IMPORTANT UPDATE: A few days after finishing up my review, I unfortunately uncovered issues which were far worse than I could have ever forseen. Wonderlands suffers from a major issue which plagued Borderlands 3 at it's launch, and it's that almost NO side bosses respawn. After talking to other creators, we found that OVER 70 bosses do not respawn in Wonderlands. This is a massive issue, and is sure to hurt Wonderlands in the long run.... But it gets worse. In Wonderlands, dedicated loot luck is affected by the overall player loot luck, meaning that in order to get dedicated drops, you will need to up your loot luck. A process, which will take you days to get done on a normal schedule. At 7000 loot luck, (not the max) - I found that bosses STILL did not drop a dedicated item in upwards of 20 runs. This is a crushing discovery, which unfortunately renders dedicated farming useless. It's incredibly frustrating, and something I will talk about in an upcoming video. Thank you for taking the time to watch this review.

So it seems like all of the stuff that can't be fixed like the level design and story are solid, which is a good sign. A lot of the problems you brought up seem to be fixable via a patch. It's good to see that the backbone of the game is nice and sturdy

Definitely sounds like there are things they could improve on, but largely this makes me excited to play. My biggest concerns were performance issues, story, and how some of the game systems are. Which from this, makes it sound like that shouldn't be a problem for me. There are some problems with end game yeah, but at least there is more interesting end game content on release than the previous games. Farming bosses is alright, but that being the only form of end game was not my favorite. Chaos chamber, even with the negative bl3 modifiers, sounds so good to me.

I feel like some of the complaints here are a bit tedious, like Plot missions outscaling you if you don't do any side quests, that's a staple in almost any RPG or ARPG, it encourages players to explore the gamr and not just bullrush through the story and since side missions scale to your level and the loot from them scales in vending machines, there isn't a necessity to speedrun the stort on subsequent play throughs. I appreciate the brutal honesty of this review but some of this feels like complaining just to complain

I will say, as a dnd player the whole concept of a "main story" is more like a "main suggestion" we where supposed to fight and hunt down an eldritch god attempting to eat the planets core, and ended up getting into a fight with a bunch of preppy wizards at a school of arcane arts, and then used a cow to topple a water tower to extinguish a fire elemental. It goes all over the place.

All I want is BL1&BL2 level of replayability, raid bosses, extremely rare weapons and rarity’s past legendary, and maybe bring back the special hybrid guns from BL1

I’ve got some curses ideas to add variety to the already existing “mayhem” curses/modifiers: - Guns swap random to a different gun in your loadout (or maybe backpack) - Swap aim and shoot buttons. - Magazines will be down 50%, but reload speed increases + ammo drops more frequently - Random stat drop (25%) - Lock your entire loadout till the end of the Chaos Chamber - Can’t use spells, but Gun damages increases. - 25% less FFYS time - Juggernaut: Move 50% slower, but do 50% more damage - Tag: When an enemy touches you, you instantly will go in FFYS mode ( So, keep enemies at distance) - Gladiator: Gun damages decreases drastically, but melee damages increases with 500% Just to name a few interesting one’s. Don’t know if they would work, but it certainly will make the run more interesting imo

I'm glad that the negative points you pointed out don't really bothers me at all, kind of felt nit picky to an extent. The bosses not respawning do suck though. I'm a big Borderlands 1 enjoyer, so i'm used to unskippable dialogue and I love having main quests being at a higher level, fun and challenging. I also think the dedicated drop/loot luck is fine, Diablo 2 is an incredible game, and it's pretty much the same system, magic finding bonuses and incredibly rare loot drops.

not having dialog skip is a pain. ive been using a mod for dialog skip in BL3 and it makes it infinitely better for replay, it still has some bugs where i have to save quit to the menu for it to fix but thats still so much faster than having to wait through the dialog gearbox baffles me. they take one step forward for something the community asks for/wants, but then 1 step back for another

Still got my copy preordered, seems like all the issues can be patched, mini bosses not respawning, the curse mods, dialog skip, etc, can and will most likely be patched in. The core gameplay still looks fantastic

It all sounds like a Pre-Sequal situation but with BL3 problems as well. I just hope they fix everything quickly after release bc I don’t want another game with tons of potential to go wasted…again.

I like the leveling between quests personally especially in 2 because after my like 30 play throughs I realized that the side quests are where you get the real story

Probably the most honest review I have seen yet. Great job

Props for making this review so brutally honest, I had worries that a lot of content creators were going to only point out positives and ignore negatives. Not gonna lie after watching a few reviews I've decided I wont be buying this game on release, hopefully I can catch it on a sale after some of the major issues are fixed.

Legendary drop rates being high absolutely ruin games like this. The carrot has to be dangled in front of you for a while you can't just constantly be given bites. They seemed pretty rare in borderlands 2 and it felt pretty good

Why does everyone hate having high skill points the more the better less choices the better why not just get both it’s better that way

More devs should normalise using the same/similar game style, just add a few innovations, and refine the gameplay to a higher standard. Elden Ring, now Tiny Tina. 2 banters of a game which are “just reskins lol, so lazy”. Even if it’s lazy, which I don’t agree with, it clearly WORKS.

Ok, I may be a HUGE outlier here but I didn’t mind the mayhem modifiers, I actually turned them on when I got tired of just destroying all the mobs I came across in BL3 so I’m glad they are in the Chaos chamber.

Sounds like it's a great game with things that need to be fixed. I had a feeling when they showcased the chaos chambers that the curses would just be the mayhem modifiers. That's just bad and I expect them to change it up. The non-respawning enemies and dedicated farming will likely be fixed shortly after launch given everyone is bringing them up.

A story about two sirens trying to take over the world get its ass beat by a story narrated by 13 yr old about a Generic dragonlord.

i just love this game. theres so many things about wonderlands i love that the minor issues are easily overlooked

It at the very least sounds like they can fix most of the issues through patches unlike bl3 feeling annoying to replay because of the long story and bad writing

COOP FARMING FINALLY! GOD It was a Pain To Farm with the Boys.

Why do some many KZfaqrs Title their reviews „honest“? That should just go without saying or should I assume that anytime you say something you’re being dishonest unless you inform me that this time you’re actually being honest?

I personally think that the enemies out- leveling you is a good thing for me because it gives me a motivation to get stronger. In games where the enemies scale to me, it feels way too easy and handholding. When the game comes out I'll have to experience this as maybe my opinion will change. Would you rather play a game that that has little to- no sense of danger and excitement? That's what I think of when I hear level scaling. Also, think of it this way. In the context of a game baseball, would you be motivated to play if the other team was of the same skill level? If they aren't a challenge I don't see why one would have a motivation to get better. Becoming stronger in a looters shooters is one of the main appeals, you go from having weak weapons to really powerful ones by the time you're near the end game. You take down the powerful enemies and feel accomplishment. I love that.

As long as there are plenty of side quests, which it seems like there are, i dont mind how short the story is

I was less worried about the length of the story and more worried about the quality, glad to hear it's better.

With 160ish Dice and A few Luck Myth Points, I got a Legendary from a normal Skelton in the tutorial area when collecting the dice in that area. Literally the first enemy I fought in the area.

I don’t agree at all with your curses input. Borderlands has always been on the easy side. People always make builds where there able to just run through the game and one shot everything. Have modifiers makes it harder. I want end game to be challenging. If you don’t have modifiers your just gonna run through the chamber with no extra challenge cause your builds are just gonna one shot everything. Having modifiers makes it more challenging for higher rewards and if you aren’t up for that really hard challenge then you simply wouldn’t pick a curse. And you can then therefore take the other route. Not to say the curses shouldn’t be to the point where it makes it impossible but I definitely want a system where if you want you can do a high risk high reward.

From this and Joltzdude's Post; Sounds like a great game all round. Just a few hiccups which can easily be resolved...if they get resolved at all.

probably noone will agree but i loved the mayhem modifiers apart from a couple which could use so tuning and it would be nice to get additional ones so they dont get boring

Yeah, I’m not a fan at all for BL3 modifiers in M mode. When you said it’s in TTW, I was like: “ You’re f’ing serious!?!” I understand, that the curses are for rewarding players with extra rainbow crystals for beating the chaos chambers, but they could’ve done something different with curses(Instead of coping and pasting BL3 M modifiers 🥲) Curse like: •Double the normal enemies •Enemies movement speed is increase •Double the Badass enemies •Enemies take 20% reduce spell damage •Players action skill cooldown is doubled •Players spell cooldown is doubled •Ammo drop rates, from enemies are 50% lower •Players melee weapon attack speed is decrease by 30% •Players pet respawn time is doubled •Players healing is reduced by 20-30%(As in healing yourself and grabbing healing potions from enemies/crates) No extra Hp curses or increase there gun damage for enemies. Don’t want to make enemies into bullet sponges or 1-2 tap your ass. If you want enemies to hit you harder and take reduce damage, then play on hard difficulty, when playing in the chaos chambers. I mean, I believe those name curses, I just mentioned above are perfect to have, then the current BL3 modifiers.

They will 100% add skip dialog in a future update. They will also fix mini boss spawns. Also who doesn't like side quests?-.- On my completion of each BL game I always drifted off and completed side quests. Always found them intriguing and cool

11:40 Reload swap glitch, so it is pretty much the same engine

I love how they have made it easier to choose your play style and not have to stick to a meta. That said that same freedom makes farming a bitch.

Was gonna throw the pre order down after work today but man.... after seeing your pinned post. thoughts and opinions in the vid etc, im kinda not feelin it for now. definitely feeling like a "wait for a patch or few and maybe a sale?" vibe about it now :/

I wouldn't say this game plays differently than borderlands. However, I wouldn't say its a reskin of it either. It's a solid evolution keeping it familiar but making it relevant to the uniqueness of the game so it feels fresh

They definitely should either not add a higher level cap or increase the level cap without adding skill points if possible

I will say I don't think everyone hated the easy to hard mayhem modifiers in bl3, besides some outliers, but the very hard modifiers were pretty rough. It sounds like they botched the original modifiers in some ways though which is unfortunate. I also prefer the idea of the scaling reroll cost, you're still encouraged to re-farm the item quite a bit (I mean what are we playing the game for), but pretty much each time get like 5-10 enchantment options for each gun pretty cheap. I get others may not like it but it's what I've wanted

70 no respawns? damn!

With the level cap increase we may get, they could make it where you can get half of a 3rd skill tree without the action skills it comes with

Personally I would take chaos levels and anoints over OP levels. Both are optional but it’s actually rewarding to go up mayhem levels rather than just making the game so much harder for .25% better drop rates

one thing i entirely disagree about is i think raising the level cap and giving more skills is a good thing so is hitting 2 capstone

On the matter of the modifiers for the chaos chamber, I agree that many of the mayhem modifiers from three were completely ridiculous but at the same time if I could roll the right combinations of modifiers and mayhem 10 it made for an amazing way to change up my gameplay

I wanted them to finally add weapon crafting. They let you look at the individual parts of every weapon and what effect those parts have on it. Why can't we break them down and use components to make or modify our own guns? How many times have you passed up a good gun because you don't like the scope or the way in which it fires? Especially because in this one, one of the vending machines even mentions breaking down the spells you sell them to use as spell crafting components. This game series is still missing the crafting component that most other looters have.

Picked it up a week ago, and I can’t say I regret it. Seeing a Cheese puff with a lock block a road and using a simple key causing it to airlift out of the map because magic felt extremely borderlands to me.

One of the best things that helped Borderlands 2(and TPS) with the replayability and overall made it so great, was the fact that almost every Main Quest allowed you to progress and do the objectives while the dialogue was going on, and at the end of quests the final dialogue was AFTER you turned the quest in. That made playing the game multiple times so much less frustrating than both Borderlands 3 and Wonderlands and I think its something that isnt very talked about in the comunity. My opinion tho

13:23 "45 skill points" WAIT WHUT!?!??! i thought it would be 39-40 as max level is 40 and you get 2 points at 20 (apparently, dunno bout that bit) but 45!? that actually alters my build planning quite a bit, due to that letting you just slip into rank 4 of the second class after capstoning the first, meaning a possible strong 1 pointer of certain classes.... this will be interesting...

grab all the cosmetics you can find. even if you already know them. they increase in value as you level up, so you can bank them and sell them at a higher level for more monies.

Just got this game last week, and have played every BL game since 2011. This game gives me vibes of BL1; good loot system, fresh new story and it adds encounters and dungeons for hunting loot..loving the 20 hours I spent on it so far. It takes the old BL formula and rebuilds it into something that feels inspired.

As long as they support this game for at least the next couple years with dlc and QoL updated like a dialogue skip then I'll buy it but I have a very strong feeling this will suffer the same issue s as bl3

Sounds perfect for me. BL3's story really killed my interest in really spending the same amount of time I did in BL2, especially since I liked to restart my campaign a lot to play through it again, after getting tired of farming for legendaries. How they gave us Ava, what happened to Maya, and the way they put Lilith on a bus still leaves a bad impression to this day. Is there going to be an equivalent to True Vault Hunter Mode? Haven't heard anyone of the 4 reviews I've listened to mention that, I mean it's not that huge of a spoiler, is it?

I love how the Wonderlands story wasn’t jarring-ly long, but it kinda makes the game lack content to farm and explore in the post-game. The Digi-struck Peak reminiscent Chaos Chamber is cool, definitely needs some improvements and remove the current Dragon Lord sabotages. I think maybe some more open areas or maybe some more bosses would be great like the Takedowns would be fun.

Think I'm gonna wait for the Steam release to see if they fix some of the issues. Was already burned once with buying BL3 when it launched on Epic and I'm not doing that again.

As a Console player, I can say that the Performance is… trash. On PS4, If I play couch co-op for more than 5 minutes, it crashes. The framerate is terrible, if we open our inventory or vendors at the same time, or just randomly, it crashes. Items on the ground don’t say what level they are, and you need to inspect the item (which can also crash the game) to figure out what the numbers mean if you’re not familiar with all the symbols already. Basically, its a chore to play with friends unless it’s online play (which can’t happen, as not all of us can afford a console and a copy of this game). I hope to see updates or hotfixes that fix some or all of these

the balance between the talking and the shooting was what made BL2 so perfect. pre sequel started this tendency of having way too much dialogue, bl3 made it worst. sad to see they haven't learned yet. thx for the review mate, i was gonna buy now i've decided to wait

I'll probably sit this one out until it comes to steam. It'll almost certainly have most of these issues fixed by then. It just sucks that it seems like gearbox isn't listening to us with all the repeat issues bl3 had

Have you tried an all melee build? Is it viable? Would really love to play a brr-zerker and stabbmancer almost all melee build.

Apart from the occasional hud glitch, and some very dialogue heavy scenes which drag on a little to long, this is the most fun I've had since Borderlands 2, and is probably my second favourite in the series. Love the new gameplay additions like spells and and the expansion of melee combat, which creates probably the most enjoyable Borderlands combat sandbox to date. As a huge fan of the Assault on Dragon Keep DLC, this game is almost a dream come true.

Anointments were a necessary evil and a great example of a good crutch. We're the Anointments more important to the gun in basically every situation? Yes. Did Anointments make more weapons viable and allowed you to have more diverse bag? Also yes. I'd rather have to deal with Anointments than go back to bl2 system where you're forced to have 3+ copies of every weapon if you wanted to use them in end game which meant 80% of your backpack was 5 weapons.

They better fix the quest log glitch. It’s been pissing me off that it’s actually an issue. Imagine an rpg with a glitched quest log

I feel like I'm the only one that was fine with borderlands 3 story. It wasn't great but it didn't bother me

The one positive about the BL series is that it never holds your hand like pokemon in the sense that you're still going to be listening to the dialogue without it interfering with your gameplay

At least you can mostly avoid the curses if you want to. I think at most you have to have one curse going for a chaos dungeon run. I do think the curses could be more fun, but my main issue with BL3 was having to deal with the mayhem modifiers until mayhem 11

What is the total run time of the main story?

some of the issues you mentioned were also issues with BL3, i have faith that they will be resolved eventually.

Man, thanks again for this review brotha! I’m in that position that I don’t wanna see any gameplay till I can play it myself, but can’t control myself to keep watching gameplay and reviews. Guess I need to reschedule my birthday to hmmm.. maybe end of summer? Hype!

The level scaling issue just sounds to me like an intentional input. This is meant to be a TTRPG, those usually include instances where you need to do some side missions to gain experience so you can then come back and defeat a hard boss.

I'm glad that the gameplay is more dynamic than just Borderlands 3 again but I absolutely hated Mayhem modifiers, I hope they change Curses to personal modifiers like: Reduced speed, reduced damage or health, etc

People want stuff to be so easy to get, nothing is rare if every boss Respawn and you can get their drop in under 10 runs.

Great honest review, thanks for the pinned comment update about the game. Did melee weapons get a buff at all, in the demo you mentioned it was rather lackluster?

It looks interesting just don’t feel like killing hours and hours of mushrooms but I hope I’m wrong

Most reviews aren't honest. A youtuber that does an honest review, FINALLY! This is so refreshing!

I wanna thank you for this very thorough review. I'm a really huge BL fan, but more casual in terms of skill. I'm excited for the game despite the flaws; Mostly because Gearbox tends to listen for the most part and I saw the love they gave Borderlands 3. But again, your review was very honest and I'm happy you have a good relationship with the devs at Gearbox and can still speak your mind freely to offer improvements! Nice job

You’re making me more excited for wonderlands

I was told by K6 that enemies level up with you. So who's lying?

i'm sorry but the anoitement system just suck it dosn't add anything to the gameplay (there was 1 or 2 in bo3 that was impacting gameplay) it's just an artificial dmg stat, good thing is that they din't but absurd number this time.

1st chaos chambers let you choose the type of loot you get for example pistols so that alone helps your chances. 2nd loot in this game is different than bl3. In this game there are great blue and purple items. Some purples being reported are almost like legendaries.

I’m pumped for this just because it’s Borderlands. 🍄

Ohh nooo I have to grind a little bit every now and then to move the main story forward in a looter shooter RPG game!? How devastating. I just don't know if I can handle such things.

Enchantments can be really cool if it’s implemented as a weapon part kinda way as opposed to a “does most of the gun’s damage” way like in BL3. More like farming for perfect parts as opposed to NEEDED parts.

Not sure what game you played but legendaries from vendors? I never have seen that. In my two play throughs with all loot dices I get about 3! legendaries until I am 40 and about one per chaos run - if at all. I am playing intense and my chaos level is admittedly just 4 with a clawbringer but drop rates are no where near "too high" or even close to what they are in BL3. I also wonder how you would get 7000 loot luck at all?

Hearing ppl complain ab having too much gameplay is kinda a good thing for me 😂 as much as I wanna have a super speedrun I’d rather spend more time enjoying the game and exploring then just going thru the main quest 100 times over because that’s all there is🤷🏻‍♂️but that’s just my opinion.

oh man the full mayhem system is in the chaos chamber....? that's the worst possible news

Ok ok, so coopitishon makes it so that the characters scale to there level in the story but cooperation scales them to your level so play coopirashon

Thank You dude! Your reviews are the best!

I dont mind legendaries from common mobs if it is VERY rare. Or like bl1 where that legendary equipment made them stronger and when killed, drop said legendary

preordered the chaotic great edition and used your code, i hope the issues get fixed soon tho :/

I love how you say Borderlands 3 "Boddulans 3"

Banger review, huge oof the dedicated drops farming thing tho, hopefully it gets patched rather soon than later

Definitely looks goof for a pickup later in the year. I personally pive Borderlands 3 at launch and after as the best Borderlands game.

holy shit, everything sounded good but mayhem modifiers as curses hit me like a truck. i actually cringed hearing they're back, omega yikes

I'm part of the way through the review. You said the overall story is shorter than bl3, which is fine. But how was the quantity of side quests and major quests? I hated how little content was in base BL3 as compared to all the previous entries in the series. They cut the number of side quests in BL3 by like over 3/4. Edit: Also, how were the areas? BL3's world areas were also much smaller than previous entries for a large part of the game.

Definitely a better overall game than Boderlands 3, only minor issues so far. Almost didn't get it, but im so glad I did.

I personally really don't like the Overworld. i'd rather have a HUB with portals. And as a casual player, i must say that Legendary drop rates are absolutely horrible. Overall for me Wonderland is probably the worst game of the franchise (not counting the level design, Wonderland has an amazing level design). I was trying to see it as it's own game rather than "an other Borderlands game", sadly i can't, and compared to the Borderlands games i really feel crippled by the little amount of choice you have regarding Skills and Gears. I'm still hopeful, things can still change with future updates.

At the beggining I liked, wonderlands overworld and I still thing it might be better than driving like in all the other games, but the side quest were super dissapointing. Every single one is the same exact thing, dialogue, dungeon(which I dont feel like they are great), get item and give item. Theres arround 15 of these quests and not a single one different

The legendary drops seem random for me even i'm not at max chaos level yet but i'm at high max dice with luck shrine buff sometimes i get a legendary out of a barrel and a common enemy but then the next i dont get a legendary from those at all i had a boss drop 2 or 3 legendarys at times but then dropping nothing but blues and purples so i'ma guess they fixed the legendary drops in the day one patch

I usually watch skill up for reviews. But while he usually does a great job certain games he doesn't play as often he might miss some things that a contest creator who plays the game series exclusively won't. I remember watch videos from you when u was deep into borderlands 3 and you hit some very good points that me as a fan of borderlands games wanted to know. I'm probably going to wait Myself a few months because the problems in the video and in your highlighted comment are kinda deal breakers for me. I didn't play borderlands 3 at launch but the problems it had would have probably made me drop the game if I had. Hopefully they will get a patch for this game because I did enjoy borderlands 3 game play wise

Hmm I never had the enemies outscale me that’s weird. Im lvl 35 right now and I just I just finished wargtooth I don’t know if I’m overleveled or not but I honestly think ill hit 40 in the next zone I clear.

What is there to do in the game besides story? Because if it’s nothing than the story is very important.