Borderlands wishes it had this roguelike’s near-permadeath experience

polygon.com:

Top-down Borderlands. Surely, that’s what you are thinking as you see the screenshots. And yes, Dust & Neon — with its cel-shaded visuals, wasteland setting, infinite supply of guns, and dry commentary about their effectiveness — shares many traits with Gearbox Software’s first-person shooter franchise.

But there are two mechanisms that make Dust & Neon, launching Thursday for Windows PC and Nintendo Switch,a white-knuckle thrill-ride where Borderlands’ titles bog down in risk-free grind. One is that you must individually reload every round with a button press when your gun is empty (why no one has thought of this before, beats me). It makes for some panicked kills and getaways. And the other is the near-permadeath experience of losing your shit — literally, all of it — if you get killed on a mission. That’s what makes Dust & Neon a roguelike, after all.

In other words, there are real stakes inside the grind of Dust & Neon. There are real choices to consider in your firepower. Is that two-round, break-action magnum really worth my pistol slot, despite its blazing damage, when I already have a three-barreled shotgun in my loadout?

Should I grind out that sabotage mission, and over-level myself for the boss fight? Because if I lose that grind mission, oh yes, I am going to lose my Epic revolver and Legendary, one-hit kill marksman rifle, and start over with Common crap. And that’s going to require even more grind. So, really, when should I take on this boss?

I have never asked these questions in any Borderlands game, frankly. Not only does respawning in those games take only a pittance of in-world currency, you also have a save file to revert to in case you really need the cash (as in Borderlands, the best weapons in Dust