I didn’t think I’d like Borderlands 3. After nearly a decade away from the franchise, I really wasn’t sure how well I’d enjoy it. Back in 2013, I sure liked it a whole lot—but I wasn’t sure how well the humor would age, especially since the series felt stiffer than basically every other shooter out there. Although the game came out in 2019, I just now got around to playing it, and after 75 hours I’m finally ready to talk about if it’s still worth playing five years later.
Why You Should Play Borderlands 3
Let’s start off with the good: Gearbox clearly learned a lot about the pitfalls of a dreary, arid environment. While you start on Pandora as usual, Borderlands 3 takes you to some truly gorgeous locales—from the lush forests of Eden-6 to the neon streets of Promethea. The characters are better too, with a focus on having Lilith, Tannis, and Ellie as your primary crew from the get-go. You can choose to play as Moze the Gunner, Zane the Operative, Amara the Siren, or Flak the Beastmaster. I went with Amara, and I’m glad I did—her story really dives into the lore of Sirens.
As always, though, the focus is on the most integral part of the series: guns. Most of your early play revolves around one goal—find a gun that chunks through enemies. As you level up, that weapon stops being as effective, and you’re off hunting for the next awesome drop, whether that be a pistol or an assault rifle. Before you know it, you hit the endgame where every weapon feels basically the same, and you’re chasing the best possible rolls. Right now, I’m rocking a Torgue pistol and a Maliwan shotgun that either one-shot enemies or chunk bosses so quickly it’s not even funny.
The base Borderlands game is solid, but the expansions are where the magic truly happens.
There are also features in 2024 that feel like a breath of fresh air. For one, reaching 100% completion seems attainable. There’s a ton to do, but it’s not as overwhelming as something like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey—with its million different types of collectibles. For example, Eden-6 has 9 different types of collectibles, but most are in single digits (and even fewer are required for achievements). On top of that, all of the limited-time events have been made available forever; just toggle them on, and you can still snag the collectibles and experience that everyone got to enjoy live.
A Great Deal
And perhaps the best part? It’s consistently cheap! I can only speak to the Xbox experience, but I find it on sale often. The store keeps pushing “personalized” sales—like getting all of Pandora’s Box (every Borderlands game and DLC) for only $30, which is a great deal if you haven’t played the previous titles and a significant discount compared to buying the game off sale.
Trust me—the cost is worth it. As per usual, the base Borderlands game is solid, but the expansions are where the magic truly happens. Borderlands 3 really shines when it drills down into one specific theme. Whether it’s the casino hell of Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot, the tongue-in-cheek horror of Guns, Love, and Tentacles, or the narrated western vibe of Bounty of Blood, these DLCs offer excellent characters and soundtracks that are way better than the base game.
Where Borderlands 3 Shines
Then there’s the gameplay systems and mechanics that make it so much fun. The classes are all super enjoyable. I’ve mostly played Amara, but I’ve felt this constant urge to try out the other characters just to see how differently they play. Once you hit max level, you unlock the Guardian Ranks system—the same old infinite leveling where you slowly boost stats like gun damage, fire rate, shield capacity, accuracy, recoil reduction, and more. The increases might be small, but Gearbox has sorted each stat into Enforcer, Survivor, or Hunter. Pour in enough points into a category and you unlock perks and cosmetics that can really help out—like Dead Man’s Hand, which lets you aim down your sights without penalties during Fight for Your Life, or Shield Reboot, which makes your shield regenerate every time you kill an enemy.
Unlike games like Destiny—where landing a weapon with the perfect roll feels like a one-in-a-bajillion chance—Borderlands is far more forgiving. It offers two main types of loot: regular loot and anointed loot. Anointed loot comes with an extra perk, like an extra 250% weapon damage after using your ultimate or 100% additional Cryo damage in your next two rounds after reloading. These items can be rerolled for 250 Eridium each, meaning you really only need to chase a decent drop that’s also anointed. Rather than fighting a full grind for a good perk in every column, you simply ask, “Is this roll good as a whole? Is it anointed?” Sure, there are specific stat rolls to chase, but unlike Destiny, there’s a huge gray area where a weapon can still be fantastic.
Borderlands also gives you its very own version of Xur in Maurice’s Black Market vending machine, which roams around weekly offering three different legendary weapons for huge sums of cash (we’re talking 10–25 million each—the perfect gold sink for the endgame). And on top of that, each weapon comes with 3–4 different rolls and properties, letting you pick the best one for you.
Once you finish the game, you have two options: enter True Vault Hunter Mode to replay the entire game with all enemies level-synced (they aren’t by default), or simply toggle Mayhem Mode, which does the same thing without needing to restart the campaign. I’m not entirely sure why you’d opt for Vault Hunter Mode, but Mayhem Mode is great. You get instant access to level-synced enemies, more XP, and better loot. Generally speaking, a Mayhem Level 3 weapon is always going to be better than a Mayhem Level 1 weapon, slowly ascending the ranks. There are even legendaries exclusive to Mayhem 4+ and Mayhem 6+. Sure, you can 100% cheat your way by jumping to Mayhem Level 10 with some Golden or Diamond Keys to get all your gear risk-free, but I personally kept my game on Mayhem Level 1 just to maintain scaled enemies and earn better rewards without too much punishment. I’m personally over super high difficulty that can be frustrating—even if there’s a challenge waiting for you.
Some Mixed Results
Mayhem Mode does add an extra layer of difficulty, but mostly it just turns every enemy into an unbelievably tough bullet sponge—which is the least fun kind of difficulty. Sure, you can just keep playing until you get a killer roll that lets you chunk enemies with +10,000% health, +10,000 armor, and +10,000 shields, but then you only get an extra 250% damage output. On difficulties this high, your entire build has to work perfectly together. It isn’t the kind of content you can just throw anything into and expect an easy overcome.
On the content side, enemy designs aren’t exactly exciting, vaults feel super underwhelming, and shops remain largely irrelevant until the endgame. Then there’s this weird mechanic: different weapon vendors send you in-game mail with rewards for using their weapons. In theory, that’s cute, but in practice it means my inventory is constantly clogged with blues and purples I’m never going to use.
It’s super obnoxious when they’re constantly hyping up subscribers and Eridium tier supporters.
I’m also putting the game’s Vault Passes into the bad category. While they’re nice in theory—since they aren’t time-limited and the rewards are static—they still pressure you during leveling to use different weapon types rather than sticking with what you love. And trust me, that’s not the most enjoyable way to play.
Now that I’m in the true endgame with a ton of max-level legendary weapons, they all feel nice. But having that kind of power access early on could have ruined a good chunk of the campaign. I didn’t want to feel pressured to use that one awful SMG for 300 kills just because it was the only electric weapon at my level.
I will also say, again, that it’s possible to solo everything in the game with the right build and weapons. But if you’re not into that, you’re pretty much out of luck—unless you have friends with the game. By and large, no one is really matchmaking, and the player pool is even more split by the level of Mayhem mode you’re on. With 11 different ranks plus the base difficulty, it becomes really hard to even find one person to play with.
Why You Shouldn’t Play Borderlands 3
Now for the ugly. The inclusion of streamers in the cutscenes was cringe in 2019, and trust me—it still is. I hated everything about it. It’s super obnoxious and it kills any real sympathy I might have had when they’re constantly hyping up subscribers and Eridium tier supporters.
There are also some heavy suspension-of-disbelief moments. Every time something goes wrong, suddenly your vault hunter is MIA in nearly every cutscene, even though they’re only 50 feet away. Mechanically, I wish there was an easier way to play multiple classes without having to abuse bugs or resort to Googling workarounds. I would love to try all the characters more honestly, but after 80+ hours, I just didn’t have it in me to start over and play through the campaign again.
And finally: bugs. The game hard crashed on me twice, and I’ve had about ten issues where launching the game goes wrong, fixed only by quitting and rebooting. There’s also a really pesky shop bug that resets your selection to the first item in your inventory every time you sell something. With 50+ items in your inventory, that’s a huge pain in the butt.
Verdict
In short, Borderlands 3 takes all of the best parts of a grindy, live service-style game and ditches the infinite treadmills, power creep, and FOMO. Instead, it offers a 100-hour—or even hundreds of hours if you experiment with multiple classes—experience where you can chase amazing weapons, freely experiment with builds, and respec at will. Even after you dive into the top-notch DLC expansions and complete your first playthrough, there’s still enough here to keep you logging in weekly (or even daily) with absolutely zero pressure to do so.
I’d say this is one game that holds up remarkably well despite its many issues, and it’s definitely worth checking out for any fan of looter shooters or grindy games in general.