Alright, time to make a pitch here, even though I am not getting paid by Gearbox to do so. For the first time in a long time, I think I can heartily recommend Borderlands 3 to fellow loot shooter fans, as there have been many dark times since launch, and yet now I think it’s in a very solid spot to commit to, for a few different reasons.
So, why should you play Borderlands 3 now, rather than in any of the nine or so months it’s been since launch?
1. There are now three extremely solid DLCs out
With the release of Bounty of Blood, that joins Moxxi’s Heist and Love, Guns and Tentacles as three very meaty DLCs for the game, all of which are great in their own ways, and all of which, I would say, are better content than the base game, which may have turned you off with its main villains, Troy and Tyreen. We have better locations, better hero cameos and better villains in these new DLCs, and if you add these three up, that’s probably enough meat to be at least 50-60% the length of the base game.
2. Class and build balance is finally in a good spot again
I think there was only one time in Borderlands 3 history where the balance between classes and abilities and weapons felt right, and that was in the Mayhem 4 era right before Mayhem 2.0 arrived to mess everything up. While Mayhem 2.0 still has its problems, Mayhem 10, the only “correct” endgame level to play on, just had a nerf to enemy health to make them less tanky and to make more guns and builds viable. On top of that, this month has seen fixes to buff anointments so there are more than like, two valid ones, and it has also scaled things like action skill damage and melee damage to do serious damage in Mayhem 10. That means melee Amara is back on the menu, as is Iron Bear Moze. Even Zane’s clone does some decent damage now. I think FL4K’s pets still need work but in general, things are much, much better than they were a few weeks ago.
3. The level 60 cap is likely to stay a while
One frustration of Borderlands 3 players is that the level cap keeps going up by 3-4 every couple of weeks or months it seems like, making players re-farm all their gear, even the exact same rolls of stuff they already had. However, now that we’ve hit level 60, I feel like we might stay here for a while, possibly even through the next fourth and final Krieg DLC. I think that A) Gearbox has gotten the message to cool it on these level cap increases and B) level 60 is a nice round number to stop for a while. So yes, I think you can be comfortable farming level 60 gear in a way where you know it was only a matter of time before level 53 or level 57 gear would become invalidated.
4. It’s on sale
Right now you can buy Borderlands 3 and all its DLC, even the unreleased one, for $60, the price of the base game. So essentially all the DLC is free. Or if you just want the base game at this point, I think you can find it some places for like $15, but that includes all the non-DLC loot and stuff like Mayhem 2.0 regardless, so you can see how the game feels now. But again, I will reiterate that the DLC is all very good.
I am frequently hard on Borderlands 3, but that’s only because I want to see them mold it into what it could be. And it’s getting there! The last hotfix has put it in the best place it’s been for a while, and while there’s still more work to do, this is significant progress, and enough for me to say, come on in, the water’s fine.
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