I would say from the start that my review will contain SPOILERS, I do not wish to hide because I don't like the layout of the spoiler on steam, if it's just a few sentences it's ok but a whole paragraph, nope.

Last chance to skip this review before I start, I repeat SPOILERS.


I have NEVER rated a borderlands game negatively even borderlands 3 which had a lot of back clash, but THIS I wouldn't even consider it as being a Borderlands game, Tales from the borderlands was incredible, so what happened here? I just don't understand since the game forces you to watch the credits to get an achievement. HOW SO MANY PEOPLE didn't see that they were destroying the whole BORDERLANDS Franchise with THIS!

1/ I will start with Rhys that doesn't even look like Rhys anymore, his whole character is now a guy just interested about money and not giving a crap about people, which was the TOTAL OPPOSITE of his character. I don't know why the people working on this game decided to change him into some kind of handsome jack.

2/ the humour hurts, they are trying SO HARD to be funny that it's just cringe. There's nothing to actually laugh about. It just doesn't feel natural like in Tales from the borderlands.

3/ The main characters are just uninteresting, ANU keeps moving like she has a hyperactivity disorder, I know they are trying to portray that she is an anxious person, but it doesn't feel natural. LOU13 the killing robot moves more like a human than her.

OCTAVIO you can portray someone immature without having to make them look stupid at every second, For example; yes spending all the money on Fran's frogurt shop was an immature decision, but spending all the money without realising that the shop you are buying is Fran's shop after working there for so long, that is pure stupidity!

Speaking of FRAN she can do sex jokes without having to be the whole 10h of ''gameplay''. Also why doesn't Fran's legs heal with the healing shard? I don't get it, it makes people coming back to life, it heal wounds, it gave Anu's foot back but Fran's leg? Nope, pass!

Honestly how did so many people work on this but don't seem to notice details this big, this is ridiculous. WHY does FRAN with the disabled legs jump and swim to save ANU, and how did she managed to kill two sharks while protecting Anu?. Octavio on the other hand seems to just enjoy watching and commenting to the audience instead of helping.

Some of the choices are also silly or don't make any senses...

4/ So I guess they wanted to make something related to Borderlands but with people having a ''normal'' life/jobs etc... the issue it's that it made the whole game boring, the only good thing was the action inside the vault when they were fighting the creature, that's about it.



- The narration at the beginning of each chapter with Marcus and fiona
- Rhys doesn't look like Rhys, and doesn't follow the character he is in Borderlands 3 and Tales from BDL.
- killing some psycho and saving Stapleface
- fighting the creature inside the vault.
- the experiment with the shard when we see Athena, Katagawa, Mr. Torgue, Wainwright Jakobs, Rhys
- Anu wanting to become a siren, and in her unconsciousness towards the end, became one for a few minutes. She refers to wanting to be a siren a few times, that's the reason why her first device was created to recreate the siren's power. She also mentions she wants to be like Lilith a few times.
- The mini game with vault hunters figurine.

that's it, so around 10h of gameplay for not much story related to the Borderlands universe. I think if it was its own game, then it would be better received. But I feel this was a money grab by having the Borderlands name



No, Don't get me wrong, the improved aesthetic of the game is amazing, the mini games are actually enjoyable, TIMM-E that keeps coming and disappearing was actually fun, you have the option to interact and loot, I like Phuong and Stapleface, I find the Jabbers cute, and the only part of the story that kept me interested on Fran was knowing what trauma she went though when she was a kid.

I personally got it with the Pandora Box Bundle so I feel like I haven't wasted money on it but if you are a Borderlands fan you will be disappointed.




For some reason this review has been hidden so I'm adding it here.

I have never been a big fan of the borderlands skins, but I just cannot understand, what's going on with the New Tales from the Borderlands? The game is already terrible let's make a pack with just sepia colours, and other useless ig stuff.

It was part of Pandora's box, so I didn't really have a choice, but you do.

Skip to the bottom for summary.
I want to preface by saying that i have played and beaten every Borderlands game, not all on PC. But including the old Tales game as well. I also have no idea how the production went on this game seeing as it was effected by the pandemic.
Keep in mind some choices may lead to different outcomes, so some characters could come off different in your playthrough.
So ill start with the few good things.

Great-Graphics and effects are fantastic. Mocap and character models for the most part, very good as well.
Good-There were some moments that were genuinely funny and actually seemed like Borderlands humour, but they were few and far between. Controls were good. And the Vaultlander minigame was actually kind of fun, with the mini game being a nice distraction from the main story. Actually kind of hope they put the minigame in BL4 when it releases.
Voice acting was pretty good for all characters.
Sound design and song choices were fairly good in my opinion.

Now comes the storm-
Terrible-The humour/writing, quite literally was 85% braindead "Gen Z" nonsensical garbage. I had no problem understanding it, but even so the stupid humour of this New Tales game makes a mainline BL game or even the first Tales game seem like the writers had IQ over 180.
That's something BL has had going for it since the beginning, the questionable and sometimes outrageous humour was in a sense, magical. But this game takes a big fat steaming crap on that legacy and (from what i can tell) attempts to cater to a.....softer generation. Or maybe they just tried to do things that they thought were hip and cool rather than sticking to the proven formula? No idea, but it really doesn't work...like at all.
On to main characters.
Octavio-Absolute braindead idiot, full of the aformentioned Gen Z humour. Does things even a Gen Z person wouldn't do. Goes through 90% of the game coasting on luck and stupidity, and finally he has a breakthrough, realizes just how stupid he is, realizes all the dumb choices he made. You think he is finally about to have some character development......NOPE, proceeds to continue doing the exact same nonsensical crap he has done the whole game. I wish you could kill him and get away with it at the start.

Anu- Octavios adopted sister, and polar opposite. Your typical high strung super smart and anxiety filled nerd. Anu at least has some stuff going for her character, but for 75% of the game her anxiety prettymuch controls everything to where multiple conversation options in a row devolve into her panicking and blabbering like a complete idiot. Contrary to her brother, at least Anu develops a little and becomes somewhat coherent.

Fran- The ONLY character that felt like a true and proper BL character to me. A murderous, angry, hypersexual frozen yogurt lover in a hovering wheelchair. Fran is the only character that seemed to have proper character development the whole way through (at least in my playthrough). She did have a few braindead moments, but thankfully nothing that killed the character entirely.

Louis- Octavios best friend and an assassin robot. Honestly its hard to say anything about this character. Most of the game he spends more or less "watching"the group of main characters in an attempt to learn right from wrong. This would be ok if he were newly built, but this robot has something like 850+ confirmed kills? You would think it would have learned SOME personality before the whole story of this game. But honestly the character seems extremely bland, and "just so happens" to learn some humility at the end of the game at a convenient time. Seemed like a cop out character for Octavio to pal around with, that could have easily been replaced with one of the two other characters we meet at the start of the game that were considered Octavios friends as well. Those characters could have had some development, and actually seemed interesting.

Staple face-Interesting idea and character, but not enough time with her to flush anything out, she certainly had some character development but it was almost all off screen.

Onto the story itself.
Contrary to most of these reviews i actually didn't mind most of the story. Its a fairly cut and dry good guys find thing and try to save the world, bad guy interjects, good guys beat bad guys story. Personally i think the story would have been fine if it werent for the braindead voicelines and humour, albeit a little bland.
However i do agree that chapter 3 (i think it was chapter 3 with the gameshow) was completely off the wall, seemed like they lost track of what game they were even making. Chapter 3 was just...bad, and ruined whatever flow the game did have built up until that point.

And finally, they had a lot of hidden pop culture easter egg voicelines and visuals. (Aint no rest for the wicked was mentioned, and a terminator line, just for examples) Some easily noticed, others not so much. However the frequency of them seemed.... i dont know, it was like they were throwing them in like candy in a desperate attempt to stay relevant to the older audience. The frequency dropped significantly for the last two chapters, like they had given up or run out of things to slip in.

And ill mention it just to say i did. They clearly tried to include minorities and different orientations in this game. I personally have no issue with that, especially being a borderlands game where....well lets be real somebody is screwing a ract somewhere. It would be expected that in a world such as pandora you would have all types of people. They did not shove these ideals in your face on the regular, they did seem to be brought up a handful of times, mostly where they KIND OF made sense. But sometimes it just seemed braindead (again) where the response made zero sense to what was said. Granted this sometimes depended on line choice.

Anyways before this gets any longer, the main moral is this.
They seemingly tried to cater to a younger audience even though the majority of players are now 25-35, most likely have been playing since the first game. And based on the reviews for the game, clearly that went terribly.
Most of the time the characters are braindead with no or very little character progression.
Story was sup par with a whole chapter that made no sense whatsoever, and in fact said chapter added fuel to to how braindead the characters are.
Easter egg voice lines and visuals almost blatantly thrown in just to keep the more experienced players invested.

If you do want to play it just because its Borderlands, expect to lose a few braincells along the way, and its only worth it under $10

I have the shiniest meat bicycle, but this game dashed my hopes for BL4, definatly not going for a second playthrough and i sincerely hope they learn what NOT to do with BL4 from this game.