When it comes to looter-shooters, Borderlands is probably the first word out of anybody's mouth. A cast of zany characters with crazy skills and exotic enemies that spew out more guns than you can shake a Vercuvian back-ham at are trademarks of the series, and you can bet that Borderlands 3 delivers on this entirely-too-long sentence in spades. But let's break it down a little more.

The main draw of this game, to me, is the power rush. Depending on which character you pick, you can atomize your enemies with a mecha suit, sic your pets on them, devastate them with an array of psionic powers, or feel like you're playing fourth-dimensional chess as you utilize all the gadgets available to a special agent. That's not even covering the guns! For the first time in the series, it feels like you're shooting weapons instead of, I don't know, playing laser tag with a janky model superimposed on the screen. Combat is fast, frenetic, and controlled by your decisions as you play Build-A-Badass with three skill trees per character (with an extra tied to DLC). Want to print ammo faster than you can shoot it while making people's heads literally explode? There's a build for that. In the mood to be a sniper ninja shooting once and killing multiple enemies due to ricochets? There's a build for that. Like causing so much chaos that not even your friends will know who to shoot? Got you covered.

Another serious improvement to the formula is that, for the first time, it doesn't all take place on one planet. You can go from fighting in concrete jungles where verticality plays a little more importance to a miserable swampland whose waters are prime for a little area electrocution, have shootouts in low gravity where you feel like a caricature of Max Payne, and even more. It helps shake things up and improve the scenery diversity, but it's clear that a few were more rushed than others (you can experience everything that a specific place has to offer in a little under an hour, only returning to it once to do so). Still, it breaks up the crushing monotony of Gray-And-Brown Area #41 that anybody who played the original game is all too familiar with. Other changes include an option to switch to instanced loot (if you know you play with a bunch of That Guys), a system to auto-loot good stuff later if you miss it, and an "easy" mode which... presumably, makes the game easier. I haven't touched that one, since the difficulty curve feels more than agreeable.

Leave your hopes for a compelling narrative at the door, though; 3 doesn't even manage to touch the relatively low bar set by earlier entries in the series. There are more plot holes than a graph made out of Swiss cheese, and events feel more like a series of "I figured out how we get the plot moving again!" announcements than a cohesive storyline. With that being said, there are still some okay stories to be found. I was especially fond of the DLC storylines, which felt more planned out and focus on a few specific characters instead of rushing to cram in series favorites left and right (though plenty of them make appearances, and they did my boys Axton and Salvador dirty).

Everything else isn't all painbows and sunspines, either. A recurring issue that I have with the game is performance. It's usually playable enough, dropping to about 40 FPS maxxed out, and I will admit that my setup is starting to show its age, but when there's a lot of stuff going on (especially in co-op, when multiple action skills can fire off at once), it does lag somewhat tangibly. It is possible to reduce your settings to compensate for this, but sometimes it feels like what's on the screen isn't justifying the framerate drops it's causing. You may also run into a few quest-related issues (across 4 playthroughs, I've had a few times where missions either skip crucial dialogue or lock up until restarting the game), but I haven't encountered any "this is a giant, super-obvious glitch that broke everything" stuff within 130 hours.

Final verdict? This is probably the best looter-shooter I've played to date. Build decisions are impactful with lots of long-term ramifications, combat feels rewarding enough to seek out for fun over and over again (or to grind out that last legendary you need to nail your build), and a mediocre plot can be easily overlooked by it being addicting enough to go through it repeatedly to level up different characters. Just be careful of the DLC prices, as they do add a fair amount of content, including a fourth skill tree for each character.

When it comes to looter-shooters, Borderlands is probably the first word out of anybody's mouth. A cast of zany characters with crazy skills and exotic enemies that spew out more guns than you can shake a Vercuvian back-ham at are trademarks of the series, and you can bet that Borderlands 3 delivers on this entirely-too-long sentence in spades. But let's break it down a little more. The main draw of this game, to me, is the power rush. Depending on which character you pick, you can atomize your enemies with a mecha suit, sic your pets on them, devastate them with an array of psionic powers, or feel like you're playing fourth-dimensional chess as you utilize all the gadgets available to a special agent. That's not even covering the guns! For the first time in the series, it feels like you're shooting weapons instead of, I don't know, playing laser tag with a janky model superimposed on the screen. Combat is fast, frenetic, and controlled by your decisions as you play Build-A-Badass with three skill trees per character (with an extra tied to DLC). Want to print ammo faster than you can shoot it while making people's heads literally explode? There's a build for that. In the mood to be a sniper ninja shooting once and killing multiple enemies due to ricochets? There's a build for that. Like causing so much chaos that not even your friends will know who to shoot? Got you covered. Another serious improvement to the formula is that, for the first time, it doesn't all take place on one planet. You can go from fighting in concrete jungles where verticality plays a little more importance to a miserable swampland whose waters are prime for a little area electrocution, have shootouts in low gravity where you feel like a caricature of Max Payne, and even more. It helps shake things up and improve the scenery diversity, but it's clear that a few were more rushed than others (you can experience everything that a specific place has to offer in a little under an hour, only returning to it once to do so). Still, it breaks up the crushing monotony of Gray-And-Brown Area #41 that anybody who played the original game is all too familiar with. Other changes include an option to switch to instanced loot (if you know you play with a bunch of That Guys), a system to auto-loot good stuff later if you miss it, and an "easy" mode which... presumably, makes the game easier. I haven't touched that one, since the difficulty curve feels more than agreeable. Leave your hopes for a compelling narrative at the door, though; 3 doesn't even manage to touch the relatively low bar set by earlier entries in the series. There are more plot holes than a graph made out of Swiss cheese, and events feel more like a series of "I figured out how we get the plot moving again!" announcements than a cohesive storyline. With that being said, there are still some okay stories to be found. I was especially fond of the DLC storylines, which felt more planned out and focus on a few specific characters instead of rushing to cram in series favorites left and right (though plenty of them make appearances, and they did my boys Axton and Salvador dirty). Everything else isn't all painbows and sunspines, either. A recurring issue that I have with the game is performance. It's [i]usually[/i] playable enough, dropping to about 40 FPS maxxed out, and I will admit that my setup is starting to show its age, but when there's a lot of stuff going on (especially in co-op, when multiple action skills can fire off at once), it does lag somewhat tangibly. It is possible to reduce your settings to compensate for this, but sometimes it feels like what's on the screen isn't justifying the framerate drops it's causing. You may also run into a few quest-related issues (across 4 playthroughs, I've had a few times where missions either skip crucial dialogue or lock up until restarting the game), but I haven't encountered any "this is a giant, super-obvious glitch that broke everything" stuff within 130 hours. Final verdict? This is probably the best looter-shooter I've played to date. Build decisions are impactful with lots of long-term ramifications, combat feels rewarding enough to seek out for fun over and over again (or to grind out that last legendary you need to nail your build), and a mediocre plot can be easily overlooked by it being addicting enough to go through it repeatedly to level up different characters. Just be careful of the DLC prices, as they do add a fair amount of content, including a fourth skill tree for each character.