I’m writing this as someone who has put over 600hrs into BL2 and TPS.
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Worst writing in franchise history. Yes, that includes TPS. I remember when everyone thought this one will be great because Anthony Burch is gone, but its honestly way worse. This game tries way too hard to be dramatic and crashes terribly. It also misses the ironic touch that made the others such great light entertainment.
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Fan favorite Maya gets killed almost with a wave of the hand just to push Ava, a character literally nobody likes. And then Lilith kills herself in one of the most blatant “mcguffin” scenes I’ve EVER encountered in my life. She just flew up to the moon(through space…) to use her siren magic to close the moon’s vault key magic, because apparently that’s how it works, and then somehow also died as a result. But not before making a firehawk symbol on the moon… Seriously Gearbox? I know that BL never really made much sense and had lots of “its space magic, ain’t gotta explain ■■■■” moments, but at least the other games didn’t take themselves this seriously. And then Lilith tells Ava that she’s the head of the Raiders now. Really? Not Tannis who’s standing right there, not Ellie or any other adult , but this teenager who’s been with the group for a week?? The ■■■■?! This must be the most blatant case of “writers favorite” in ages.
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Some other minor writing points: Remember when being a Siren was something special and not just passed around like a volleyball? Vaughn has become the worst and most obnoxious character in all of video games. Many new NPCs are supposed to be “cool”, like Lorelei and Clay, but tbh I prefer my BL NPCs weird and crazy. Leave the coolness to the Vault Hunters. Also, I miss the general silliness. Again, this game took itself way too serious.
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Many characters are just missing from the game. Brick and Tina show up once, Mordecai only shows up in audio and for his character card intro and then is never seen again. Half of BL2’s cast is missing completely. Despite the game being big enough for all of them, especially as quest givers like 2 did. The cast itself is heavily underutilized
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Buggiest AAA game I’ve played in ages. Elemental effects not disappearing from the screen, the last enemy in “defend/clean the room” objectives not spawning or spawning outside the map, game randomly switching between press and toggle run controls, etc.
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Instead of each area having unique area specific challenges like finding and burning all Firehawk symbols, you now get a bunch of generic collectibles across all maps. Those are interesting, like Typhon’s logs, but they’re not the same as having unique things to look for. Ultimately a bad trade off.
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Good enemy variety but why do Goliaths only show up in the late second half, and even then are heavily underutilized? The game has variety, but uses it rarely. Most fights are against the same three enemy types.
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Speaking of enemies: where are they? In 2 you’d fight multiple buzzards as well as multiple enemy cars at the same time. In 3, despite having huge areas, you have to be lucky just to see 2 enemy vehicles driving around. And maybe its another bug, but many areas, despite having barrels and ammo pick ups were completely empty, outside of that 1 sidequest that would lead you there, as opposed to always spawning enemies at least.
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Despite feeling much bigger than 2, and having some huge maps, BL3 base game has +30 missions less than BL2 base game. And it really shows. It often feels empty compared to 2 and many areas are underutilized and miss around two or more sidequests. Many main maps in 3 feel like side maps from 2, but it really comes down to how they’re used. And that is sub par in this one.
I know I’m late to the party. But while playing this I thought to myself “why is everyone shitting on this game? This is basically BL2-2 and its great!” But the more I played, the more it became clear why most fans dislike what GB has done with it. It’s still a great game, and I’d say its a solid 8/10. But some design decisions are baffling, and the story in it’s entirety is a slap into the fans’ faces. I don’t even know how they’re gonna redeem themselves in the next one, which most likely has Ava as central character. A character so bad she got an entry in the “loathsome characters” wiki.
The best move would be to pull a Bioware and outright change the ending. The only thing worse than this would be Siren force ghosts. Honestly, they need to bring back Anthony Burch, or at least fire the current team. You know things are bad when you want Anthony back.
