Well, I don’t know what to tell you. Borderlands 3 is very Borderlands, as I discovered in a hands-on session at E3 earlier today. While there’s nothing really wrong with Borderlands 3 – it’s essentially a more polished version of its predecessors – it’s so far failed to satisfy my desire for compelling new gameplay additions. Where Borderlands 2 brought genuinely innovative contributions to the table, Borderlands 3 is playing it safe – and it’s starting to feel like the series is playing catch-up with the rest of the industry. It’s not the end of the world, but more a missed opportunity.
Possibly the best way for me to explain my thoughts is to simply walk through what I saw during my E3 presentation and hands-on session. The talk itself focused on three main areas: new social features, a new planet, and an in-depth look at one of the new Vault Hunters, Moze. Some of the announced changes are nice, but none really push the limits of what we’d expect of a Borderlands title.
Our presenter kicked things off by emphasising Gearbox wanted to make “the best cooperative experience possible”, and apparently the way to do this is by adding new ways to share loot. You’ll now be able to mail guns to each other, and if one of your friends sells a gun to a vendor, you’ll then be able to buy it in your own session. I guess that’s one way to make sloppy seconds a selling point.
