An Introduction
If one were to solely look at sales and reviews, the conclusion would easily be that Borderlands 3 is a great game. The primary gameplay loop is satisfying, fun, and the feel for shooting the myriad of guns has never been better. Why is it then that I am turned off while playing? Why am I not pushed to replay the game? Why does the conversation always turn sour? The reason is apparent but also complicated: lousy writing. I might not expect Mass Effect 2 when playing Borderlands, but the story moves in such a way that it retroactively ruins other parts of the game for me. It bothers me because it wastes series lore while failing to break new ground. The story neither makes me laugh nor feel as though I have accomplished anything. I know the Borderlands series is capable of more and feel it would be remiss of me not to point this out as a fellow creative. Seeing as you have a position open for a Writer, I would like to offer my talents. Please consider this an example of feedback as well as a list of changes suggest/make, were I part of the team.
Borderlands 3 has some good writing, but the majority that makes up the main plot weakens other aspects of the game. Video games have long had a tumultuous relationship with narrative and based on the sales and reviews, I suspect there are some on the team who have concluded that Borderlands does not need a story to succeed. This attitude is misguided and incorrect. You have built a franchise that spans multiple console generations with fans who have remained attached even throughout the seven-year wait between mainline titles. What is it that kept them attached? It is an investment in the world, as well as the gameplay. People were attached to their vault hunters and the comedic, sci-fi setting of Pandora. Players remember Handsome Jack and still love to hate him years later. The gameplay might be what keeps people playing minute to minute, but the world is why they keep coming back instead of moving on to other games. Borderlands 3 had disappointing writing that soured the experience for other players and me.
What went Wrong
1) Wasting Returning characters
For better or worse, the Borderlands universe has seen five games and earned a variety of fans. The usage of characters and lore elements from previous games is the most visible and immediately affecting writing issues. It broadly falls into underutilizing and mismanaging what you choose to bring back. The first count is the one I am most sympathetic to but also find incredibly frustrating. Borderlands 3 brings back a LOT of recurring characters in both vital and supporting roles. It brings back faces from spin-off as well as core titles. The risk with preexisting canon is becoming impenetrable for new players; however, Borderlands has always succeeded previously. My first experience with the series was Borderlands 2, which brought back a lot of characters from the first title. I never felt lost because the game did an excellent job of making these characters matter in THIS STORY. Effective character writing got me invested enough to play every game in the series since I wanted to know more. I mention this because, like previous titles, Borderlands 3 brings a lot of returning characters back but fails to invest the player. An example of an underutilized figure is Tiny Tina (as well as her crew). Imagine you are a new player; you've never heard of Tiny Tina, and this game is your only reference. She is a one-note character who appears for one primary mission and then never comes up outside of audio logs. She gets an intro and subsequent fanfare, but you swiftly forget about her because she had no more time than the tutorial level's boss. Now try and imagine this from a series veteran. A character you are invested in, who you have seen grow up and process grief, is merely a throwaway joke for one level. This pattern can extend to many characters in the game who are introduced, played up for their one trick, and then either killed or forgotten by the player.
The second half of this problem is that other returning characters get the spotlight but are utterly wasted in terms of their storytelling potential. A metaphor that I am partial to is that of 'story fuel.' This refers to the dramatic and comedic possibility of a character in possible actions writers have at their disposal. Borderlands 3 wastes its best story fuel. This is true with both old and new characters but is most profound in the returning cast. In my opinion, the most significant example is the tragedy of Maya. Maya is a siren, a former Vault Hunter, and an all-around popular character. All her story fuel was spent just to show us how powerful the villains are and to provide a generic "all is lost moment." I can see the logic in a 'repeating what went right with Borderlands 2’ way, but this does not live up to that moment. If one is going to kill a popular character, it needs to mean something, or it will be a cheap way to raise the stakes. To make matters worse, the other characters in the game react very differently than the player. Ava makes the case that this is Lilith's fault, and we get characters moping for about five minutes before we go right back to the tone and pace from before Maya's death. To lay my bias out on the table, Maya was the Vault Hunter I played the most in Borderlands 2 (followed by Zero and Krieg). When she first appeared in trailers, I was excited. This excitement turned to the hype when she joined the main plot of the game. This was a feeling shared between myself and the rest of my co-op crew. The previous game had done such an incredible job with the returning Vault Hunters. We even suspected she might die and be replaced by Ava in the next game but were not terribly worried since Roland had been killed before, which was handled well. To me, this is much more the issue than players not liking Ava. The internet is plagued with videos and threads showing dislike for Ava, but, in my opinion, this stems more from her existence coming at the cost of Maya. From a narrative perspective, her story fuel is used up too early for a character the player had not yet gotten attached also. This can easily be extended to other returning characters. Aurelia dies for the sake of just being a minor boss. Lilith is sad at the loss of her powers and the solution is… self-sacrifice? Never mind the characters who survive but offer little to the overall plot. Knowing that the story isn’t building to anything meaningful makes one less inclined to play it again. The combat may be fun but gets repetitive eventually. The lack of narrative weight hurts the value of the game, even if the main reason is action.
2) “Bad” Guys
One of the main issues plaguing both the player and the narrative of Borderlands 3 is the Calypso twins. Criticism of these two is not new and is touched upon in nearly every review of the game. I feel that most of the criticism around them misses the point by focusing on their personality and humor. Those are the least of the issues and would likely have been overlooked had they worked better narratively. In broad terms, the Calypsos do not work because they never effectively raise the stakes and never add anything new to the story, which makes them uninteresting to the player.
On the note of raising the stakes, what I mean is that they only operate at one gear. The game only shows the player them beating up NPCs and saying mean things. The first and only time the player shares a room with them is when the twins are killed. This is a factor of a lousy narrative habit known as “Perpetual Lateness Syndrome.” What I mean is that the player is always just a little too late to have stopped the Calypsos, almost always right after opening a vault. The fact that this happens with every single critical plot moment is incredibly frustrating on its own, but it's even worse for the development of the villains' character. This means that the Calypsos are shown to be threatening but never are to the player. In a game like Borderlands, where the player's character remains static, it's essential to see a narrative arc from other aspects in the game world. The team clearly understands this and exercises the principle with the supporting cast. This was also executed beautifully in Borderlands 2 with Handsome Jack. While I feel it unfair to compare the Calypsos to one of the best video game villains of all time, the point is that he had an arc in terms of what he meant to the player. The threat escalated with him. The game comes close to this with the section on Eden-6, where the Calypsos start infighting. However, this results in nothing. They still work together until the player kills Troy and Tyreen's character remains the same as it always was. Even if the twins are annoying to the player, it would mean a lot more to the player if their relationship to the villain ever changed during the experience.
The other main problem with these antagonists is that they fail to add anything new to the series. What I mean by this is that the world doesn’t really change because of anything they do, and other characters are never provoked towards growth in response. The plot happens, but none of it feels like more than a temporary problem that will just go away when these two characters die. Their backstory and final twist also add nothing since it does not connect to the previous canon in any substantial way. The best example is how the Typhon DeLeon twist does not work. When we first hear the Calypsos talk about their parents, it's when the game tricks us into thinking something interesting will happen by having the twins fight. The way they talk, it makes their father sound outright abusive after the death of their mother by "locking them in a cage." Any story savvy would likely realize that no story goes this far into the villain's parents without it being relevant to the rest of the story. My group had a few different theories but moved on when it looked like the twins were going to make up. Of all the possible options, having it be Typhon DeLeon is frustratingly bad and executed even worse. To start, it becomes clear that their parent is unimportant to the story. Frankly, DeLeon’s involvement in the plot later feels as though it has almost nothing to do with the twins being his children. This especially comes across if you tracked down all the logs and learn everything about him before the end of the game. He might not be the most responsible father, but the language the Calypsos use does not add up with what the player learns throughout the game. The connection robs some of the interest from the logs and fails to add anything interesting to either character. This goes beyond the Calypsos not adding anything new to the story, but actively taking it away from other narrative elements. To use the earlier metaphor about story fuel, the Calypsos have none of it and actively drain other sources to get to their finish line of being killed by the player.
3) Themes and Why they Matter
This point is the most nebulous and hard to pin down but also the one that I feel is the most crucial flaw in Borderlands 3’s writing. You may balk at the idea of this action game that focusses on a comic aesthetic and crass humor needs thematic coherence, but you would be wrong. In a game like Borderlands, a theme is one connective through-line that is essential for a game like this. When the player can and is encouraged to go off and do various side quests or to get lost in action, the theme is what keeps a degree of narrative coherence. This is especially important for the antagonists of the game as it reminds us of not only why we need to defeat them, but of how right or wrong they are. Not to beat a dead horse but let us look at Borderlands 2 for an example of what I’m talking about. For what it’s worth, part of what makes Handsome Jack such a compelling villain is how he brings in multiple themes that make his threat feel more immersive. He is a villain built on two ideas: every villain is the hero of their own story as well as power corrupting noble intentions. Everything he does reinforces these two ideas. They also provide a good reason for why others would follow Jack. He has the charisma of a hero, and people respond to that. I'll remind you that this idea was so pervasive, YOU MADE AN ENTIRE SPIN-OFF GAME ABOUT IT. That is how dominant the thematic through-line of Borderlands 2 was. The sad fact is that Borderlands 3 is completely missing anything like it. I can see the writing gesturing towards a theme, and the final cutscene makes me feel like there was supposed to be one. Unfortunately, it does not shine through. I only make the comparisons to Borderlands 2 because it is hard to imagine Borderlands 3 inspiring the same level of investment. There are very few elements that make me want to come back to the game the same way other players and I did with previous titles. We go to see more worlds, but very few of them stand out as aesthetic changes. Yes, there are more vaults, but they mean less and less. Borderlands 2 may have only had one vault, but its place as the culmination of your struggle with Handsome Jack made it mean infinitely more than those in 3. To make matters worse, we lose multiple beloved characters over this story. The problem with Maya and Lilith's deaths is not that they happen but that they died for nothing. Their narrative potential snuffed out forever to add stakes to a story that fails to go anywhere.
What to do about it
The purpose of this piece is not merely to criticize, however. If I were a team member, I would offer constructive feedback and tweaks that could solve some of these issues. The fixes I am proposing are designed to not tax the art, design, and programming teams too heavily. They rely heavily on writing and scripting, keeping most of the gameplay progression and design. For the most part, my purpose is not to rewrite the entirety of the game. My criticism of returning characters not being utilized still stands, and much of that would simply need to have additional writing or redoing some of what is already there. This hypothetical exists in a place before release and far enough back to where these changes could be implemented.
1) The Losing Battle
Part of what makes the players less interested is that the only evidence we get of the villains’ relative danger comes from cutscenes. A significant way to fix this could come from a popular trope in action games: the mandatory loss. From Dark Souls to Devil May Cry, action video games have long had the practice of throwing the player into a boss fight that they have almost no chance of winning. Moments like these are brilliant game design because they establish something for the player to work up towards and gives them a taste of what endgame power feels like.
A practical example is the main boss Urizen in Devil May Cry 5. The player encounters this boss at the beginning, middle, and penultimate points in the game. His moves never change and the player does have the possibility to beat him early; however, their health is so low that only a couple of hits will finish them off. Borderlands 3 is a prime candidate for this kind of encounter. To avoid creating too much additional work, I would recommend using the Troy Calypso boss fight. Keep the same assets and moves but increase his health at the earlier battles. Make it so the player can optimize their build (the thing they are already doing) to do more damage but include some way for the boss to win quickly. This could be a high damaging move the players will need to level up to survive or even just putting an invisible timer. If you really wanted to go above and beyond, I would write lines where Troy and Tyreen directly talk trash to each vault hunter to make the relationship between player and hero even more personal. This would also be an excellent way to have these villains stand out against the memorable Handsome Jack. While Jack was a huge threat, this had more to do with his control of the Hyperion Corporation than his personal fighting power. The Calypsos are Sirens and, therefore, dangerous as individuals more than leaders. It would also help the world-building of both the heroes and enemy mobs. It makes our protagonists and their supporters look especially defiant in the face of overwhelming power and gives the other enemies we fight a good reason for joining up with the Cult. All in all, it is a method that mostly recycles preexisting assets and could really shine and make other elements of the plot stand out without needing to redo them.
2) Something Worth Fighting For
This solution is the most writing intensive but also the one that would make the most significant difference since it addresses the missing theme and uninteresting villains of Borderlands 3. Who are the Calypsos? They are two teenagers who want to be gods so they can destroy the world. Why would someone want to become a god? Why precisely would a couple of teenagers desire that kind of power? The answer is that the world makes them feel powerless. It's a simple motivation, but it makes sense for the Calypsos. They are a pair of Siren twins in the Borderlands universe. Now imagine if someone became aware while also being abandoned by society or treated in such a way that they feel as though a corrupt world hurt them. That cocktail of genuine tragedy at the hands of an unjust system with the unprocessed rage of a teenager with godlike powers could be a compelling arc. Instead of annoying kids, they become people who decided the world is not worth saving and is better off destroyed. They would be the type of character who would fit well with the found family trope as well. These two kids, abandoned by the corporate system but with the power to take revenge, would be the perfect types of leaders to unite the various bandits of Pandora. It makes the main villains and their army much more sympathetic and opens possibilities in terms of themes.
One needs to ask: what part of the world abandoned them? The world of corporations that treat people as disposable and wage war on each other. The system is unsustainable, as we learn by visiting different worlds and realize that the constant warfare will make Pandora more than just a one-off. The player still helps end the war on Promethea and Eden-6, but it becomes clear that something more is needed. This is where the supporting cast comes in. As we see them interact over the loss of Maya, we find that characters like Ava want to focus on revenge or tearing down. Others, like Tannis, focus on supporting each other and healing. Lilith would be the right candidate for the audience insert, as she is torn between these two sides. Throughout the game, the player starts to win more against the Calypsos by working together until they use their combined powers to hold Troy down so the Vault Hunter can deliver the final blow. The section afterward is about the cycle of revenge. You avenged Maya, but Tyreen is still bent on revenge against you and the rest of the system. You could even keep much of the final section of the game similar to what it is already. If you are decided on keeping DeLeon as the twin’s parents focus on his regret that he couldn't protect his kids from the evil of the world. As he is fighting to keep Tyreen away from the final key, he says, "Starlight, I'm sorry I couldn't protect you and Troy, but destroying everything isn't the answer. There's got to be a better way!" The final boss can be the same but instead leave Tyreen alive as her weakened state leads to Lilith getting her powers back. Then, Lilith makes the decision to spare her and instead uses all of her strength to save Pandora and ending the cycle of vengeance with the emphasis being how be focusing on building each other up can be a solution to the unsustainable system of constant corporate warfare. The central point is that most of the major plot elements from the game are still here but now have additional weight and meaning. It is my opinion that people will forgive jokes or sensibilities that they do not necessarily like if the story being told means something.
In Conclusion…
For much of this piece, the focus has been mostly critical. Before wrapping up, I would like to talk about the writing in Borderlands 3 that works well. Something that the series has always done well and continues with is setting. The flavor text of the world combined with the art and sound direction really gives this universe a sense of place. Borderlands is now more than just Pandora, and the player can get a better understanding of what that means. The emails gun manufacturers send you, the echo logs, and side quest writing does so much work even though no player will likely see all of it in one playthrough. I admire the world-building on display in Borderlands 3 specifically and consider it a real strength of the game. Another narrative power is the subplots of the game. In my time with the game, my fellow players and I thoroughly enjoyed fighting the Maliwan Corporation on Promethea and liberating Eden-6 with the Jacobs Corporation. They still have some of the issues with returning characters, but the journey itself was more enjoyable than the main plot in many regards. These focus on more personal, localized problems are where the writing gets to stand out and is part of what inspired me to write this. They tell stories that can afford to be a little lighter and funnier because the whole galaxy is not at stake. Instead, we focus on new and returning characters who get to stand out during the missions. The player becomes much more invested, and it makes them WANT to succeed beyond just winning because it is a video game. Wainwright and Hammerlock were real standouts, and the Guns, Love, and Tentacles expansion is proof that their relationship worked. While I have not played it at the time of writing, reviews I have read praise its writing. It gives me something to look forward too, even though the story of the game left me to hesitate at buying the season pass. These two stood out because we got to have a nice subplot to learn more about Wainwright and the Jacobs corporation while getting to see a fan-favorite returning character. The echo logs about Wainwright and his family really sell the player on the experience, if they were not already. The level set in the Jacobs family manor did some excellent environmental storytelling as well, though I am unsure of exactly how Gearbox has the writers and level designers interact.
Borderlands 3 plays well but has some frustratingly awful writing. It nails so many elements but is missing something. The flaws it makes in terms of returning characters and terrible villains hurt the experience in a meaningful way. If the heart is there, it fails to break through the game's elements to mean anything. The intent of the piece is not to merely rail against the team, however. I have laid out what I think the main problems are with the writing as well as how to fix those issues. This piece intentionally avoids talking about the humor and style of the game because they do not matter. They are surface elements and are the first to be discussed as well as the first to be forgotten and moved past. These elements matter but are not the core of what hurts the game. The hope is that the changes I have proposed would give you some sense of what I would offer for future titles at Gearbox. If you think these changes would have made sense or that my criticisms ring true, I hope that you will consider me a worthwhile investment as a member of the team at Gearbox.
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