New Tales From the Borderlands Review

Tales from Borderlands of the missing Telltale Games, It was a cool spin-off of the wacky series that started the sub-genre known as looter shooter. Many were those who were left wanting to try another game driven by the history of the series, and yet the company closed its doors in 2018. Although, they did not let that game be lost in oblivion and they brought us a remaster for the then current consoles.

However, because of that love that many players professed for him, GearboxSoftware brings us New Tales From the Borderlands, a spiritual successor to that legendary game from 2014 that will make us feel at home. It’s great to see how ordinary people’s stories are tackled beyond the heroic Vault Hunters, albeit without leaving behind the comedic tone that the series is known for.

Three new losers

The story tells us the experiences of three ordinary characters, according to how they see themselves. Anu, a scientist who works for the Maliwan company; Octavio, Anu’s brother and a small-time hustler; Fran, the owner of the Yogulados store that we saw in a flash was sent directly to business in Borderlands 3. Each one has a personal motivation: Anu seeks to create a device that ends wars without killing anyone. Octavio seeks to become famous and rich through a business of his invention. Fran seeks revenge against the Tediore company, who were the ones who destroyed her store in the third main game.

The plot takes place some time after the war that took place in Promethia between Maliwan and the Atlas corporation in Borderlands 3. After a series of unfortunate events, they realize that they have to work as a team to get a key to the Chamber in said planet, in order to acquire the treasure it contains before Tediore takes it. If it results in a valuable enough find, the trio will be able to fulfill their particular dreams.

As usual, we will love the main characters that we will meet, being part of the hook of this installment. We will see how, for example, Anu and Octavio deal with their somewhat distant relationship due to past events, while Fran must deal with the accident that almost destroyed her store and await compensation for the event. But as always happens, there will be secondary characters as charismatic as the protagonists themselves.

The title maintains the absurd humor, hilarious situations, references to current pop culture and everything we love the series contained in its five chapters. However, they won’t always keep the narrative pace balanced, as New Tales From the Borderlands suffers from lengthening of unnecessary scenes.

One step beyond history

Throughout the adventure, we will be making choices for all three characters during conversations, and these choices impact the development of the plot. For example, the indemnity that Fran is expecting, she will receive or not if the decisions made a priori were the correct ones. And that’s how the game spends them, we don’t always avoid scripted events, but certain facts vary depending on our choices. However, this will make the game feel very scripted in its development.

Not only will there be QTEs, conversations and decisions, New Tales from the Borderlands expands beyond the narrative. We will have access to certain areas where we can explore in the third person. In these areas, we can talk to NPCs, find money that is used to buy in-game outfits and cosmetics. Personifying Octavio, we can hack electronic devices, while being Anu, we can scan important objects or people to obtain more information.

Although, there isn’t much more to this mechanic than solving simple optional puzzles to achieve secondary objectives. Also, we will have collectibles in the form of action figures of well-known characters from the Borderlands series, which also offers a mini-game using those same figures. Even so, they are game sections that give us a break between so many conversations.

An artistic style that evolves

I have to say that New Tales from the Borderlands is the best looking game in the series, much better than Borderlands 3 and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, in fact. It still has Cel-Shading models but with better detailed characters, even in their expressions and lip sync. Also, those late text loads are left behind as usual from the first game.

The soundtrack has had a little more prominence, especially in each episode in which we will have a musical number with a dance and everything. Curiously, the game is dubbed only in English with texts in Spanish, something strange because the series from the first game always came dubbed. This is a bit cumbersome due to the fact that we have to read and make a decision while they speak to us.

Verdict

New Tales from the Borderlands tries to enchant players with the style that TellTale was able to put on TfB and becomes a spin-off that any fan of the saga must try. With a story that puts us in the shoes of three losers as the main characters, with the hilarious tone that we love about Borderlands. However, the pace of the story decreases as the chapters progress, although it is still a good graphic adventure game.

Note: This review was done on the PS5 version and the code was provided thanks to 2K Games.