Tales from the Borderlands Season One review
What a weird trajectory Borderlands has had. Its debut effort was originally going to be a fairly gritty apocalyptic space marine matinee before Gearbox decided to drastically revamp its art style and tone for a more comic book-inspired approach. From what I gather, having never played it, it was an enjoyable co-op action-RPG with a lacklustre story and an abundance of brown. Gearbox addressed these concerns by creating a more colourful sequel, both literally and figuratively, with a wide array of whimsical characters and witty banter. It became such a phenomenon that you didn’t need to actually play it to know who Claptrap or Tiny Tina were; they simply became ubiquitous mascots in the AAA space. Head to the nearest video game convention and Borderlands would be rivalled only by Assassin’s Creed for inspiring the greatest number of cosplayers.
But at its heart Borderlands was always a shooter. You ran around and killed things while its greatest drama occurred off-screen as players collaborated on the best way to tackle its bandits, psychos and mutants. One married couple even attributed their relationship to bonding over Gearbox’s shooter before exchanging vows at the developer’s panel. But would there really be enough substance for Telltale, a studio focused on narrative adventures, to craft a compelling story out of?
The answer is a resounding yes. Borderlands wasn’t created to tell a story, but Telltale has spun Gearbox’s wild world of barren badlands and big business into a captivating space western worthy of the studio’s best efforts like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us.
Our tale begins after the events of Borderlands 2. Vainglorious villain Handsome Jack, a dashing weapons tycoon and dictator (think Tony Stark by way of Donald Trump), has been killed and his mega-corporation Hyperion is in need of a new leader. A slimy salaryman named Vasquez (wonderfully voiced by the great Patrick Warburton) has risen the ranks through brute force and cocky company man (and player character) Rhys has found himself demoted to assistant vice janitor. In order to undermine his boss and usurp control of Hyperion, he cooks up a scheme to nab a Vault Key, a highly prized macguffin that leads to untold riches. Meanwhile, a grifter named Fiona (the game’s second player character) and her sister Sasha are setting up a similar score to smuggle the same treasure.
