Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands Feels Like More Borderlands 3

Developer Gearbox is taking a little bit of a detour from the exploits of Borderlands’ vault hunters with its subsequent recreation, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Impressed by the Dungeons & Dragons-influenced Tiny Tina’s Assault On Dragon Maintain, Wonderlands is aimed toward bringing a extra tabletop RPG-like expertise to Borderlands’ loot shooter formulation.

Wonderlands sees you dive into Tiny Tina’s newest Bunkers & Badasses marketing campaign. As an alternative of taking part in as one in every of 4 premade characters–a hallmark of the Borderlands series–you can decide from one in every of six courses after which customise your race, bodily look, voice, and persona. Tina then narrates your journey as you discover her fantasy world, making changes to the story and your quest on the fly, very similar to a dungeon grasp in a Dungeons & Dragons marketing campaign.

I’ve now had an opportunity to play Wonderlands, leaping right into a preview construct of the sport that noticed me capable of check out the Stabbomancer and Graveborn courses. I went for the latter first, for no purpose apart from that the identify sounds cooler, earlier than replaying the primary quarter-hour or so of the preview with the previous. Between the 2, I finally ended up having fun with the critical-hit-focused Stabbomancer (which performs lots like a D&D Rogue) greater than the highly effective however dangerous Graveborn (which, very similar to D&D’s Blood Hunter, can sacrifice well being to tug off highly effective assaults).

Each courses felt distinct in what they delivered to fight, which leaves me desirous to see how the opposite 4 courses (Brr-Zerker, Clawbringer, Spellshot, and Spore Warden) would possibly play otherwise. I additionally discovered loads of loot, a lot of which felt like your typical assortment of colourful firearms present in a fantasy-based shooter, however there have been a number of gems that supplied playfully foolish concerns to fight. My favourite was a protect that, when depleted, emitted a magical burst that flung all enemies round me helplessly into the air. However the extra I performed, the extra I observed that Wonderlands felt remarkably just like Borderlands 3. A bit too comparable.

If Gearbox informed me that Wonderlands began out as a post-launch enlargement for Borderlands 3 earlier than reworking into its personal standalone recreation, I would not be surprised–the two video games really feel as tonally and mechanically comparable to one another as Dragon Maintain did to Borderlands 2. It leaves Wonderlands feeling like a recreation I’ve already performed earlier than. Certain, the precise particulars of the story are completely different, however I am going by means of the identical motions I did again in 2019, together with quests that really feel like reused Borderlands 3 storylines.

It finally resulted in a boring hour-and-a-half preview, particularly for me, somebody who has already poured over 30 hours into Borderlands 3 and felt like I used to be simply getting extra of that.

The preview noticed me largely aiding Jar, a goblin looking for to unionize her fellow goblins in an effort to overthrow their grasping company overseer. Jar is not a lot of a fighter, so she wants you to filter any of the evil goblins so as to save the great goblins and unite them underneath her banner–a process that sees you exploring a number of tunnels and preventing by means of a handful of labor camps earlier than finally going up towards a conventional (learn: bullet-sponge) Borderlands boss.

If the missions within the preview are any indication of how Wonderlands will play as an entire, they are not doing it any favors. The missions I performed by means of really feel like simply one other go at Borderlands 3’s The Weapons of Reliance (a collection of missions wherein you assist a insurgent chief in liberating captives and beginning a resistance), even concluding with a battle towards an enemy that is solely powerful as a result of he has a big well being pool. When it comes to what you are doing gameplay-wise, they really feel indistinguishable.

The precise storyline of the hunt is not all that attention-grabbing both, because it largely retreads narrative floor that Gearbox has finished earlier than (and higher) and lacks the playful–occasionally, even intriguingly satirical–exploration of ideas and popular culture that outline the very best facets of the Borderlands video games.

An argument might be made that Jar is that this facet; an instance of how goblins are on a regular basis folks and to not be generalized because the senseless, grotesque monsters that fantasy and most D&D campaigns make them out to be. However that seems like a stretch, particularly on condition that Jar has little or no characterization. And even with out that stretch, characters in latest common Dungeons & Dragons campaigns (like Important Function: Marketing campaign 2’s Nott the Courageous and Dimension 20: Fantasy Excessive’s Riz Gukgak) have already deconstructed goblin stereotypes by portraying them as people.

So, as cool as it’s to be revisiting Tiny Tina’s wicked and foolish thoughts by means of the lens of a tabletop RPG, Wonderlands does not really appear to do something attention-grabbing with that lens.

Granted, the set dressing is there. The names of mechanics and options have modified to emulate D&D (killing an enemy to get again up and stop your premature demise is now a profitable dying saving throw, for instance, and grenades have been changed with magic spells). But when what I performed is any indication, Borderlands’ mechanics have not advanced to match these new tabletop phrases. Gearbox has efficiently copied the lingo, however I noticed no indication that the workforce is aware of what that jargon is meant to invoke.

Trying again on the dying throw mechanic for example, it really works precisely like Borderlands’ second wind. In Wonderlands, once you lose all of your well being, your character falls to their knees. You then have a short time period earlier than you totally bleed out and die–if you possibly can handle to kill an enemy earlier than that occurs, you get again up with all of your well being.

It is easy to know and pretty straightforward to succeed at, so it does not match the joyful exuberance tied to getting a profitable dying saving throw in D&D. In D&D, profitable dying saving throws means your character may be revived. Failing your throws means the character is totally lifeless and gone for good past a dungeon grasp pulling some shenanigans. Rolling saving throws is a harrowing expertise that may change the course of a marketing campaign eternally, and Wonderlands lacks that very same pressure as a result of your character’s dying is meaningless. Like Borderlands, Wonderlands permits you to be revived from a checkpoint a seemingly infinite variety of occasions with out consequence, other than dropping a small sum of money.

And I am not saying that Wonderlands wanted to be a roguelike or incorporate some semblance of permadeath into its structure–you do not want precise everlasting character dying so as to have a real D&D marketing campaign. However that is one in every of a number of examples of how Wonderlands misses the mark and pretends to be one thing it isn’t. The sport has included the phrases however with out their which means, leading to an expertise that feels hole to its supply materials. So even when it seems to be completely different from Borderlands 3, essentially, it does not really feel any completely different.

You would argue that Dragon Maintain is comparable, in that it is constructed upon the mechanics and gameplay loop of Borderlands 2. However to Dragon Maintain’s credit score, there may be substance to its narrative. The enlargement builds upon Borderlands 2’s story, making house for Tina to grieve for Roland. And that’s one thing that D&D is thought for–plenty of parents have explored their feelings, discovered new mates, come to an understanding of their gender or sexuality, or just grown as an individual by means of taking part in the sport. So Gearbox utilizing a tabletop RPG to discover grief in Dragon Maintain was unbelievable and intelligent. Like, in fact, Tina, somebody who struggles with expressing her feelings past over-the-top pleasure and explosive outbursts, would solely lastly be capable of discover one thing just like the lack of her surrogate father by means of the act of roleplaying in a tabletop recreation.

I am not getting something like that from what I’ve performed of Wonderlands, although. Gearbox has seemingly taken no strides in exploring how the mechanics and language of a tabletop RPG might remodel a loot shooter (each by way of the way it performs and what sort of story it would be capable of inform), and is as a substitute seemingly simply giving us one other Borderlands-styled loot shooter.

I can not choose a (presumably) multi-hour recreation on a small snippet, nor do I need to. Nonetheless, the piece of Wonderlands I obtained to play didn’t depart me impressed or desirous to strive extra. In a timeline the place Wonderlands is Borderlands 3 DLC, I may need been extra excited–the prospect of a fantastical bite-sized snack is extra interesting than gorging myself on an entire second course that matches the primary.

And with all that stated, within the recreation’s protection, I did not get an opportunity to expertise many of the precise Dungeons & Dragons ideas that Gearbox has talked about introducing into the Borderlands’ formulation in Wonderlands–concepts just like the tabletop-looking Overworld, character creation and multiclassing, and Tina adjusting conditions on the fly in attention-grabbing or humorous methods as a dungeon grasp. None of that was obtainable within the preview construct I obtained to play.

However from what I used to be capable of play, I obtained the sense that Wonderlands is simply extra Borderlands 3 by way of its gameplay mechanics, narrative tone, and quest construction. Which I suppose is ok if extra Borderlands 3 is what you have been hoping for, however I discover that to be fairly disappointing.