With the rumored announcement of the next Borderlands entry around the corner, it could be interesting to take a look back at the series, the lack of improvement in the genre of loot-based action games, and what changes Gearbox could make to their formula to ensure Borderlands 3 meets the high expectations it'll surely carry
Destiny 2 is finally in a place where I can call it an enjoyable experience and Division 2 seems to be well crafted (even with a dull setting and narrative), but the (forgive me) loot shooter genre has faced a tough time since the successful release of Borderlands 2. The first Destiny and Division entries sold well, but had fatal flaws that kept players such as myself invested after an initial play-through, and Anthem is currently dying a death of a thousand cuts. Even if no one has quite nailed a day one experience like BL2 did, the genre has still changed quite a bit, and I hope Gearbox has been paying close attention to what each attempt got right and got wrong.
As far as areas I'd like to see Gearbox improve on...
- Weightier Shooting
The shooting alone was the only reason why Bungie was able to get away with so much being wrong with Destiny on launch. The narrative and replayability was a complete miss, but hot damn, there was, and still isn't an FPS as satisfying to fire weapons in as Destiny. Going back to Borderlands nowadays, I can't help but notice the guns feel a but weightless by comparison. I hope they can buff up the sense of impact this time around. And can we please get some hit-markers?
- Replayability
Out of every other game in the genre, BL2 still holds the best replayability factor, but there are still some issues that get in the way. Not being able to skip cut-scenes means you have to watch the same narratives bits and annoying character intro splash screen over and over again, which quickly grows tiresome in a game with such hit and miss humor. I also remember having issues with the way BL2 scaled content. My brother and I would always find ourselves over-leveled for main quests because we spent so much completing side-content. This meant that went we finally got around to the main story missions, we would only receive single digits of XP and low levels drops, which was quite unrewarding.
- Humor
There are times when my brother and I had to pause the game because we were laughing so much at certain comedic moments in the previous games, but also an equal amount of times we would both suffer from second hand embarrassment because of how much of a miss the humor could also be. I'm not sure who is and isn't responsible for the worst moments of BL2, but I really hope they aren't involved this time around.
- Online Play
Playing with randoms is perhaps the only aspect of the genre that other games have improved in. The only thing Bioware managed to get right with Anthem was how every activity had matchmaking, making it easy to group of with other players. The previous Borderlands games had matchmaking as well, but the ability to see and steal other players dropped items was completely mind-boggling at the time, and I hope that is an issue that will be corrected this time around
How about you, Era?
Destiny 2 is finally in a place where I can call it an enjoyable experience and Division 2 seems to be well crafted (even with a dull setting and narrative), but the (forgive me) loot shooter genre has faced a tough time since the successful release of Borderlands 2. The first Destiny and Division entries sold well, but had fatal flaws that kept players such as myself invested after an initial play-through, and Anthem is currently dying a death of a thousand cuts. Even if no one has quite nailed a day one experience like BL2 did, the genre has still changed quite a bit, and I hope Gearbox has been paying close attention to what each attempt got right and got wrong.
As far as areas I'd like to see Gearbox improve on...
- Weightier Shooting
The shooting alone was the only reason why Bungie was able to get away with so much being wrong with Destiny on launch. The narrative and replayability was a complete miss, but hot damn, there was, and still isn't an FPS as satisfying to fire weapons in as Destiny. Going back to Borderlands nowadays, I can't help but notice the guns feel a but weightless by comparison. I hope they can buff up the sense of impact this time around. And can we please get some hit-markers?
- Replayability
Out of every other game in the genre, BL2 still holds the best replayability factor, but there are still some issues that get in the way. Not being able to skip cut-scenes means you have to watch the same narratives bits and annoying character intro splash screen over and over again, which quickly grows tiresome in a game with such hit and miss humor. I also remember having issues with the way BL2 scaled content. My brother and I would always find ourselves over-leveled for main quests because we spent so much completing side-content. This meant that went we finally got around to the main story missions, we would only receive single digits of XP and low levels drops, which was quite unrewarding.
- Humor
There are times when my brother and I had to pause the game because we were laughing so much at certain comedic moments in the previous games, but also an equal amount of times we would both suffer from second hand embarrassment because of how much of a miss the humor could also be. I'm not sure who is and isn't responsible for the worst moments of BL2, but I really hope they aren't involved this time around.
- Online Play
Playing with randoms is perhaps the only aspect of the genre that other games have improved in. The only thing Bioware managed to get right with Anthem was how every activity had matchmaking, making it easy to group of with other players. The previous Borderlands games had matchmaking as well, but the ability to see and steal other players dropped items was completely mind-boggling at the time, and I hope that is an issue that will be corrected this time around
How about you, Era?
