Congratulations, Gearbox, you found a way to bring me back to Borderlands for more looting and shooting. The strategy was simple enough: prey on my nostalgia for the best Borderlands DLC in the best Borderlands game. Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep was Borderlands 2’s (BL2) most creative and engaging diversion from the main story. It introduced a magical medieval setting filled with new enemies to decimate and new gear that could be crapped out by Handsome Jack’s diamond horse, Buttstallion. Yeah, it was even weirder than usual, but that was to be expected. The entire adventure was masterminded by Tina herself, a hyperactive demolitionist teenager with a wild and destructive imagination. When Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands (Wonderlands) was first announced, I was confused. Was this a full game? A Borderlands 3 (BL3) DLC? A direct sequel to Assault on Dragon Keep featuring the BL2 vault hunters? With a little research, I learned that the scope of the game was much larger than a DLC but a bit smaller than a mainline installment. It seemed interesting, but I didn’t check it out right away. I blame my hesitancy on BL3.

BL3 was one of my most anticipated games of all time. Unfortunately, it fell flat. First and foremost, the writing in BL3 was generally horrible. The quirky wit from BL2 was replaced with the most juvenile attempts at humor imaginable. When the game shifted to moments of drama, the writing was either oddly empty and unemotional (like after the disrespectful death of Maya, my favorite vault hunter) or borderline pretentious (like when Tannis becomes a siren without ever really earning such a transformation or even fitting the role). That’s not to mention the supposedly satirical Calypso twins who could never hold a candle to Handsome Jack, as they constantly act like unbearably annoying streamers in a purely obnoxious manner, or the bratty prodigy, Ava, whose shrill and pouty voice is the stuff of nightmares. I typically try not to let weak writing hinder my gameplay experience, but BL3 seemed to want to get under the player’s skin. It was so loud and so dumb that I began to feel embarrassed about playing it. In terms of gameplay, the shooting mechanics and weapon functionality were improved, which is a big plus, but that doesn’t override the fact that BL3 felt like a lesser imitation of BL2. After the huge leap Gearbox took between Borderlands and BL2, the bar was set a lot higher than mimicking what came before with a few minor tweaks tossed in for good measure. That’s probably why Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (TPS) was underwhelming to a lot of fans who wanted more significant variables thrown into the looter shooter equation (for the record, I admittedly love TPS for its laser/ice weapons, galactic setting and low gravity). In BL3, most of the changes brought to the table felt unnecessary. Legendary weapons were too common and repetitive. While there did need to be a bit of an increase in legendary drop rates, as grinding in BL2 could get grueling after dozens of consecutive fights against the same spongey bosses, the appearance of a golden beacon shining amid several white, green, blue and purple guns just didn’t trigger the same level of excitement as before. BL3 also expanded its scope with areas much larger than seen in previous titles, because “bigger means better” is apparently the motto of most modern AAA game developers. In practice, these areas were tedious to navigate and never filled with enough interesting battles and/or secrets to justify their grand scale. The layouts could also be needlessly confusing to pin down, as seen in Eden-6, a boring, swampy bog with a misleading map. The mayhem system that offered both punishing and rewarding modifiers was hollow and gimmicky. It felt like something that should be exclusive to its own DLC rather than a central component of repeat playthroughs in the main game. Finally, the vault hunters weren’t particularly interesting either. While their skill trees were more complex, with three action skills to cycle between for each character, I was never fully engaged with chasing an optimal build. In fact, I was never fully engaged at all. I was held back by the fatigue I was feeling from playing what felt like a slightly alternate version of BL2 with only a fraction of that game’s impact and durability, and none of its clever writing.

Wonderlands is very much its own thing. Yes, it’s an expanded iteration of a previously released DLC, but there are enough new ideas to make it a satisfying offshoot without pushing me forcibly back to BL2. My favorite aspect of the game is how it gives me more room to roleplay than I had anticipated. Obviously, the tabletop game that Tina organizes, called Bunkers & Badasses, is a direct reference to Dungeons & Dragons, where inventing original characters is integral to the experience. In Assault on Dragon Keep, players retained control of whatever vault hunter they’d been levelling throughout BL2’s story. In Wonderlands, the player is free to create their own character. There are parameters set by a limited pool of classes to choose from with their own preset skill trees and action skills, and the physical customization doesn’t offer much depth, but it’s enough to work with. The first class I chose was Clawbringer. As soon as I learned of its inherent ability to throw a giant lightning-charged hammer at your enemies, I decided to name my character Thor. Maybe that’s not the most original choice, but I do enjoy Norse mythology and figured its pantheon was a fine match for the game’s fantasy setting. Plus, it gets better. Later in the game, you’re able to choose a second class to accompany your first. I went with Brr-Zerker. As the name implies, this class allots plenty of opportunity to cultivate a high amount of frost damage, which is exactly what I used it for. But Thor doesn’t have ice powers, so I needed to think on my feet to keep the roleplay alive. Soon, I was no longer Thor, but Frohr, aka frost giant Thor. Something or other had occurred between Thor and the frost giants back in Jotunheim that had imbued the thunder god with the powers of ice as well as electricity. With that backstory loosely established, I visited a character customization station, turned my skin blue and forged ahead. Frohr turned out to be an absolute blast to control. By the time I was almost finished with the story, I was hurling my lightning hammer at mobs of frozen enemies and calling it back into my hand for a five-second cooldown so I could hurl it again. Lightning bolts were striking the heads of goblins and bandits whenever I took melee damage, thanks to a very fitting shield that I was given as a mission reward. When I had to reload at an inopportune moment, I’d often elect to skip that animation in favor of knocking enemies into the air with an enormous ice sword and then calling an ice meteor down onto their limp bodies to finish them off (the ice meteor is one of the better spectacle spells, which replace grenades). The joy I got from staying true to the Frohr lore I had created for myself is something I had never felt in Borderlands. I’m not sure if most of the credit should go to the game itself or my own imagination, but regardless, the game did set the stage for me to have a unique form of fun that I wasn’t expecting.

Because I was so caught up in following my own fake story, I was willing to do my best to overlook what I was certain would be, at the very least, dull writing. But, while the writing never reached the heights of BL2 or even TPS, it certainly never dipped as low as BL3. The story takes place before BL3, so Tina is not yet an eccentric adult who comes across as far stranger and more unsettling than charmingly crazy. She is once again an endearing wayward teen who is content to play Bunkers & Badasses forever, so long as she can convince everyone else to do the same. The many meta interruptions to the story add a level of self-awareness that suits Wonderlands perfectly. I enjoyed navigating the isometric overworld as a big-headed game piece. A side mission centered around removing a cheese puff from the board broke the fourth wall in an entertaining way that made me nostalgic for my childhood (I was specifically reminded of Army Men Sarges Heroes, the plastic army men game on the first PlayStation that let me run across kitchen countertops as a tiny toy). Wonderlands was even able to get some genuine laughs out of me, although I can’t say they weren’t a little cheap. Most of the humor depends on the voice actors’ line delivery and pulling the rug out from under the player at the last moment. With Andy Sandberg joining the cast as space pirate Valentine, certain lines that are somewhat amusing on paper become worthy of a chuckle, like when he says, “That sounds really evil. . . let’s call it. . . morally grey.” Wanda Sykes also does well as the newcomer robot, Frette, who banters often with Valentine. The content of the story is standard good vs. evil, with plenty of Tina’s interferences changing things around on the fly and earning an occasional smile, like when she is forced to rapidly fabricate a quest about a harmless man in a blue hat, just to appease Valentine and Frette, who have become suspicious of the NPC for no reason other than his bold attire. The central villain is Dragon Lord, voiced by Will Arnett. Dragon Lord is basically Handsome Jack on a budget. He is Tina’s former avatar, seeking revenge for the sudden alteration of his storyline from brave hero to dastardly menace. Dragon Lord bitterly insults Tina and takes sarcastic, taunting jabs at the player in a way that is reminiscent of Jack but never matches his cocky yet strangely likeable persona. Overall, the story does its job. It may have never wowed me or got me to care too much about any individual character, except maybe Tina during certain parts, but it also didn’t funnel a big mess of auditory nonsense into my ears like BL3, and that’s all I could ask for.

The strongest element of any Borderlands game is not the story. It’s the chaos. Being swarmed by an entire encampment of enemies as I run and jump around, switching between different elemental weapons and blasting my foes into clouds of blood, is what always keeps me coming back for more. In Wonderlands, it took a little while for the game to finally find its footing, but once it did, I was reminded why I’m such a fan of (most of) these games (although, for the record, the clouds of blood have been removed in favor of a T rating. Shucks.) During a mission where I had to collect a goblin loincloth as an ingredient for a farmer’s magical potion (typical), a battle broke out at a goblin camp. As I was shooting, I heard a whirring sound to my right. I turned and saw a short, flabby goblin spinning uncontrollably with an axe gripped in his hands, coming right for me. I fired a few shots his way, but started taking heavy damage from my left, so I whipped around to address whatever it was that was about to break my shield. A goblin with a machine gun. I should have known. What I couldn’t have known, however, was that this goblin had a jetpack strapped to his back, and before I could take the kill-shot, he blasted off into the air. A fatter goblin took his place, literally surfing on a wave of fire, dodging my bullets and roasting me with the same flames he rode on as he sped past. By now I was shooting like a madman at anything that moved, including. . . what were those? Oh, tiny spider bombs that a goblin engineer was releasing into the fray from afar. Of course! This was the first moment when I realized the game had potential to captivate me for its duration. I was sinking back into the familiar Borderlands rhythm I’ve come to know and love, with enough small surprises to keep me engaged. At another point, I invited my cousin into the Wonderlands. Naturally, he named his character Odin. He loved the game’s added focus on melee, as multiple types of melee weapons can now be found in the game just like guns, causing a lot more damage than ever before without having to follow a melee build. While we were fighting bandits, my cousin whacked one into mid-air with his claymore. Just before he connected, I had shot the same enemy with sticky bombs, which had not yet detonated. As the hapless bandit was cartwheeling through the air, the sticky bombs exploded in a beautiful display of cooperative destruction. It was a moment that caused us both to laugh at the brutal hilarity of the situation, which is what Borderlands is all about.

While Wonderlands delivers a lot of what a Borderlands game should, it’s not without its flaws. Some of those flaws have been around since day one. Waiting around for an NPC to finish their monologue at the start of a new quest so that an objective marker can finally pop up on the mini-map is still boring. By the time some of the quest-givers are done talking, I could have been halfway to my destination. It’s a good feeling when I guess the right direction to start running in, but such a bummer when I’ve accidentally gone the opposite way. It’s a minor issue, so minor I’ve debated on whether I should even include this gripe, but it does hinder the momentum and I’m puzzled as to why this hasn’t been adjusted ever since the original Borderlands came out in 2009. Also, the midsection of the game drags. After skulking through a dreamy fantasy forest full of worthwhile side missions and a village uprooted by a giant beanstalk that you can amusingly slide down to get from place to place, the pirate areas of the game lacked the same purpose, probably due to how similar they feel to Captain Scarlet and her Pirate’s Booty, a BL2 DLC I played countless times (mostly in my pursuit of the best possible Sandhawk). The game picks back up afterwards, so the pirate settings end up as forgettable filler rather than integral components of the adventure. Finally, Wonderlands drops the ball when it comes to an endgame. There isn’t one. Well, technically there is. . . I suppose. Upon campaign completion, the gate to the castle in Brighthoof, the game’s hub town, is opened to reveal the chaos chamber, attended by a defeated and imprisoned Dragon Lord. The chaos chamber is a wave-based grind for loot with various optional, randomized modifiers that harken back to BL3’s mayhem mode. While the chaos chamber initially seems like an improvement over mayhem mode, since it is self-contained and doesn’t undermine the main campaign, it soon becomes clear that it replaces the true and ultimate vault hunter playthroughs every Borderlands player expects. If the chaos chamber was a DLC or just an alternate endgame resource for quick loot, I would probably regard it more positively, but since it has supplanted one of the best and most fundamental elements of the franchise, I can’t get behind it. I would have rather gone through the events of the base game with Frohr again, visiting the chaos chamber whenever I was in the mood for a change of pace and a bundle of more easily obtained loot worth using. For whatever reason, Frohr will always be level 40, cursed to wander the same rotation of chaos chamber arenas ad nauseum.

Because Wonderlands is not a numbered entry in the series, it ultimately feels more compact. There are not as many side missions, areas or mini-bosses to discover. There is also no real endgame to engage in without getting quickly bored. That doesn’t ruin the experience though, because I wasn’t necessarily looking for another seemingly endless gameplay loop like I got in BL2. After the disappointment of BL3, I simply wanted to like Wonderlands, not love it. By buying the game I was indeed rolling the dice (pun totally intended). Wonderlands was either going to surprise me by reinventing a beloved DLC for current consoles or remind me why I had chosen to walk away from the series. Thankfully, it did the former. It wasn’t as intricate as a Borderlands game could be, but it was fresh and fun. The reason I’ve referred to the game as a swansong in the title of this post is because while this is surely not the last the gaming world has seen of Borderlands, it’s very likely going to be my last interaction with the looter shooter series. I’ll still play BL2, TPS and now Wonderlands again whenever I want, but I think I’ve officially outgrown the series in its current state. Another main entry that simply tries to enhance the same exact type of game without taking any major evolutionary steps forward won’t be able to draw me in next time. Still, I feel grateful for having been able to walk away from Borderlands on a much higher note than BL3 allowed. Okay, fine, there’s a slight chance I check out number 4 whenever it releases, but for now I’m calling Wonderlands a swansong and I’m sticking to it! Maybe there is some rest for the wicked after all. . .