Borderlands was pretty much the first looter-shooter of its kind, so it comes as no surprise to those of us who have played it that warping the beloved tongue-in-cheek game into an RPG isn’t going to be happening anytime soon.
During my interview with Sam Winkler, co-writer of Borderlands 3, he revealed that "we’re never gonna be that deep RPG with branches of dialogue or anything like that", a statement which will astound precisely no-one who knows the Borderlands franchise and the fast-paced, witty bants the series is famed for.
Winkler was talking about the thin line Borderlands 3 is treading between wanting "the player characters to be participants", and wanting Vault Hunters "to feel like actual characters that are reacting" rather than silent adventurers. Until Borderlands 3 (ok, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel did it a bit) your Vault Hunter didn’t even really reply to NPCs.
Now all the Vault Hunters do is insert a brief remark in between NPC dialogue which does help to round out their characters, but what’s much more fun is the fact that you can summon several mystic arms, run around with pets to do your lethal bidding, swap places with a digital clone, or even stampede through the battlefield in a giant mech.
Still, that kind of RPG-style reinvention has happened before with AAA games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which added dialogue options and romance-able NPCs, turning the stabbing simulator into an RPG. But it’s good to know that the minds behind Borderlands 3 knows what makes their game special, and for now multiple dialogue options don’t seem to be a priority. Especially not when you have adorable little guns on legs that gun down your enemies. Aww.
For more Borderlands 3 goodness here’s our Borderlands 3 preview which goes through everything that’s changed in the game, or look below to see it in video form!
