10/10 Gameplay and 3.5/10 Storyline. And that's what makes it painful to replay.

The story bends over backwards to promote Ava as the main character, but she ends as the same character she started as. She spends a large chunk of the story blaming Lilith for something she herself caused by disobeying Maya, and Lilith doesn't argue? She implicitly agrees with Ava? Then calls back to the stupid and totally wrong line Ava said at the end, as if Ava is the reason we win? Ava is a bad character because she starts as nothing, ends as nothing, and ruins everything in the story she touches. If she didn't exist, the story could be exactly the same, but better, because characters we love wouldn't have been pushed aside, or had everything we loved about them butchered so she could be given credit for the win.

I'm really surprised that you didn't mention one of my most hated aspects of the game. The fact that the series kinda falls into 'Good Corporations' vs 'Bad Corporations' with Jakobs and to a lesser extent Atlas being cast as major parts of the resistance movements. Which makes sense to some extent, sure. But it's so strange to see these corporations and their leaders being put in such a positive light when such a major part of the Borderlands franchise was about how none of the corporations could be trusted and were usually self-serving to the detriment of everyone else, or led by the whims of certifiably crazy people like Mr. Torgue who were uninterested in helping anyone.

Just finished your 2 hour Borderlands retrospective and saw this.... "Awe shit.. here we go again"

Tyreen and Troy serve as a cautionary tale about how intentionally annoying is still annoying, and having that annoyance be the constantly present driving force of the story can make the story annoying and ruin a game for people.

gearbox can't hide behind a shield of "it's borderlands so the writing shouldn't matter" after packing in so many cutscenes they deemed important enough at launch to be unskippable until now in places where it kinda breaks the flow

The story behind this game felt like it wasted far more opportunities to be impactful than should have been allowed. When I finished my first play through just a couple of days ago, I didn't feel much. I felt more emotion during the credits when there was a drawing of Moxxi and Ellie finally sitting down to have a drink together since it was alluded to back in 2. Maya's death was so cheap in the context of the story it left a sour taste and I stopped playing for a bit (partially due to that, and partially due to outside influences), otherwise I may have finished my first campaign sooner than this week. You mention a great question to, and a complaint I was voicing to some of my friends before I did finish the game. "Where the hell are all the characters that are supposed to be helping me take down the Calypso's?" Jakob's position is secure with Aurelia dead, Alistair is supposedly a deadly intergalactic hunter as well, so why stay on Eden 6 and not pitch in? Why does Zer0 just pace around in the back of the ship? Why can we find Echos for Kreig, but not find Kreig? Why, if we supposedly needed everyone we could get according to the Watcher in TPS's end scene...did we not gather our old vault hunters? Maya and Kreig had a bit of an implicit thing, facing a threat like this why wouldn't she suggest going back to Pandora and picking him up? Or Sal at least? The man is a Pandoran native that after the events of 2 should be a hero amongst the people. Axton was on the run to begin with, so I can see why he wouldn't want to be found, thus not showing up. But what about Athena? The end scene for TPS has her in front of a firing squad in Sanctuary, she is in Lilith/the original vault hunter's custody. You're telling me she wouldn't agree to stay and help out with such a massive threat? And why exactly is "The B-Team" a thing? Granted I still need to play the fight for Sanctuary dlc, but did Lilith just push her friends into obscurity and only call on them when she needs something after the events of 2? Why for the love of this entire franchise does Lilith go from such a cocky, overconfident (borderline unlikable [unlikable to me]) character to such an ineffectual leader in 3 (AN EVEN MORE FRUSTRATING AND UNLIKABLE CHARACTER)? If anyone seemed like they actually belonged in charage here it was Ellie.

He is giving the writters waaaaay too much credit

So Troy didn't become a siren through Maya, he gained the phase lock ability from her, like Tyreen gained phasewalk from lilith. Troy was born connected to Tyreen, which is why he has siren powers in the first place, sort of a loophole.

The "this game is special to me because its borderlands" part really resonated with me, I absolutely love borderlands 3 despite its flaws, in large part because of how much borderlands as a series means to me

I straight up did not have a good time playing BL3 . It felt like work and every mission was a fake ending and went on for another 10 hours.

SPOILER WARNING FOR THE STORY OF BORDERLANDS 3. Answers as to WHY Troy Calypso is a siren. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you follow the optional objective to collect all of the Eridian Writings in BL3, Nyriad (who was a Siren that originally held Tyreen's leeching abilities) mentions that she voluntarily sealed herself away to die in a vault so that her powers would not find a new host. Apparently, as stated in the Borderlands comics and in another one of Nyriad's writings, Siren abilities are transferred in either of two ways. The Siren chooses a host to take up her powers after she dies, or a random newborn female is selected. As the vault was something of another dimension, Nyriad turning it into a makeshift tomb assured that her abilities would stay there. Until Typhon DeLeon and Leda show up, open the vault, slew the monster within and then "schtuped" in celebration. (He literally says to you that they do it right then and there after finding the vault's treasure). Tyreen also mentions earlier in the story that Troy is a "parasite", that their father literally had to cut him off of her when they were born. It strongly implies that they were conjoined twins, and might be why Troy has a mechanical right arm in the first place. When they were conceived in the vault, the Siren power of Leeching was immediately transferred to Tyreen, and Troy who gained a similar but weaker ability from their attachment in the womb.

The reason why troy is a siren is because he was born literally ATTACHED to tyreen (which is the reason why one of Troy's arm is cut off) resulting in troy needing to siphon tyreen's power in order to live

I bought a Ps4 only because I thought BL3 would be out near launch lol.

Been waiting for this video for a long time

This is excellent! Thank you for taking the time to do this. I'm sure it was a ton of work.

I absolutely love your videos, they just fly by.

I think Troy´s ability was just to absorb energy from another siren, which is why he could be fed by his sister and take maya´s sirenpower. basically a weaker, more specific version of Tyreen´s succing power

Love the video and perspectives. As one fan boy to another you nailed it my friend.

So glad this video is already out! I just got done watching the previous analysis on the borderlands series, and enjoy your videos! Keep up the good work!

I think I very much agree with your thoughts on the game, thought I admittedly am much harder on the story. Anecdotally I was actually working on a video about the story of borderlands 3, and It was very hard to separate my feelings and attachments to the borderlands franchise. So I understand why it was hard for yourself and others. Great video as usual, and I hope you know the level of effort you put into your videos does not go unnoticed. Keep up the great work! also can confirm splitscreen on xbox runs like dogshit

I just binged all of your videos for all of these games that you have analyzed (aside from the wolfenstein series) dominated my childhood. I don't really search for a story in shooters but i really appreciate you analysis videos to help me digest the content more. the thing i like most about this game is the junk food-like gun-play that keeps me coming back. since you did the first id like to see you specifically cover bioshock infinite.

I can tolerate, hell, down right love the cringe aspect to the Borderlands franchise. My problem with Borderlands 3 is that they treat the player as if they don't have two brain cells to rub together; we are given wordy explanatory jokes with uninspired one liners. The cringe in the previous entries is calmer an less (but still some) in-your-face, while 3's is an amalgamation of "short guy funny", and "poopy head, you stink". All the problems in Borderlands 2 can be forgiven by most for its better story beats in the latter half of the game; there are NO improvements in the writing at all throughout the third installment. I found my self (a nearly fanboy like supporter) feeling no emotion for any of the characters in the game. Lilith's "death" didn't make an impact on me, even though I care deeply about her and her character in the second game. The only emotion I had was being angry with how poorly every character was written. :/ 8/10 gameplay. 2/10 writing.

Loved this video even if I'm only just now seeing it. Videos like this have really helped with my critical thinking, seeing messages and such between the lines in video games.

Another great analysis. Have you ever been intrested in the elder scrolls series? Specifically Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim? I'd love to see you do a video on them at somepoint.

Bro, you're awesome. Keep up the great work.

Great Halloween surprise, been following since GTA4, thanks for the content!

a follow-up video would be cool! curious to see your thoughts now that its almost been a year since release. esp with all the DLC stories and such

Love the long vids bro perfect for work

Great video. Thanks for doing this.

Troy is a siren because he and Tyreen were conjoined twins conceived in the tomb of Nyriad. Tyreen’s siren power is that of a leech, which he too holds. The difference is that Troy only has the ability to leech sirens (originally his sister and later we learn he can leech any siren) until he leeches maya and takes on her siren power as well.

Let's be real... my *only* expectation for a sequel is the continuation of the story. If they have aliens get involved at the end of the second story, I expect aliens to be involved at the start of the third story. That kind of thing. And for your statement, that my expectations won't ever be met these days, to be true for even *that* low level of expectations... now that is depressing.

As a connoisseur of terrible puns, Gonner Maleggies is wonderful.

7:56 even going further with this they are releasing a shit ton of free content. There is the Halloween event and also next month there will be the maliwan takedow with 3 bosses (with an invincible boss at the end) and new loot AND mayhem 4 with even more free loot.

BL3 wasn’t actually in development for 8 years. Let’s not forget Battleborn, and now the recent reveal of the upcoming Godfall. If it was 8 years, it certainly hasn’t been the focus that entire time. Its really a shame, because Gearbox had a real goldmine on their hands. A genre-defining mega-hit, that has fans willing to pay $100 for deluxe edition preorders, sight unseen. I know I don’t do that for other games, save for perhaps a Witcher 3 sequel. This was some interesting analysis, and you may have turned me a bit on a couple of topics. I feel that overall though, you were generally too kind. After the Pre-Sequel being a bit of a let down, my expectations were realistic. I expected the game to be good, but had my doubts they could recapture the magic of BL2. I have a LOT of criticisms after playing the game for about 80 hours thus far. Overall, I enjoy it. Most of my criticisms stem from disappointment, of what could have been. I still have hope. I see a lot of people criticizing the end-game, when that doesn’t even really exist yet. We all know four large DLCs and several level cap increases are forthcoming. So the “end-game” right now is of course nothing like BL2. I think people forget what BL2 was like prior to DLCs being released. People forget the nerfing of the Conference Call and other weapons. They forget the rebalancing, buffing, and nerfing that took place to ultimately make the game a finished product. The loot. The changes here are extremely apparent as legendary gear is flying all over the place in BL3. You get legendary gear as quest rewards, side quest rewards, in chests, in garbage piles, and if you put it on Mayhem 4, and do a few chest runs, you can acquire twenty legendary weapons in under and hour. Which begs the question.....are they really that legendary then? The character of Ava was pretty bad, poorly developed, and if her side quests was put in the game to develop sympathy for her, then it was executed so poorly. The performance of the voice actor....my god, it was as if they told her to sound as obnoxious as humanly possible. In a podcast, the head writer tried to brush it off, saying, “We found that the people who actually completed Ava’s side quests, they loved her.” This simply cannot be. Plus, there was only one. Then he mentioned she will be featured heavily in DLC, which made me squirm. TBH, I hope she turns evil and we get to kill her. Otherwise I cannot recall, a character that writers missed the mark so horrendously, in all my life....other than maybe being Jar-Jar Binks. Performance issues really hurt because it makes little sense. Borderlands as a series and this game included, have never been graphical juggernauts. There is no dynamic weather. Very few parts of the environment move or are manipulatable. Yet, this game struggles almost constantly, which negates the improvements made in movement and gunplay. In fact, going back to BL2, it feels like such a smooth well-oiled machine, never dipping below 60fps even for a second. Lastly, and I’ll preface this by saying that I consider myself to be a very socially progressive person, the characterizations of the cast in this game based on gender are borderline laughable. There is only one male playable character, and he is by far, the weakest vault hunter. Every single man in this game is either an idiot or a weakling. I’m not even talking about the bad guys either. Vaughn is a delusional dipshit. Rhys is an insecure coward, crying about his favorite bagel shop getting destroyed....yet he is the CEO of a weapons corporation. Troy is called a leech the entire game, and they built up a big potential betrayal, but then we just killed him. Hammerlock is terrified of his own sister, despite being a big-game hunting cyborg. With ALL of the female characters....it is the exact opposite. The entirety of the Atlas forces are subservient to a woman who we find out Rhys was hot for when she was a Barista, but now she is commander of the Crimson Lance? Okay. Katagawa Jr is a psychopath who is hot for Rhys. My best friend is gay. We both agree, that its fantastic to be inclusive, but when its all FORCED over and over again.....its not really helping anyone. When homosexuality is intentionally put front and center, when it really has no meaning or impact on plot whatsoever.....it just feels cheap. They even made a point to say prior to launch, that FL4K was non-binary/trans, despite being a robot. None of this was subtle, it was all sledgehammered over our heads. Men are idiots, women are sensible, heroic, and determine the fate of the universe. I have no problem playing female characters. In fact, I always play the siren, but decided to try something different this time, and chose Moze as my first. Horizon Zero Dawn, is one of my favorite games this gen, and I have a life size Alloy decal on the wall of my gaming room. I understand that traditionally video games are dominated by gruff white male protagonists. However, I don’t think anyone feels that the pendulum swinging completely the other direction is either enjoyable or healthy.

hope u blow up man, i like your reviews, when bo3 came out i dropped the game because of the story, but after watching your review i think i might pick the game back up

what i love the most ab BL games is I'll watch a video like this one, and see guns i've never come across before, and then it makes me want to go play it again. A never ending loop of looting and shooting.

I think the reason I enjoyed the story at all was because from reveal to launch I already knew I was going to play Zane. And dear god does he save the story for me, he blatant ignores the games sorta “AntiBorderlands story”, Zane brings the sorta missed dialogue that’s a mix of 1 and 2. Also the guns in this game OH MY GOD THEY MAKE ME HAPPY.

Shit it’s too late to watch a full hour but I WILL watch it when I have time. The first 10 minutes have got me hooked on this video and on this channel. +1 sub

I like the story. I respect the writers for believing in their vision in grappling with an IRL issue, the influence of Social Media. That’s the real “bad guy”. Tyreen and her brother aren’t. Handsome Jack is a classical baddie. The mindset, the money, an evil corporation with an army. He checks all the boxes. The Calypsos are the kind of people that become popular using Social Media. They’re a fake religion inspired a violent revolt. But it’s not them, it’s the system that surrounds them, that is the problem.

I literally quit playing when I reached Eden 6 due to performance issues (not wanting to crank it down to low), and only started again when I finally upgraded to a 2070 Super.

46:11 And Fiona and Sasha

i guess im lucky to have started playing bl when bl3 came out i didnt have any expectations for the game i didnt even know what borderlands was until i started playing, the only reason i bought bl3 was because the trailer looked cool. And because I had no expectations from the game i really do love it.

I LOVE the gameplay, I really do. I wanted to play this game so badly, I bought it aaaand it ran at 12 fps. I turned away, but after 2 months I just couldn't resist, but come back. No matter how badly it runs on my trash pc I just can't stop playing it. It's kind of in a way satisfying!

hard agree. i think looting/shooting was only the second thing i was excited for. seeing my faves interact couldve been so exciting. tho i appreciate bl3’s story a lot more than i did before bc of this video

I really enjoy your borderlands videos, I have a deep enjoyment for the franchise as well. I hope you return to bl3 and cover your thoughts on the game again, in its patched state and with all the DLC content :)

appreciate your perspectives regarding the story and gave me a perspective to be interested in. Mechanically the game is at its best but actually portraying the story felt terrible and I've been looking for why but I havn't found a good explanation of why I feel robbed of a good story. Maybe I just have rose tinted glasses of the previous games. Oh well the search continues.

I’ve just discovered your videos - I like long philosophical dissertations on games and media too (yay for similar madness!). I picked up a free download of Borderlands 1 at the start of the first lockdown last year. I’m an English graduate, a writer, and I have a constant battle with depression. Borderlands 1, 2 and 3 got me through 2020. Because they’re fun and not as stupid as they might appear, by a long shot. Intrigued btw - how did you like the Fustercluck? I nearly cried at some of it. Yes, made in dev homes during isolation, but still a fascinating look at mental health and a broken man reconfiguring himself in a new mindset/world. Nervously looking forward to Wonderlands. If I can afford it 😏

Liked and subed. Great job

Your love for borderlands sounds just like my love for DMC. But oooo boy, did my favorite franchise delivered in 2019 )

Hey DavidOZ, have you played the DLCs yet? They have a wide range of quality, but they reintroduce characters from BL2 ( mostly Gauge and Krieg) and have very interesting stories/settings

@DavidOZ to shed some light on the siren situation. Sirens to some degree have the ability to chose a recipient of their flavor of the double edged sword that is the siren power when it is passed on. For Troy the reason he has some siren powers is because he and tyreen was born as conjoined twins. And ever since they were separated he's been dying. It can be seen as the universe trying to correct the exploit that of the nature of sirenhood that is him having these powers to begin with. I do not believe that he becomes a fully fledged siren after killing Maya either. He still siphons tyreen after this point.

For how the sirens powers work, only Women can become siren is the reason why Ty is a siren is because of a technicality. Tyrene was born a siren, she was born with the power to leech off of things. The reason why Troy is a siren is because when Troy and Tyree born they were conjoined twins. But they got separated at some point that’s why he has a robotic arm. Lilith powers being stolen it was stolen cause of the Leach power but for Ava she got the Powers because she was chosen by Maya. Tbh it was easy for me and I’m not saying that in a sarcastic way it was really easy for me to understand.

Im sorry i played and i loved the first and second story in borderlands 1 and 2 they made sense but after avas introduction and mayas death i felt so ... I dont know i didnt like ava i didnt like the retcon to the sirens. how they could simply choose who gets the power. It was supposed to be a random chance thing like in the presequel and ava yelling at lilith because she the apprentice did not listen to her master and got her killed . and never gets reprimanded or changes while tina back in b2 would be at least scolded i will admit the calypsos grew on me but wasnt their supposed to be like a war or something with like the watcher or was that no canon plus lilith was not the savior of pandora the gang were canonically the first time then the second was either the vault hunter or lilith and where did all the other vault hunters go . sorry had to get it out needed to get my thoughts out

The man said he doesn’t know how to feel about or rank Borderlands 3 lol. Love it

Since troy is a leach he can leach off of any siren but didn’t know until he leaches off maya because tyrene was the only siren he had ever interacted with before maya

Would love to see an updated version that includes all the dlc

I don't play Borderland games for the story, I just never thought they were the main focus, they were their but I didn't understand it [mostly cause I never tried] and I still love the games. Now, I get why people wouldn't like bl3 for the story, because the story is a thing and it wasn't neglected in the other games, I just don't care for it. I, however, play the Borderland games for the guns. And that is the biggest difference between bl2 and bl3. Each manufacturer had its own personality in bl2, instead of the flat State changed in bl1. The replacement of 'Bandit' with COV was great, they kept the large magazine size. As in, it's all of your bullets for the gun type. And, the improve, I put this together in about 2 minutes with that pile of trash, is awesome, I love their messy feel and design. The sound design is thumpy and inconsistent in a good way, I feel from the sound alone, these are not made professionally. Vladolf is military based, I can see the design and the feel is consistent and well kept. With a nice sound design as well, I can tell these are designed for military personal. Dahl is alot like vladolf, military grade, overall good feel, but I can easily tell a vladolf and dahl gun from one another. I feel the sound is lighter then vladolf, and that gives them a more skilled feel. Jacob's is western, hard hitting, semi-auto, low magazine, it's a great design in my opinion. The metal and wood construction, the ping noise when you get a crit, all awesome. The noise is loud and impact full, like it should be. Hyperion having the 'more accurate the longer you fire' and a shield with each weapon is great, they have this futuristic design, while still being a bit blocky. The noise mimics this, the sliding in noise of the magazine, the generally quiter noise of the firing, all is for this. Maliwan being always elemental, switching between two of them, and charging them is great. The sleek design contrast with every other gun manufacturer in my opionon, the noise of a more Lazer noise, less bullet cause it is a energy based weapon. Toruge guns have this design of a machine, pistons and tubes for really no reason, and the impact vs sticky options are a great way to add more to these, as well as the removal of explosive as an element adds to this as well. The noise are also great, but nothing to write home about. The final thing, the fact that you can't get every gun for a manufacturer. Your not gonna find a COV sniper rifle, or Maliwan Assault rifle, or even a dahl rocket launcher. This adds more personality to each manufacturer, it makes some sense the COV can't make a precision weapon, or that Maliwan wouldn't want a assult rifle as that doesn't fit there design, or how dahl a rocket launcher would be kinda strange in burst fire. Tl:DR I like the guns and the gamepla, and the guns personality.

What books did you use in this video?

I don’t really came much about the ‘story’ so to speak. The characters are really the story to me as there’s really not much overarching thing going on. It’s a game about shooting everything and getting cooler guns and in that, Borderlands 3, while really rough at launch, more than succeeds. I don’t really feel like it takes a hour long video essay to just say you love the game and the series as a whole. Can’t wait for a 4th one. Please, please bring back more of the quirky funny from part 2 though!

i like ya style!

I'm a huge borderlands fan. Played through borderlands 1 and 2 many many times. Very iffy on the third game. My girlfriend and I are trying to play split screen on console and so far the framerates is awful. And I know it's a newer game but its very disheartening. So far my only critique that makes me not like it as much is the abundance if loot. Makes legendary weapons not as exciting and it's hard to enjoy a weapon when a better one is just an enemy or two away. I dont know it's a ton of fun so far. I love the option to have loot for everyone in multiplayer. But it's just not as magical as the 2nd game. Definitely a step forward but a step back.

Your take in the gameplay loop allowing everything within the game to be unlocked by gameplay is one I haven't heard when people talk about borderlands. And it's insane, because that Is something to praise gearbox for. But also I think we've become so inendated with micro transactions that no one even noticed. And that in itself ties to the theme about capitalism going too far.

The sirens in borderlands typically follow the rules: Females They can be chosen to be a siren, they can randomly get it, or the universe can throw a fast one & "test the balance" (upon death) because troy & the bad twin (story wise) are twins due to that troy can leach off living matter like the real female siren, Tyrean got her powers becasue she was born in the vault that the original sirens powers where trapped in.

Where are your subscribers, you deserve a lot more than you have

You know I never had the problem with PC performance, I played though the whole game with it came out with a GTX 1660 and r5 1600. And it ran very smooth and stable on decent settings. I don’t even remember it crashing more then a few times through the whole game. Weird how things work

I had played it a lot, but it was during a complete playthrough, with my friend, when we realized what this game does wrong. Really wrong. The gameplay is great, the story is weak, we all agree on that. But there are 2 major points that keep it from being "play it for the gameplay", and turn it into "it's not worth the install size." 1. The game frequently STOPS you from playing. It does this by FORCING you to stand still and just listen to NPCs do, what sounds like, terrible improv. This wouldn't bug people so much if it was in the background as you were playing the game - that's how BL2 worked. In BL2, Claptrap, or Hammerlock, would be going on and on, joking about who knows what, but you could ignore it as you were finishing out the mission. For me, I enjoyed the banter, so it was fun to listen to in the background. That's not the case in BL3. Not only is the humor much worse, but the game goes on pause while the NPCs rant. A perfect example is the first time you meet Vaughn. Your objective is simply to 'shoot him down'. You shoot the chain, and your objective doesn't change. Instead, it just stays checked, and you don't get your next objective until he's done making a bunch of jokes about abs and underwear. Now, here's the kicker. When he's done with his jokes, he won't move until you click on him again - meaning, you can't even go do something else, because you have to basically tell Gearbox that "yes, I listened to your jokes, now can the game continue?" Another way they do this is my having mission objectives that are simply "listen to NPC", "follow NPC", and "wait for NPC", which all mean the same as above "wait for Gearbox to allow you to continue playing, once they've force fed you their poor humor." 2. Your character, unlike in BL1 and BL2, is totally irrelevant to the story. Perfect example - your character is in the same room when a major NPC is murdered. You are nowhere to be found in the cutscene, it's like you disappeared in order to let the NPC get killed. You then keep playing after the cutscene, but the whole time you're thinking - "why would I just stand around and let that happen?" And worst of all, the hero of the game isn't you, it's Lilith, who you simply run tasks for. She saves the day in the end, and again, you're not even present in the cutscene. Way to make you feel insignificant.

I tried to get into Borderlands 1 and 2 and just couldn't do it. I didn't understand most of the mechanics and I wasn't good at them (which I think related to the misunderstanding). I got Borderlands 3 a month after release as it was my birthday and I never put it down. I completed it in about 60 hours and even went onto TVHM which I rarely do in games I wasn't good at on normal mode. If I didn't play RDR 2 last year then it would've been my top game of 2019 by miles

I'd like to agree with your perspective that this is not a bad game, my disagreement is the game's core dynamic is shoddy. Thus the core game identity is lost, and convoluted as way too quantity over quality. Games are NOT MAINLY Ludology focused. NarrativeLudo is important too! Writing has to be welcoming inclusive and NOT exclusive to a political agenda.

I really like the analysis of the franchise, and specifically the 3rd game made here. There's a lot of rhetorical subtext and commentary made here that I think goes over a lot of player's heads, including the idea of the far extreme ends that late-stage capitalism can bring about (Rhys and Katagawa Jr having literal armies fight for a corporate takeover comes to mind) when unchecked. I also agree that some of the characters weren't given enough of their due when they appeared in the game. Moxxi had a lot more depth in the 2nd game outside of just being eye candy, and you get more backstory about the people she's dated as well as the interplay between them. The pre-sequel had a lot more of that for her too (especially when you find her working on tech in the backroom) and I felt super let down when they kinda just reduced her to eye candy and innuendo only. Don't get me wrong, eye candy and innuendo are great. But on their own, it makes her feel two dimensional as an otherwise important character in the series.

I'm curious what your thoughts are now. I played a version of the game that was essentially a demo until the recent steam release, so going from that to having all the patches/hot fixes, 2 dlcs, and a raid like event was night and day different. Zane was finally viable for late game, and it felt like an entirely new game. However, a lot of the balancing issues would need either years of testing or months of being publicly available to gather data, so I can't call it pushed out too early. As far as the story, it's very frustrating, it feels like more of a spin off then a sequel, especially compared to something like tales, and especially especially given the ending of TPS. I thought a war was coming, I thought that we would be stumbling into a greater threat in spite of our originally selfish motivations. I think you nailed it on the death of Lilith and why it just doesn't feel right. The whole time our team are the good guys, there's no moral ambiguity. Maybe if we were also streamers and there was a mechanic to reward us loot based on badass kills or photo mode photos that were being overshadowed by the Calypsos, so we had a natural resentment for them, but also no moral high ground without digging deeper or doing some mental gymnastics. The problems don't make it a bad game, but they just set the bar surprisingly high in previous entries as far as the story elements go, and while they killed it on mechanics, the narrative disappointments really make it feel like the borderlands history of sirens, which if they would have learned all the way into that it could have been awesome as well, with Lilith as an unreliable narrator, which would explain why she was always right and heroic. Also, Troy was already a siren, he just leached Maya's power. He was only able to be a siren because they were conjoined twins, and without her feeding him he would either and die, but the fact that you missed that pretty substantial story beat really shows how badly they did with presentation. But at least the end game has gotten to be a fulfilling experience, so once you beat it you can just enjoy the better parts of the game without getting to held up on the story problems.

I love the Gameplay, but hate the story of the game. I especially hate what happened to Maya and the fact that Tannis Became a Siren because fuck it. I don’t consider this game canon, I more consider it fan-fiction. I dislike a lot about the twins and just a bunch of the crappy stuff that happens in the story.

28:06 subliminal Zane

I'm about 16 hours in and am fighting to push through. I muted all voice audio only 4 hours in. Ill finish it, in hopes the end game is more captivating.

Ava directly contributed to the death of Maya...

Okay so about troy becoming a siren. That was literally one possible because is is a siamese twin of tyreen that is also why he could leach maya to death. Sirens can be chosen by previous sirens to inherit their power. Otherwise the powers chose a new host.

Play through this game co-op. Great gameplay, decent writing at times, but the heavy focus on narrative that was deemed so weak to me that Leafy wouldn't need his chin to tear it apart. I would never replay it but enjoy maxing out the character I have each expansion.

I appreciate you conceptualizing an issue I had with the writing, it feels very star wars prequels in the way it writes its young destiny character. It feels contrived and shoehorned in where 2 felt like the situations were more organic. I feel like tiny Tina's dlc was more fluid and natural and it was written to be a DND campaign. I may have to try to give the calypsos more credit though, I disliked them but in a more them being obnoxious way rather than seeing them as a threat.

put aside the story and you got a replayable fun improvement from b2

Hope you do a post dlc video later

This video is well made but I don’t agree with the majority of the first third of the video

10/10 gameplay 5/10 story 10/10 graphics 10/10 sound design -1.3billion/10 Ava

I didn‘t like (among the story) that they cranked down the numbers for damage, health etc. I know it doesn‘t make a difference gameplaywise because it is balanced out but it felt badass dealing about a million damage in BL2

Personally my most divisive game is TLOU 2 rather than BL3. Borderlands games especially BL3, it's not everyone's cup of tea, to me it is. Even on it's highs or lows Borderlands never stopped feel like Borderlands. It has a charm of it's own that is unique, it always felt like it.

12:00 bro literally he has a kill skill that boost your movement speed with each kill and that's a single skill, not to mention the many others He's literally the most movement based vault hunter in the game

How fid they see elpis from eden-6 , promethea, and nekretafayo they show how far away it is on.v the galaxy map there is no way you can see it

Borderlands 3 did so, so much to improve the gameplay experience. From movement, to customisation (both cosmetic and core mechanics), from a more balanced endgame to allowing the player to reach maximum level in just one playthrough (and eliminating the need to replay the insufferable story). It did so much to be a better game, and yet, it was shackled to some of the worst writing I've ever seen in a video game.

38:25 saw that

BL3 is more of an experiment in my opinion...and it's a success

The best analogy I can make is that we expected Avengers: Endgame, but got Age of Ultron instead.

The only problem I can see for future Borderlands games is the amount of characters. Think about it. We have 2 characters from BL1 left, Tina, Zed Ava, 3 Vault hunters from BL2 with others possibly returning and people from Tales and blablabla and every time there's a new game we have 4 possibly 6 characters to add and more relevant people showing up there... I mean I am all for a giant universe with a big cast. But eventually I just don't see how Gearbox can afford 10000000+ voice actors and write a story that satisfies everyone by having enough screentime and relevance for everyones favourit character etc etc... Idk it's just going to be too much so I fear they will kill of a lot more people or make the next game super far in the future and they just died of age or something to reboot... but how mad won't the fans be about something like that. Idk... just a thought I had... I hope they figure it out. :/

As a zane main, take that back. He's viable as hell. Im joking, mostly.

Honestly how hard could it have been for them to give characters real interactions. They act like they care about fan service but just do heavy handed bs at most. This game even now just makes me mad with what they truly fucked up. This video uniquely helped me to see what they were trying to do. How does one adapt the story beats and tone of borderlands so many years later in such a different environment? I think what they settled on is the right answer. However, when even in the subtext of the game it's presented that society has become so heavily personality-focused, it's ridiculous that the characters are made to be painful to listen to. They really didn't consider what would be genuinely interesting for the real people playing the game. I see those fucking streamer characters and just feel annoyed. I think I'm already considering the aspects of streamers, marketing and all that in real life so I had little hope for them to be interesting. There wasn't anything for me to learn, I thought. But after this video I feel more like the important characters on your side are the biggest problem rather than the villains. The fact that people just feel annoyed playing the game is a massive L for gearbox. I won't buy it because of claptrap voice actor being changed but given all the other disservices done to our favorite characters here for likely stupid business reasons, that was only the beginning. But I also don't think the game empathizes or understands fans. It isn't interested in that as much as it wants to improve the gameplay mechanics and complete the check box that is modernizing borderlands.

Game felt rushed and incomplete. 6/10 was fun for 1 or 2 playthroughs but I've played the rest so many times and will many more but not 3 sadly

Lol bro that outro was quality.

Recently bought this game for £9 and it was well worth it. Being avoiding borderlands and just gearbox stuff for many years due to Randy's awful behaviour but honestly I wish I started playing sooner the gameplay is just incredible, only complaint I have is that I wish there was a double jump. Story is horrible though

Criminally underviewed video.

Bl3 is 100% the best gameplay of the series. Bl2 is the best story with the best antagonists

Hey there, I might be a bit late on the comment section for the video, but my takeaway on why troy could become a siren despite the series saying that only women naturally can is he's a parasitic twin, literally leeching life of the vampiric sister.

Console performance is pretty horrendous. The load times specifically are so bad its almost a deal breaker. I set up a timer to see how long it takes to get from the xbox home screen to controlling my character and it was eight minutes. Borderlands 2 in comparison takes about two and a half minutes, and that game isn't known for its amazing load times. The only way i can enjoy bl3 is if i leave my xbox running so i dont have to deal with the initial eight minute load. It wouldnt be worth playing otherwise.