I've spent the last week burning through the quirky, vibrant, and oftentimes crude worlds in Borderlands 3. I'm going to be honest - the game is by no means revolutionary.
Gunplay, loot, missions, humor - they all have that warm and fuzzy familiarity. It's that same feeling you get when you go visit your relatives for the holidays, and then you quickly run into a loud fight that makes you remember why you only visit once a year.
Borderlands 3 is a very safe game, all things considered. That's not what had me initially interested in writing this article, though. No, what initially compelled me to write this was the game's two primary antagonists - the Calypso Twins.
They're… a handful.
The Calypso Twins, named Tyreen and Troye, play out like stereotypical internet celebrities, or influencers. They're loud, constantly filming themselves (especially in situations that involve controversial acts), talk in a way that's "lolsorandom", and are completely self-absorbed with their fame and following.
Now, I'd normally be 110% all up to have a villain that's just a prick, that's not the issue. What I do have mixed feelings towards is how Borderlands 3's release has been practically held up by internet celebrities/influencers despite it's in-game messaging. Not only that but the whole concept of Borderlands - a game that's meant to satirize much like South Park - is being developed by a studio that has had its own shortcomings the past few years.
Borderlands 3 released September 13th, 2019. The review embargo lifted a few days prior, but 2K Games were extremely selective on who received codes and who did not. Kotaku, one such site that has had issues with 2K Games in the past, cited "security concerns" as the reason they were not given early access to review Borderlands 3. Other sites were given the same sentiment, such as European sites like VG24/7.
It should be noted that while there were review outlets that didn't receive their review codes until later on, there were many influencers and notable YouTube channels that did get early access to Borderlands 3 to publish content once the embargo had lifted.
While I personally don't care who 2K and Gearbox decide to give early copies to, after having played the game for an extensive amount of time and unraveling just who the main antagonists of the game are - their message rings extremely hollow. Are they trying to say with the Calypso Twins that "INFLUENCERS ARE TERRIBLE" or are they saying, "INFLUENCERS ARE TERRIBLE… except when it benefits us"?
If you were to chalk up the villains as simply poking fun at the idea of the influencer, the humor towards these types seems much more aggressive and mean, like I were poking fun at someone and then punching them in the face because I just really didn't like them. And, again, I don't really care if Gearbox decided to go in that direction for Borderlands 3 - it just reeks of slime when they're trying to eat their cake and have it too.
In this interview by Venturebeat with Borderlands 3 writers Danny Homan and Sam Winkler, the two discuss their decision on making the villains these influencer personality types.
Winkler: We were constantly asking ourselves how we’d follow up on Handsome Jack. He’s one of the most recognizable video game villains of all time. The reality was, just don’t try to do Jack again. We wanted to make sure the voices of the villains were unique and felt relevant in 2019. We took this previous idea, where in Borderlands the villains are these corporate faces. They’re a hit squad, or they’re this megalomaniac charismatic tyrant. We went away from the corporations a bit and said, “What about this crowdsourced, homegrown cult of personality?”
That unlocked a lot of ideas for us. They’ve managed to do what no one could do before and take this disparate bandit clans and bring them all together. So then we asked, “How do you get that popular?” Well, these days you become a streamer.
The more I've thought about this, the more I've realized that this dissonance in story antagonists and the entity creating them is not unique to Borderlands 3. Any game or film produced by a large studio faces this dissonance when their antagonist is a large corporation or entity.
Take, for instance, the film Christopher Robin (2018). In the film, Christopher is caught between spending time with his family and having to deal with the responsibility of saving the company he works for (Winslow Luggages). Winslow Jr, the owner's son, is played very smug and crass. He's ineffectual at his core and actively wants to cut back and lay off employees. He is the film's face for the evil corporate entity.
… That is, until the very end of the film where the owner of Winslow Luggages, Winslow Sr., senses the good in Christopher Robin's plan to save the company without layoffs. Winslow Sr. represents the "good" corporate entity in Christopher Robin.
Trying to have your cake and eat it too actively hurts the film's message when you remember that the production studio at the helm is none other than one of the biggest companies in the world. What are you trying to say with your story? Are you trying to say anything at all?
It doesn't help that for the past year or so, criticism and controversy surrounding Gearbox's CEO Randy Pitchford has continually rolled out. From ensuring that past voice actors in previous games weren't in Borderlands 3 because reasons (Read: $$$$) to having allegedly embezzled $12 million from Gearbox, Randy Pitchford continues to find ways to keep his name in the public eye.
And these aren't the only things that perplex me about Borderlands 3. The fact that we have dialogue that, in one instance, is crass and juvenile, while we also have characters that try to progressively step forward such as FL4K being non-binary.
While I feel in my heart of hearts that the creators behind FL4K did this in earnest, there's another part of me that wonders "but did they really?" when I see that FL4K is a fairly robotic, one-note character.
Borderlands 3 is perfectly summed up by the phrase, "more is more". More guns, more loot, more worlds, more humor. And that in itself is perfectly fine. If that's what you want out of your game, I get it. However, both the story and characters feel more shaken up then in the past in way that isn't congruent with the rest of Borderlands 3.
Every cutscene in Borderlands 2 taped together equates to roughly 10 minutes. Meanwhile, Borderlands 3 has three times that - and the length of time to complete the campaign is roughly the same between each title. Borderlands 3's story has gotten a huge upgrade over past entries, and it shows that Gearbox wants to say something with that. Its characters compliment this - you spend a lot of time exploring new worlds, learning more about new and returning characters in the series, and some of them are pretty well written (see: Lilith and Maya).
In the pursuit of trying to stick to their bread and butter while attempting new concepts, amidst several perplexing incidents in the real world, Gearbox has created a game that feels confused in the year 2019. It's not bold enough to change things in a way that's consistent throughout the entire game, nor does it have the brass to say "we are who we are, and that's it".
Nothing feels genuine in Borderlands 3 - but maybe that's the actual feeling you're supposed to get out of it. A pile of carcasses near a skag den that's hollow through and through.
In terms a character from Borderlands would use to describe what I just said, "Should've nutted up or shutted up."