Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 is a first-person role-playing adventure shooter with action elements and the first game in the series where players visit new planets, finding new friends and foes. The core concept of the game remains unchanged: collecting increasingly better loot and weapons, as well as a quartet of heroes united to fight chaos and defeat the common threat.

The plot is a direct sequel to the second part. Old characters have given way to new ones — Amara, Zane, Moze, and FL4K, whose skill trees have been significantly reworked. The story is dedicated to the confrontation between the heroes and the Calypso twins, ruthless leaders of the most dangerous cult in the galaxy.

The action of Borderlands 3 takes place on five fictional planets, scattered across the Borderlands universe. For each planet, the developers have created its own biome — weather and geological conditions, unique nature, terrain, and a set of enemies. With the power of Unreal Engine 4, they have implemented a couple of huge levels and many smaller ones per planet.

Traveling between worlds is possible with the spaceship "Sanctuary-3," which also serves as a hub and base. Not all planets are available at once; they open in strict sequence as the story progresses. Later, the player is free to move between planets at any time and complete side quests or challenges.

The game begins on the familiar planet Pandora from previous games in the series, presented with a new set of locations, mostly consisting of wastelands, dusty rocks, ruins of settlements, and factories, all in the spirit of the first Borderlands. The main enemies here will be the Calypso twins' cultists, bandits, and raiders.

Promethea is a futuristic megacity world in the style of cyberpunk. The player will visit the center of this world, fully built with skyscrapers, the Atlas corporation headquarters, and several districts where life thrives in urban jungles. It's a harsh world, no less than Pandora, with its own pest animals, numerous security robots, and simply insane AI.

Eden-6 is a humid world teeming with diverse wildlife and vegetation densely populating swamps and jungles. The headquarters of the Jacobs corporation and the sixth satellite of the giant planet Eden. The refusal of industrial development and colonization of the satellite has preserved nature untouched, so expect fierce resistance from the flora and fauna. The few settlements that harvest wood for Jacobs weapons cooperate with the Calypso twins' cult.

Athenas is a peaceful planet reminiscent of Earth with its picturesque plains with lush vegetation, dense forests and deep lakes, and high mountain peaks touching the sky. The population lives in cities, spiritually guided by the monks of the "Order of the Impending Storm," who reside in the mountains. At the time of the third part, the planet is occupied by the Maliwan corporation, and the plains are filled with predatory monsters appearing out of nowhere. You'll have to fight your way through.

Nekrotafeyo — few believe in the existence of this world, but the Calypso twins and the Maliwan corporation are making considerable efforts to discover it. Rumor has it that this is the capital of the Eridian civilization at the time of the catastrophe, after which all Eridians suddenly disappeared. If so, it's a treasure trove of interesting technologies and Eridium for both corporations and treasure hunters.

Borderlands 3 has even more complex gameplay than the previous games in the series, based on long-term development à la Diablo with constant looting of increasingly cool weapons and equipment, and character leveling. To unlock all possibilities, Borderlands 3 must be completed twice.

The new heroes have reworked skill trees, allowing for even more interesting and deadly builds, diverse and unusual abilities. As before, experience points are awarded for completing tasks, killing enemies, and exploring the game world, which accumulate into levels. For each level, points are given, which can be spent on new abilities for the chosen character.

"Guns" are still represented by pistols, submachine guns, assault and sniper rifles, machine guns, shotguns, and rocket launchers. Thanks to the improved procedural content generation system, there are over a billion variants and types of equipment, weapons, and shields. There are also new modifiers for weapons and grenades.

All Borderlands 3 weapons have an alternative firing mode, often unusual: shooting circular saw blades, launching a pack of micro-grenades at the target, firing bullets on a curved trajectory to hit targets behind cover, and much more. Several new types of vehicles have been added, and their physics, control, customization, and sound have been significantly improved. Now it’s easier to drive and shoot from a vehicle on the move while performing crazy stunts.

Enemies can be ignited and burned to ashes, all cover in the game can be destroyed, and an explosive barrel can be thrown into a cluster of enemies where it will explode in a large radius. Dismemberment is also present.

Movement has been refined: slides and parkour elements with the ability to climb heights have appeared. You can teleport from anywhere on the map to any previously visited area, station, or even directly into a vehicle. The craziest vehicles have been invented for Borderlands 3, such as a huge wheel moving thanks to attached rocket engines.

The events of the third part start 7 years after the second and the fall of the Hyperion corporation. There are no laws on Pandora, and at this moment, the antagonists — brother and sister Calypso — appear. They founded their religious cult "Children of the Vault" (COV) and gathered a huge army of fanatics by uniting various bandit clans.

A break from the norm is guaranteed, as the main antagonists are teenagers obsessed with social media, posing for selfie cameras, editing funny videos and streaming, gathering subscribers and followers in the Borderlands universe. At the center of the plot, youthful maximalism is armed to the teeth and aims to find a weapon capable of destroying the universe. The story touches on themes of feminism and the fight for social justice.

In previous games in the series, numerous corporations and adventurers from across the galaxy rushed to seek the remnants of the alien civilization of the Eridians and their technologies, as well as to develop the resource Eridium. All of this was securely sealed in the Vaults, which the heroes of the game ultimately looted. And this time everything revolves around the Eridian Vaults with their incredibly dangerous technologies.

At the time of release, Borderlands 3 features four characters, but you can expect a couple of others in the expansions — as with all other parts. Here's what you need to know about the new heroes:

You can play Borderlands 3 solo or in co-op with friends (squads of up to four players). Progress and collected loot are saved separately for each player, but unlike previous Borderlands, you can customize loot drop settings — for all players from one chest or generate separately for each player (loot distribution is according to the level and class of each character in the squad).

The familiar way of playing Borderlands 3 has not changed — you appear in a new place, receive a set of quests, clear the location completely, and move on. All squad members contribute according to their skills and watch common story clips and cutscenes. The balancer also takes into account the difference in character levels so that players with a large level gap feel almost on equal footing.

During combat, players need to give their all and help each other — enemies in the third part are noticeably more dangerous than those from previous games and in certain modes become "thicker" depending on the number of players. Besides the main quest, you can complete small side missions, participate in challenges, and activate the "Mayhem" mode.