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 recreation may run in any respect on a transportable was exceptional, however the flat visuals, crashing, and persistently sub 30 FPS efficiency relegated it to extra of a novelty than a model that individuals could be snug enjoying for hours on finish. When Borderlands 3 Final Version was introduced for the Swap, there was numerous discourse that historical past could be repeating itself right here, and this wasn’t helped by the overall lack of footage main as much as launch. Luckily, any such fears can now be put to relaxation. Borderlands 3 runs shockingly properly 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 underneath a cult referred to as the Youngsters of the Vault. Notably, Tyreen Calypso has the flexibility 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 develop into just about unstoppable.
It is a advantageous sufficient story, and very like the earlier entries, Borderlands 3 is hardly the sort of recreation that takes itself too critically. Just about each minute of the journey is filled with juvenile humor and larger-than-life characters that assist to maintain every little thing feeling lighthearted, although this could 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 allure of the Borderlands universe.
Gameplay in Borderlands 3 has been described as ‘Diablo with weapons’, which feels apt given its potent mix of RPG parts and first-person taking pictures mechanics. You start by selecting a personality from one in every of 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 most important gimmick is that she will be able to 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 couple of hours in and understand that you simply’re construct isn’t figuring out, otherwise you simply determine that you simply wish to strive one thing completely different, you may all the time reset your expertise at a price of 10% of your money available.
As you discover the expansive locales of every planet, you’ll consistently be inundated with mountains of randomly generated, shade coded loot. Each gun comes with distinctive stat modifiers, elemental results, and skills, and there are all of the anticipated staples featured right here similar 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 might be larger if there have been extra bullets left within the clip.
The perfect 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 sort 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 swimsuit their playstyle, the loot system right here feels prefer it usually prompts you to experiment and rethink your construct. For instance, a extremely juicy legendary shotgun may drop, and even when it doesn’t work that properly along with your construct, it’s simple sufficient to respec and take a look at it out to see the way it can enhance your general efficiency.
Once you’re not busy messing along 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 an extended slide, which matches a great 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 most effective that the taking pictures has ever felt in a Borderlands recreation, and it by no means will get previous whether or not you’re enjoying your fifth or fiftieth hour.
Although Borderlands 3 is an open-world recreation, it doesn’t characteristic one steady setting to discover. As a substitute, you’ve got a central hub in your Sanctuary mothership, which you employ to journey to varied planets that every characteristic their very own large, 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 virtually endless deluge of issues to do. And whereas loads of the aspect content material right here can really feel a bit ‘fetch quest-y’, a few of the aspect plots meaningfully develop the lore of the characters or setting, and there’s one thing delightfully stress-free about turning off your mind and spending a couple of hours knocking out quests whereas listening to a podcast. All alongside the best way, you’ll be consistently rewarded with new loot drops, and the rewards for finishing quests are often properly well worth the effort.
These of you who’re simply wooed by content-rich and densely packed open-world video games might be happy to know, too, that this Swap model gives an terrible lot of bang in 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 properly over 100 hours of content material. Content material for every DLC is generally siloed in their very own play areas, however whether or not you’re exploring an unlimited house on line casino or taking part in a tacky Western (full with a gritty narrator voiceover), these separate campaigns all deliver 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.
Concerning its efficiency on Swap, Borderlands 3 isn’t far off one other ‘miracle port’. Gearbox by some means managed to squeeze 100+ GB of content material down to only 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, but it surely appears particularly nice on the Swap’s display and these minor tradeoffs are properly well worth the means 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 associates, split-screen co-op isn’t featured right here, which 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 may be in the identical world. This lessened multiplayer suite is actually disappointing, however comprehensible contemplating the standard {hardware} that is being run on. All the identical, these of you who play Borderlands principally with associates could wish to preserve this in thoughts earlier than taking the plunge.
Conclusion
Although many doubted how properly Borderlands 3 would work on the Swap, we’re happy to report that it is a well-built port that successfully squeezes down virtually the whole lot of Borderlands 3 onto Nintendo’s handheld. The deep loot system, secure efficiency, goofy tone, snappy gunplay, and massive quantity of content material all come collectively to make this one a simple advice, although those that want multiplayer could also be upset on the diminished choices right here. Gearbox rightly deserves reward for the work the group put in right here to make this occur; Borderlands 3 on the Swap is properly value your time.