Borderlands 3

INTRODUCTION

Borderlands is back again! After 7 years of waiting, a proper sequel to the original plot has finally arrived. It's a direct sequel to the original Borderlands 2. It's a 1st person Action CO-OP RPG developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games. It was released on 13 September 2019 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

PLOT



The story takes place several years after the death of Handsome Jack in Borderlands 2. You're on a planet called Pandora. It contains Vaults that hold vast amounts of treasure and technology, which is a long-running rumor. The 4 Vault Hunters are here to join Lilith's Crimson Raiders as new recruits. They were sent by Lilith to investigate the COV and their leaders, Tyreen and Troy. They're known as the Calypso twins. It was told that they have the Vault Map. Your mission is to reclaim the map and stop the Calypso twins from getting their hands on the Vaults.

The story mode is huge. It's about 30-35 hours long including all the side missions.


GAMEPLAY



What makes Borderlands unique from any other franchises is its fast-paced gameplay style. It's fun and addictive. The game features 4 new Vault Hunters. FL4K as the Beastmaster, Amara as the Siren, Zane Flynt as the Operative, and Moze as the Gunner. At the beginning of the game, you get to choose one of them as your main character. Each of these characters has their own unique abilities and 3 different types of skill-trees. The game also features 2 new gameplay mechanics, Climb and Slide. By this new climbing mechanic, you can now grab any ledge to pull yourself up and do some parkour moves while running. And the sliding mechanics, it's so smooth and dynamic that you can't stop yourself from spamming it over and over.



The things that I love most about this game is how the weapons look and feel. Each weapon has its own look and firing effects. Also, the sound effects make these guns more fun to use. It's absolutely amazing. Playing with friends is now better than ever in Borderlands 3. It has a ping system like Apex Legends, which allows you to mark enemy locations, weapons, and ammunition.

If someone asks me to rate this game scaling from 1 to 10, I would give it 10/10 alone only because of its gameplay. By my experiences, it's easily the best Borderlands game in the series in terms of gameplay.


BUGS, GLITCHES AND PERFORMANCE ISSUE

Before I end this review, I have to let you guys know that I didn't play it on PC, neither I purchased it. I borrowed it from a good friend of mine to play on PS4, even though I'm a PC gamer. The only reason I ignored the PC release is because of the Epic Games Launcher. Currently, the game is an Epic Store exclusive title. I've seen many user reviews about the PC version showing hilarious bugs and glitches. Even high-end rigs are struggling to run it at stable 60 fps. Thankfully, I haven't faced any of these issues on PS4. Now, I think I know why the PC version has a lot of problems.

1. The game is on Epic Store which is not ready for big AAA releases. It also corrupts the user data, if the user chooses to save it on Epic's cloud storage. Loading a corrupted data might be the reason for the game-breaking glitches.
2. It has Denuvo DRM protection system, which consumes about 35-55% of CPU most of the time, which leads the game to run poorly. 

I've also heard a rumor that Denuvo is using a key-logger to prevent users from pirating the game. I don't know if it's true or not, I just don't trust Denuvo. They've been doing shady businesses from the day they first involved in the PC gaming community. It should be banned worldwide, period.

It looks like I made the right call by not buying it from the Epic Store. I'll buy it when it drops on Steam.


CONCLUSION



Borderlands 3 is an amazing game. Graphically the game looks magnificent. The characters design are insanely detailed, even though it's cell-shaded. Also, the voice actors did a decent job doing the voices, but some dialogues could be better in my opinion. It has a ridiculously huge amount of contents that will keep you playing the game for hours. As a $60 AAA title, it worths every penny.

I can't wait to play this on my PC. The thing is, I'm not interested to buy it from the Epic Store. I'm just waiting for it to come out on Steam. If you're like me, you should wait a bit longer for the Steam release. It's coming in April 2020. Let's wait together.