Borderlands 3 Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

1. It Knows EXACTLY What It Is

Borderlands 3 is dumb. Like really, really dumb. It opens with a poop smeared newspaper getting caught on a vault boy's face and barely lets up from there.

It also knows it's a game about guns with legs and evil livestreamers taking over the world. I've seen a ton of writeups about how "terrible" the comedy is and how "outdated" it all feels, but all of this seems to be missing the point: Gearbox aren't taking ANY of this seriously.

They're not trying to make a point or rally against political correctness. There's even a bit where - after undergoing a VR simulation - a character reels off the many possibilities of digital living, only to say that "some people like to live in a world from seven years ago."

Things like that hammer home that Gearbox are just having fun with an iconic franchise, telling more shlocky, forgettable gags, sure, but ones that keep everything moving nicely.