No Place For A Hero: Improving The Borderlands Franchise

With the recent announcement from Gearbox that Borderlands 3 is not currently in development right now (of course not wink wink nudge nudge), I thought it would be a good idea to share with everyone some things that could be improved upon in the franchise.

Now, I know that Telltale Games and Gearbox are joining forces to bring us Tales From The Borderlands, which I believe will work on character development and a richer story. But why should this be excluded from the main franchise?

Character Depth

Borderlands has an amazing ensemble cast of characters, yet we only know so much about them. Even with the hidden Echo recordings, which reveal why the vault hunters are on Pandora, I feel as if these characters are still very shallow. Why not take a step in the World of Warcraft direction, and have each class have their own starting area? Each starting area would explain the characters backstory. Like why did Maya leave her home planet to come to Pandora? Or why Axton is no longer a part of the military?

I would love to see how Roland and Tiny Tina met, how they saved each other’s lives, and how that friendship blossomed. I felt Tiny Tina did not have a lot of depth to her until the Assault on Dragon’s Keep DLC came out. It was in that DLC that I discovered why we were playing Bunkers and Badasses in the first place – it was how Tiny Tina was coping with the loss of her friend.

Every Action Needs A Reaction

Borderlands 2 had a few quests that gave you choices: give the Bullymong hair to Sir Hammerlock or Claptrap. These quests only resulted in cosmetic differences or a different type of weapon. Why stop there? Let’s have some quests that affect the outcome of the story, let’s get some different endings in there as well. Can I get a quest where I have to choose between saving Lilith or Brick? I feel that adding consequences to my choices would greatly improve the experience in Borderlands.

Risks

I believe that trying something new, or different should not be considered a risk in the gaming industry. I don’t want to play a Borderlands 2.5, I want to play a Borderlands sequel that adds to the overall experience to the franchise. Not just adding more guns, and different quests. But adding something new and exciting that will breathe new life into the game. What could this new idea be? I don’t know, only Gearbox could come up with that.

What would you like to see be improved or added in the next Borderlands game?