New Tales from the Borderlands review

A spoiler-free review

It has been 8 years since the release of Tales from the Borderlands in 2014, a point-and-click adventure game set in the world of Borderlands, where players were not shooting at bandits or creatures of Pandora, or even collecting loot as is the main point of the game. What they got instead was a genuine story about making it big in the world, tough choices, and friendship. I enjoyed this a lot from this game and so did other fans, but unfortunately in 2018 Telltale Games, the developers of the game were shut down that year. And the fate of a sequel would be unknown.

Fast forward to August of this year, and Gearbox (the original creators of the borderlands franchise) announced that the series is getting a sequel, along with key members who worked on the original game, returning for the sequel.

In my time completing the entire five episodes (10 hrs) in the game, I can say that New Tales from the Borderlands offers a new facelift from the previous game both visually and graphically, and adds more variety within the game. But it does fall short of what makes the original great.

A New Tale

Tales from the Borderlands is set after the events of Borderlands 3 (you don’t need to play this one), where you are in control of three characters, Anu, Octavio, and Fran. Anu is a scientist for the Atlas corporation, a weapons manufacturer. Anu’s goal is to create a device where violent intervention is not needed, she does not like killing, is often reserved, and isn’t much of a people person. Then there is Octavio, Anu’s adopted younger brother, Octavio’s goal is to make it big in the world by any needs necessary even if it means stealing or helping out his friend LOU13 “Louie” an assassination bot on contract kills. Finally, there is Fran, a down-on-her-luck frozen yogurt shop owner with a bit of anger issue, Fran is trying to rebuild her shop after a corporate invasion on the planet left a hole in her ceiling. She is also Octavio’s boss and mother figure.

The story begins with Anu’s place of work being invaded by the Tediore corporation, the rival weapons manufacturer to Atlas. Tedoire’s CEO Susan Coldwell serves as the game’s primary antagonist along with the Tediore soldiers at her disposal. At the same time, Tediore also invades the planet of Promethea, where Octavio and Fran are located at. After escaping from the Atlas ship, Anu makes her way to Promethea and tries to find Octavio, Octavio tries to find Fran at the moment of the invasion. After surviving the invasion, the three try to go find a vault located on the planet after learning that Tediore plans to access the vault. Vaults were created by ancient beings that house riches beyond your wildest dream, but they are guarded by a powerful creature that only a few dare to fight.

After reaching the vault and somehow defeating the vault creature by sheer luck. The trio doesn’t find any loot but does come across a green stone that they got from the creature. They all realize that the stone has healing properties. From this stone, all three can finally achieve their goals of changing the world, becoming famous, and being rich.

Good Choices

What the game offers is a nice selection but what got me interested was the new look they were going for in terms of graphics. While 8 years has been a while, I like Gearbox’s use of their in-house engine for this game. You can see how character movement flows evenly well and the transition of shots when you are making dialogue choices. But what I notice was a small detail, where you can see the muscles of every character’s face have even more expression. You can see their forehead and areas around the eyes flex and unflex. It’s a small detail I enjoy seeing.

Like the last game, you can make choices that can affect your whole experience playing this game. If you played any Telltale games some of this should be familiar, if not then most of what you’ll say to anyone who talks to you is summed up as: being aggressive, being scared, or not saying anything at all. Tougher choices are the ones where you can only pick one or the other to be very impactful. And at the end of every episode, there is a scoring system based on the choices you’ve made during an episode.

Aside from choices, you can make, the game does offer a variety of things to do. First is being able to explore, you can move around in a small section, usually a room, but this lets the player have a choice to explore the area or complete a simple task that will move the story forward. Players can find cash in loot boxes and other cases, cash is used for cosmetic items for your characters be it a skin or an accessory. They can also interact with the environment of the area and hear what the characters say and do. Finally, you can also find Vaultlander figures (I’ll explain later).

Another thing the game offers are mini puzzles, which are to progress the story and keep the players on their toes. One of them involves Anu slapping highlighted parts of an item for it to work. The other is for Octavio’s eco-dex, a smartwatch that can hack into any device. When prompted to hack, the player will face three puzzles during the hacking sequence. The game does tell players based on how they do during the hacking sequence, can affect the outcome. Although there is an option to skip these mini-puzzles if you don’t want to attempt them.

Lastly, you can play Vaultlanders, so Vaultlanders are collectible figurines that are like Beyblade in some way. Each figurine is based on all the characters of the Borderlands universe. So the way Vaultlanders works is that you and your opponent select your Vaultlander and duke it out, which is essentially part fighting game and part turn-based strategy in which you can dodge your opponent’s attacks and if done perfectly you can deal with critical attacks on them.

Bad Choices

While I can appreciate the good things that come with New Tales from the Borderlands. There are some issues I found with the game.

First, the story is at times all over the place when I was writing this review I couldn’t explain much about the story without giving almost everything away. Some of the game’s emotional moments felt rushed and therefore making me feel less sad about them. I feel that five episodes aren’t enough for this, either add more episodes or stick to a more linear path that seems to tie everything together.

Second, Susan Coldwell feels like a generic villain with the same villain goal which is to take over the world. Brock a literal talking gun had more personality than Coldwell and had a lasting impression on me. Coldwell isn’t given much screen time and when she is, is touch and go.

Third I feel the saying “Three’s a crowd” might apply here. While I feel all three characters are well written, whenever they are together it often feels like too much is going on at the same time, granted there are moments in the game where each of them is either on their own or with the other main character. I feel only two of them whoever it is have greater chemistry and keep the story in one place.

“Player” will remember that

New Tales from the Borderlands offers longtime fans of the series and newcomers an interactive and decent experience. The things you can do keeps things fresh but with a forgettable villain and a story that often goes on a tangent sometimes. I would recommend this for fans but would recommend paying $20 for it. And as always you’re a bigger winner if you find this cheaper or free.

Score: 7/10

• Carlos Huerta-Enciso