Rather less than ten years in the past, a port of Borderlands 2 famously launched for Sony’s ailing PS Vita to middling reception. The truth that a then-current sport might run in any respect on a conveyable was exceptional, however the flat visuals, crashing, and constantly sub 30 FPS efficiency relegated it to extra of a novelty than a model that folks can be snug taking part in for hours on finish. When Borderlands 3 Final Version was introduced for the Swap, there was a whole lot of discourse that historical past can be repeating itself right here, and this wasn’t helped by the final lack of footage main as much as launch. Happily, any such fears can now be put to relaxation. Borderlands 3 runs shockingly nicely on the Swap, bringing over the complete, loopy expertise in all its glory for moveable play.
Borderlands 3 picks up about seven years after the occasions of Borderlands 2 and follows the interstellar adventures of acquainted Crimson Raiders like Lilith, Claptrap, and Ellie alongside newcomers like Ava and Lorelei. The gang this time round faces off towards the Calypso Twins, a godlike sibling duo who’ve united the bandit clans of Pandora beneath a cult known as the Kids of the Vault. Notably, Tyreen Calypso has the power to leech energy from different creatures, and if she’s allowed to soak up the powers of the traditional beasts residing within the Vaults hidden throughout every planet, she’ll turn out to be nearly unstoppable.
It is a positive sufficient story, and very similar to the earlier entries, Borderlands 3 is hardly the form of sport that takes itself too critically. Nearly each minute of the journey is filled with juvenile humor and larger-than-life characters that assist to maintain all the things feeling lighthearted, although this may often be grating. Even when not all of the jokes land for you, there are sufficient right here that it’s all however assured that some will—it’s arduous to not be drawn in by the sheer infantile attraction of the Borderlands universe.
Gameplay in Borderlands 3 has been described as ‘Diablo with weapons’, which feels apt given its potent mix of RPG components and first-person taking pictures mechanics. You start by selecting a personality from one in all 4 completely different courses, every of which has three completely different talent timber that then construct that character up in divergent methods. We went with Moze on our playthrough, whose major gimmick is that she will periodically summon a heavy armored mech like D.Va from Overwatch. The way you select to construct your character is as much as you, although you’ll by no means get sufficient talent factors to max out each talent tree, so that you do want to consider how your picks synergize with one another. Fortunately, when you get a number of hours in and notice that you simply’re construct isn’t understanding, otherwise you simply determine that you simply wish to attempt one thing completely different, you may all the time reset your abilities at a value of 10% of your money available.
As you discover the expansive locales of every planet, you’ll always be inundated with mountains of randomly generated, colour coded loot. Each gun comes with distinctive stat modifiers, elemental results, and talents, and there are all of the anticipated staples featured right here akin to shotguns, rifles, and SMGs. So as to add much more selection, weapons additionally come from a wide range of completely different producers, which every have their very own intricacies to navigate. Reloading a Tediore gun, for instance, leads to your character throwing the spent gun like a grenade and pulling out a brand new one, whereas the blast radius and harm will likely be greater if there have been extra bullets left within the clip.
The very best half about this loot system is that it feels extremely deep with out being unnecessarily overwhelming or sophisticated. There are many elements to think about when engaged on a construct, however this isn’t essentially the form of factor the place it feels such as you’re laboriously poring over spreadsheets and spending extra time crunching numbers than you’re taking pictures raiders within the face. And although everybody will naturally gravitate in direction of weapons and builds that go well with their playstyle, the loot system right here feels prefer it usually prompts you to experiment and rethink your construct. For instance, a very juicy legendary shotgun might drop, and even when it doesn’t work that nicely together with your construct, it’s simple sufficient to respec and check out it out to see the way it can enhance your total efficiency.
Once you’re not busy messing together with your loadout, gunplay feels swift and snappy when you end up dragged into the thick of battle. Each character can vault over low obstacles and sprint into a protracted slide, which fits a good distance in direction of making fights really feel much less stiff than they did in earlier entries whereas the aiming itself is aided in no small half by useful movement controls that make it a lot simpler to snap to targets. That is the very best that the taking pictures has ever felt in a Borderlands sport, and it by no means will get outdated whether or not you’re taking part in your fifth or fiftieth hour.
Although Borderlands 3 is an open-world sport, it doesn’t function one steady atmosphere to discover. As a substitute, you have got a central hub in your Sanctuary mothership, which you employ to journey to numerous planets that every function their very own huge, interconnected maps. On every of those, you may scoop up sidequests, go on monster hunts, raid strongholds, and ferret out hidden chests in what looks like an nearly endless deluge of issues to do. And whereas loads of the aspect content material right here can really feel somewhat ‘fetch quest-y’, a few of the aspect plots meaningfully broaden the lore of the characters or atmosphere, and there’s one thing delightfully stress-free about turning off your mind and spending a number of hours knocking out quests whereas listening to a podcast. All alongside the best way, you’ll be always rewarded with new loot drops, and the rewards for finishing quests are often nicely definitely worth the effort.
These of you who’re simply wooed by content-rich and densely packed open-world video games will likely be happy to know, too, that this Swap model affords an terrible lot of bang to your buck. Alongside the whole base marketing campaign, you get all of the DLC that got here out within the years for the reason that preliminary launch, which provides as much as nicely over 100 hours of content material. Content material for every DLC is usually siloed in their very own play areas, however whether or not you’re exploring an unlimited house on line casino or collaborating in a tacky Western (full with a gritty narrator voiceover), these separate campaigns all convey one thing new or fascinating to the desk and really feel like they meaningfully add to the general expertise. Make no mistake, if Borderlands 3 will get its hooks in you, it’ll be a lengthy time earlier than you lastly attain the underside of all that it has to supply.
Relating to its efficiency on Swap, Borderlands 3 isn’t far off one other ‘miracle port’. Gearbox one way or the other managed to squeeze 100+ GB of content material down to simply 23.5 GB with minimal cuts to the visible expertise. Certain, textures are decrease high quality and there’s rather less element in environments in comparison with the variations on different platforms, however it seems to be particularly nice on the Swap’s display and these minor tradeoffs are nicely definitely worth the capability to play on the go. Better of all, the uncapped body charge is remarkably clean, even in additional intense battles. The bottom it appeared to dip was about 30 FPS within the heaviest sequences, however the overwhelming majority of the time, issues are sticking to about 40-50 FPS.
Nonetheless, there have been another sacrifices. If you wish to play with mates, split-screen co-op isn’t featured right here, that means they’ll want their very own Swap and their very own copy to allow them to play with you over both native or on-line wi-fi. Additionally, you may’t have four-player squads right here — solely two gamers directly will be in the identical world. This lessened multiplayer suite is definitely disappointing, however comprehensible contemplating the standard {hardware} that is being run on. All the identical, these of you who play Borderlands principally with mates might wish to maintain this in thoughts earlier than taking the plunge.
Conclusion
Although many doubted how nicely Borderlands 3 would work on the Swap, we’re happy to report that it is a well-built port that successfully squeezes down nearly everything of Borderlands 3 onto Nintendo’s handheld. The deep loot system, steady efficiency, goofy tone, snappy gunplay, and large quantity of content material all come collectively to make this one a straightforward suggestion, although those that favor multiplayer could also be dissatisfied on the diminished choices right here. Gearbox rightly deserves reward for the work the workforce put in right here to make this occur; Borderlands 3 on the Swap is nicely price your time.
