The first Borderlands is remastered for consoles and PC, but is it worth going back to the beginning or best to just wait for the new sequel?
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Borderlands is 10 years old this autumn. Back in 2009, when it was first released, the biggest formats were the Xbox 360 and DS, that years Call Of Duty was Modern Warfare 2, and Bungie were just about to release Halo 3: ODST. In other words, Destiny was still half a decade away and the concept of a loot shooter didnt exist yet; to the point where the most common point of reference given for Borderlands was a first person shooter version of Diablo.
At time of writing its hard to guess exactly how Borderlands 3 will be pitching itself. It seems reasonable to assume that it will be more in line with shared world shooters such as Anthem and The Division but theres no proof of that yet and the initial trailer looks very similar to the original games. Or rather it looks similar to how you remember the originals. So, as is the trick with all remasters, the goal here is to upgrade the game enough that it manages to keep pace with your memories.
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Confusingly, there already are Game Of The Year Editions of Borderlands 1 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC that were released back in 2010. But this is an entirely new collection with remastered visuals, all the DLC, and a few new additions (if you bought the original PC Game Of The Year Edition you can upgrade for free). Although if youre wondering why they didnt go with the more popular sequel thats also getting a free Ultra HD texture pack upgrade that works with the existing Borderlands: The Handsome Collection.
The concept of the loot shooter is not a complex one. They all tend to be fairly straightforward first or third person shooters, with a very short gameplay loop where shooting bad guys provides you with randomised loot that makes you more effective at shooting even more bad guys. Put like that it all sounds rather inane but Destiny in particular has proven that no matter what other flaws a game may have, if it gets that loop right then almost nothing else matters.
The core combat in the first Borderlands is very obviously influenced by contemporaries such as Halo, although the key problem with the series as a whole – and the thing were most interested to find out about in the new sequel – is that the gunplay has always been mediocre. Not actively bad but nowhere near the silky smooth perfection of Bungies games.
Back in 2009 the idea of combining a shooter with elements of a role-playing game was still very new, but despite the stats defining both your character and your weapons efficiency keen arcade skills are still a must. One novelty that remains largely intact for Borderlands 3 is all the randomised variations in the weapons, which are taken to such an extreme its almost impossible to see the same one twice.
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Unfortunately, the same cant be said of the enemies, who become very familiar, very quickly; something thats especially frustrating given their limited artificial intelligence. The game also suffers from some surprisingly bland art design, which may seem odd considering Borderlands is well remembered for its unusual, comic book style artwork. But the designs themselves are very ordinary and betray the fact that originally the game was supposed to have a traditional photorealistic style, before being repurposed late in development with a cel-shaded look.
Playing Borderlands again today is an odd experience, most obviously because theres not a single thing the sequel doesnt do better – even though it was never seen as a particularly big leap over the original. Borderlands 2 is funnier and has more complex storytelling, but theres also a very empty, almost unfinished, feel to the original game world. The opening hours are filled with painfully uninteresting fetch quests, that make the whole experience very unappealing if you dont know whats coming next.
But get past those problems and that core loop does start to get its teeth into you, especially if youre playing co-op with three other people. As a single-player game Borderlands has never held up very well but the four unique character classes and weapon variety makes playing as a team a lot more fun. Especially as the console versions have four-player split-screen (the PC is stuck with just two).
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