He just becomes another NPC.
Tiny Tina’s Wonderland could have been bold, it really could have tapped into the “miracle” part of its namesake. Instead, it trades the imagination for something far more familiar and mundane. Instead of renting Bunkers & Badasses spring to fully imagined life, wonderland dissipates his own magic as if saying a phrase I was thinking with a dismissive shrug We put under lock and key years ago, “It’s just a game.”
