iv Borderlands 3

[Starym 3,800]

We decided to cover Borderlands 3 and hope the reaction will be positive. This first post details what our plans are and why we chose this game.

We're trying something a little different here on Icy Veins, as we thought we'd try covering Borderlands 3 as a bit of an experiment, and see if our community might be interested in something non-Blizzard. This is a bit of a personal one for me (Starym), as I'm always looking for that next Diablo-like fix and I've been a fan of Borderlands for a long time. I thought that there's probably plenty of other people like me here on Icy Veins that would be interested in alternatives while we wait (and wait and wait) for Diablo 4 and might like to hear some info about them. Also, in case you were wondering, this isn't a paid post or anything similar, just my personal attempt to add something to the Icy Veins community.

So we're going to be covering some Borderlands-related news here, as well as a few roundups of what's already been announced, and hopefully we'll also be doing guides when the game releases. But first, why did we pick this game as our first non-Blizzard title and what's the game actually about?

Why Borderlands?

Borderlands as a franchise, and the third installment in particular, seemed like a great fit for our community, with the focus on loot, endgame, character building and a lot of other RPG elements - in short, the game is basically a Diablo First Person Shooter. The new game will be much more expansive than previous entries, both in terms of gameplay content, loot, customization depth (both systemic and cosmetic) - pushing it a little bit more towards MMO territory, while still being a 1-4 player co-op game, so the WoW crowd might also get a kick out of it. With many character setups to explore across the 4 classes, an insane number of guns, shields, grenades and other items to combine into a build, there's plenty of space for guides and character optimization, so there will be a lot to cover, and hopefully we can be a resource to the general Borderlands community as well.

Those were the reasons we thought we should cover the game, but why should you try it?
As with Diablo, the core gameplay was already very good in Borderlands 2 and it's being significantly improved in 3. Customization depth has also been massively increased, bringing many more options and builds to the table. Co-op play is much better this time around as well, with lower level players being able to play with higher levels seamlessly. The guns and loot in general has been made even more interesting with special manufacturer perks, alternate fire on all guns and much, much more. But most of all, it's great to play it with friends and one of the best co-op games around, while still maintaining an interesting single player experience as well.

The Basics of BL3

We'll be covering all the new features and what you can look forward to in separate articles, including all the changes from BL2, but we also wanted to take a look at the basic info for the game in case you weren't familiar with the franchise or just wanted to know what it's really all about.

• Release date: September 13th, 2019
• What is it: a 1-4 player co-operative PvE focused FPS, drop in-drop out "looter-shooter" with leveling
• Character builds: each of the 4 Vault Hunters (classes) has 3 skill trees and 3 different active abilities to choose from, as well as a huge amount of guns, shields, grenades and class mods, all with their own properties and stats
• Itemization: Loot rarity up to legendary (and beyond?), item manufacturers give unique properties to items (Hyperion guns have shields attached, Atlas guns have tracking bullets, Maliwan have different elemental properties you can cycle through, etc.), different item components (barrel, sight, etc.) change the properties of guns which takes the number of guns in the game into the billions
• Extremely unique weapons and items: guns with legs, grenades that split into more that then split into more etc, guns that mock you when you miss, guns with infinite ammo, guns that fire hails of bullets in a descending arc, shields that drop booster packs when you get shot, and much more
• Quests, experience, leveling, side-challenges that give you paragon-like points to distribute across all characters
• Vehicles and vehicle customization, both cosmetic and systemic (different gun turrets, wheels vs. hover pads etc.)
• Sci-fi/space setting, with 5 different planets to visit, your own spaceship home base
• A lot of humor/satire in the storyline, quests and characters
• A big focus on the endgame

Stay tuned for the detailed rundown of Borderlands 3's new and returning features, and we hope you'll enjoy this addition to the site and perhaps even give the game a try. Also, here's the full gameplay reveal live-stream, in case you wanted to see more:

[Baharok 234]

I was really bored with Borderlands-PreSequel and i hope they bring a big title with Borderlands 3.

[Starym 3,800]

8 minutes ago, Baharok said:

I was really bored with Borderlands-PreSequel and i hope they bring a big title with Borderlands 3.

Yea the pre-sequel was bad. It's was interestingly bad though since you couldn't really put your finger on why, it was just... as you say, boring. And I loved all previous BL content (even BL 1 lol).

[Valks 2,375]

1 hour ago, Starym said:

Yea the pre-sequel was bad. It's was interestingly bad though since you couldn't really put your finger on why, it was just... as you say, boring. And I loved all previous BL content (even BL 1 lol).

IMO it was the playable characters.

Claptrap was basically just a walking meme for so long, but as a playable character, it took away the magic of his character. He was meant to be that annoying sidekick that just turned up at the dumbest times to basically just rattle on about nothing important. 

Athena, Wilhelm and Nisha was just kind of boring IMO. They were "nothing" characters that should have been side characters. There was no real link between them that made it interesting to play.

If you look at BL1, it was amazing with the banter between the vault hunters. They knew each other and those little in-jokes made it way more interesting. Roland making fun of Mordecai, Brick just being Brick and the others sort of accepting that he was just Brick. 

In BL2, Krieg loving Maya was great too. You had this completely bonkers character with no care for anything in the world, and all of a sudden he just loves Maya.

This video captures it perfectly:

It was just missing the depth within the groups for BL: TPS.

[Undeath 67]

I'd say I enjoyed BL2 (the only game of the series I played) rather than not. It was a fun coop experience, but the game heavily lacked in challenge/difficulty department and I'd personally appreciate that. Getting the best gear at every particular point in the game and then just clearing the whole map like it's nothing kills the fun for me. I hope they fix that in bl3.

[Starym 3,800]

29 minutes ago, Undeath said:

I'd say I enjoyed BL2 (the only game of the series I played) rather than not. It was a fun coop experience, but the game heavily lacked in challenge/difficulty department and I'd personally appreciate that. Getting the best gear at every particular point in the game and then just clearing the whole map like it's nothing kills the fun for me. I hope they fix that in bl3.

Yea it got quote different when they added Ultimate vault hunter mode (although if you had the best gear you'd still steamroll (depending on class). The Op levels also got pretty tricky since you had to constantly reacquire yer gear in the higher levels and the Digistruct peak thing was VERY hard in single player (for me anyway) even with the top legendaries.

@Blainie Yea that video is the best one of the entire game. Also Sarcastic Slab and Shooty McFace, really small details like that totally made BL2 extremely memorable.

[PanPan 19]

I just love the Borderland universe and Pandora (the planet). It's all about GUNs, GUNs (Granates) and GUNs. And no matter what level you get to there will always drop a gun or a granate that just might be a little better that one of them you got.

Compleated the games (1 and 2) multriple times as single player. Played DLCs again and again.  Played with different chars just to experience the in game conversation.

I have even played the cartoon like stories "Tales from the Borderland" By Telltale games. Because the hole Pandora universe is so me.  

Loved Claptrap. So in the preSequel I choosed him as character.  

(Actually the games warns you not to choose him - I took it as a joke)

1 hour ago, Blainie said:

IMO it was the playable characters.

Claptrap was basically just a walking meme for so long, but as a playable character, it took away the magic of his character. He was meant to be that annoying sidekick that just turned up at the dumbest times to basically just rattle on about nothing important. 

 

And never got more in to the game than 4 - 5 levels . It was ... not as good as the other. Not realy bad .. just not as fun.

No Magic

 

Have high hopes for BL3.

So please DO continue with Borderland stuff

 

[Arcling 898]

I have no interest in Borderlands, although I wonder if it means that some of other categories are being abandoned? Overwatch isn't being updated (heroes added months ago still aren't present on the site, other guides outdated, lack of some news etc.), HotS is seldomly updated (again, plenty of outdated guides) and Starcraft didn't have anything for months (not much happening, but even info on stuff like Co-op commander being released hasn't been added).

Edited June 9, 2019 by Arcling

[Meraktus 1]

IMHO,will be nice see other good games here.First i dont play just Blizzard games and secondyou covered all Blizzard games so well, which I believe will do the same thing with other good games that are enjoyed by us players. It will also serve to keep the site moving if we do not have any news of the current production company that you dedicate so much.

Edited June 9, 2019 by Meraktus

[durdyenglish 298]

As long as your bread and butter doesn't suffer, I don't care what other games you cover. The moment your Blizzard/WoW coverage wanes, you'll see the backlash.

[Guest]

It's great to read about some other games!

I played BL 1 and 2, both Coop, that was great.

We just finished BL 2 a few weeks ago after playing maybe 100 hours or something like that.

Got the complete edition in a humble bundle - and with all the DLC there is takes quite a while...

Most Blizzard games are "dead" in the sense of: What is there to cover anymore? A new hero? Seriously, who cares?

And who cares about all the mobile gaming *filtered*? Sure, that earns Blizzard tons of money, but who really CARES? Who wants to discuss about Diablo Immoral? Not about how shitty it is, how much of a ripp-off the monetizing will be (or not be), but actually about the game itself? Not many I guess.

There are much more interesting games out there.

Cyberpunk2077, A Plagues Tale, Borderlands

The list is endless.

If there is a game you are interested in - like Borderlands - yeah, bring it on!

It will bring more life to the board.

Because how many postings have there been from the community about HotS, Overwatch, Starcraft in the last 6 month? 10 all combined? Because like I said, most Blizzard games are just dead and no one cares about them any longer.

[Cntrl 4]

Another thing to add as a rumor until further said is previous two borderlands brought 2 new vault hunters while they said in an interview I believe that they rather move to upgrading the vault hunters in the game already with that said couple things were rumored as new trees or bringing back old vault hunters to be playable again with upgraded trees, the new trees for the 4 BL3 vault hunters is what the dev said he’s more interested in then making a whole new hunter

[Starym 3,800]

4 hours ago, durdyenglish said:

As long as your bread and butter doesn't suffer, I don't care what other games you cover. The moment your Blizzard/WoW coverage wanes, you'll see the backlash.

That's never going to happen. We love Blizzard games above all and I personally do not see the company ever going down (despite gloomsayers). I mean if WoW EVER gets really really down on subs they'll just go free to play and there will be the biggest boom in playerbase you've ever seen.

Not to mention when Diablo 4 releases I won't even be breathing cos i'll be too busy playing the game/writing about it ?

[Starym 3,800]

3 hours ago, Cntrl said:

Another thing to add as a rumor until further said is previous two borderlands brought 2 new vault hunters while they said in an interview I believe that they rather move to upgrading the vault hunters in the game already with that said couple things were rumored as new trees or bringing back old vault hunters to be playable again with upgraded trees, the new trees for the 4 BL3 vault hunters is what the dev said he’s more interested in then making a whole new hunter

Oh yea I saw all that, I'll be doing like roundup of all the news so far soon, we didn't want to do too much too soon with this post. Plus there's the announcement today!

[Damien 1,514]

5 hours ago, Arcling said:

I have no interest in Borderlands, although I wonder if it means that some of other categories are being abandoned? Overwatch isn't being updated (heroes added months ago still aren't present on the site, other guides outdated, lack of some news etc.), HotS is seldomly updated (again, plenty of outdated guides) and Starcraft didn't have anything for months (not much happening, but even info on stuff like Co-op commander being released hasn't been added).

OW and SC2 are games we stopped working on some time ago. We just never managed to make much money out of them and therefore never managed to keep writers interested. Regarding Heroes, I think the Heroes writers would disagree with you ?

[Arcling 898]

12 minutes ago, Damien said:

OW and SC2 are games we stopped working on some time ago. We just never managed to make much money out of them and therefore never managed to keep writers interested. Regarding Heroes, I think the Heroes writers would disagree with you ?

I see, perhaps it's a good idea to remove these categories then. If something related to these games pops up, just put them in some general/Blizzard category. As for Heroes, there are several guides which haven't been updated and some suggestions don't fit with current balance (they appear to have been updated only after reworks, usually), although this game still receives some news on this site so that's still good.

[Belgera 0]

I'd love to see some Borderlands 3 coverage. I've been a big fan of the series and have high hopes that 3 will be a return to form after the somewhat lacking Pre-Sequel. Please do continue on!

[Starym 3,800]

33 minutes ago, Arcling said:

I see, perhaps it's a good idea to remove these categories then. If something related to these games pops up, just put them in some general/Blizzard category. As for Heroes, there are several guides which haven't been updated and some suggestions don't fit with current balance (they appear to have been updated only after reworks, usually), although this game still receives some news on this site so that's still good.

We're actually still covering Overwatch news pretty regularly, it's just the guides that have stopped.

[Whisla 76]

Id like maybe a "off topic" section, like if you guys covered E3 thatd be pretty amazing.

I am a big fan of borderlands but I do understand that after the 2nd the game really needed to have some big things to keep it interesting or else it just falls into a rinse repeat which burns ppl out quicker. 2 changed enough from the first to really keep ppl in, the pre-sequel didnt change anything with the base formula so it just felt like 2 all over again which ppl were already pretty much over.

[Varrick 15]

One of my closest friend got me into Borderlands 2 and the series. But I must admit I did fall in love with the pre-sequel only because its very amusing to me on so many levels even though most of it is admit tingly stupid. A good example the first boss being named Deadlift and hearing him say the entire boss-fight "I AM DEADLIFT!" in moments of it. Coming back to the topic at hand though I really believe Gearbox deserves all the support it can get. To bad the Half-Life series didn't finish properly....

[Starym 3,800]

10 minutes ago, Varrick said:

One of my closest friend got me into Borderlands 2 and the series. But I must admit I did fall in love with the pre-sequel only because its very amusing to me on so many levels even though most of it is admit tingly stupid. A good example the first boss being named Deadlift and hearing him say the entire boss-fight "I AM DEADLIFT!" in moments of it. Coming back to the topic at hand though I really believe Gearbox deserves all the support it can get. To bad the Half-Life series didn't finish properly....

Ah yes, Blue Shift and Opposing Force!

[Kiitzu 1]

I love the idea of Icy opening up to more than just Blizzard games. This was a great read as well and I am excited for more Borderlands articles in the future ❤️

[Oberyn 5]

This is super cool. I've plugged a stupid amount of hours into all 3 previous BL games. Love the characters, the world building. Also like that while it's loot oriented, there isn't near as much micro managing as you'd think since you only collect guns/shields/grenades and what not. If they threw in a bunch of armor slots it might get to be too much. I'll definitely be reading your BL3 section.

 

[VirgilvanDijk 3]

Was hyped for Borderlands 3, but that slowly withered. It's still pre-ordered, but after the release trailer of Death Stranding I can't think of any other game while B3 will exactly be what I expect: more Borderlands - which isn't bad, but not worth getting excited about after playing failed looter shooters like Anthem and Division 2.

[Starym 3,800]

7 hours ago, VirgilvanDijk said:

Was hyped for Borderlands 3, but that slowly withered. It's still pre-ordered, but after the release trailer of Death Stranding I can't think of any other game while B3 will exactly be what I expect: more Borderlands - which isn't bad, but not worth getting excited about after playing failed looter shooters like Anthem and Division 2.

Dunno, playing the bad ones always gets me more hyped for the good ones (ie. every single Diablo-like other than Torchlight 2 ever released). And I guess your BL3 enjoyment will dpend on your bl2 one - if BL3 can give me even half of what BL2 did, I'll be incredibly pleased.