Borderlands is a super unique shooter that puts comedy ahead of a serious plot. This has helped the series separate itself from most shooters to be considered a special franchise. Of course, my ranking will be different to your own, so let me know what you guys think. Starting with the list we have…
6. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
The most controversial game in the series and for good reason. The Pre Sequel decided to have zero gravity making you jump high no matter what. At first, the gimmick is fun, but hours and hours later, it gets annoying. Also, at first, having to constantly get oxygen (unless you’re the legend Claptrap) gets repetitive. The Pre Sequel had weaker side missions than the other instalments. In fact, there’s little to remember about the story or side missions.
It wasn’t all bad as you played as good characters like Claptrap or Timothy Lawrence (not Handsome Jack). It also made some strange decisions as most characters sounded Australian. The Pre-Sequel wasn’t bad, but releasing after Borderlands 2 became a massive hit did it no favours.
5. Borderlands
The one who started it all. Borderlands brought us to the land of Pandora with all the craziness in it. I played the original not long ago and it hasn’t aged great. The story was subpar, but it had some decent side missions going for it. What made it different was how they used humour and silly side missions to make it so great and unique. Of course, being a looter shooter, it brought us some great memorable weapons and it was the first time in a single player game I remember wanting to grind for a better weapon
4. Tales From The Borderlands
At first, I was worried this wouldn’t capture the humour of Borderlands, but I was worried for nought. Telltale supplied us with great characters like Rhys and my favourite Vaughn. The two had great chemistry proving they were real bros. Vaughn was funny, even if his humour was stupid, while Rhys was more of the straight man as his reaction to Vaughn would make it funnier.
The story as a whole was pretty decent and gave us something different from the typical vault hunter story. It also brought us one of the most emotional moments in the series, which shocked me as I didn’t expect a Telltale game to do something to affect the actual main titles, even if it was small.
3. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
The most recent Borderlands and a solid one. The fantasy setting made it feel different from what we’re used to and brought interesting enemy types. Instead of grenades, we got magic. It actually worked out far more fun than grenades as we got a variety of different spells to use. Seeing some loot drop for spells was more exciting than it would be for a grenade.
The humour was good and had some great missions like the Murph’s mission, which was a Smurfs clone and it was hilarious. The story let it down the most, but the villain provided a more interesting narrative than what I was expecting. The top-down way of going from area to area was interesting and the random enemy spawns like Pokémon were funny at first although it got a bit tiresome.
2. Borderlands 3
It could have been first, but a few of Borderlands 3’s failings are too big to overlook. I love Borderlands 3 and it easily has the best boss fights and combat out of the series. The worlds became bigger and all brought a different atmosphere. Some of the areas like Lectra city could have been fleshed out more, but it brought a different side to Borderlands.
The abilities in this were some of the best, like making a clone, having a companion, and so on. The boss fights brought some platforming elements to them making them far more tactical. We got some great characters Balex voiced by Ice-T who really made me laugh. Borderlands 3 tended to be more hit or miss with its humour.
But it can’t be first due to sometimes cringe-worthy dialogue, especially the Calypso twins. They were used as a mechanism to mock social media, yet it just ended up being cringe-worthy and making them unlikable villains. This is the biggest holdback of Borderlands 3.
1. Borderlands 2
The greatest. Borderlands 2 brings back great memories. Handsome Jack is easily one of the best villains in gaming and is certainly the most diverse one. Borderlands 2 is the ultimate sequel. Improving upon everything its predecessor did. Giving us the funniest Borderlands and far better gunplay than the original.
The classes were all good with great abilities to go along with them. Borderlands 2 has the best hub out of them all. It was simple and condensed with the odd side mission in the hub. Some of the best weapons were in this such as the gun that literally went “pew pew” when you shot it.
The DLC was also amazing. Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep is one of the best DLCs I’ve played as it had great fantasy music and many various enemies. Borderlands 2 is without the best in my opinion and deserves to be number one.