Game Developer's Best of 2022: Justin Carter's Top 5 Games

gamedeveloper.com:

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands (Gearbox Software)

Something about Borderlands 3 didn’t entirely click with me back in 2019, and I thought that maybe Gearbox’s shooter-RPG (and sometimes interactive adventure) series lost its appeal for me. But in recent years, I’ve gradually become more of a Dungeons & Dragons guy, so when I heard that Gearbox was doing a spinoff that combined Borderlands and Dungeons & Dragons, my curiosity meant that I couldn’t not give it a shot.

Gearbox previously laid the foundation for a D&D-esque game with DLC for Borderlands 2, so it was maybe inevitable that we’d end up with Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Even so, what’s surprising is how much I found myself enjoying the game, especially since I spent nearly all of it playing solo. At times, Wonderlands can feel like a simple reskin, but it has enough under the hood to feel like its own distinct thing from the mothership series. Its gunplay and classes are up there as some of the best in the series, and It maintains that trademark Borderlands feeling of accomplishment and curiosity. When I level up again or find a new gun (or three) that catch my eye, I’m excited to see how I inevitably break the game between the guns and my character build—rocking spinning spectral blade as my wyvern companion flies around lighting everything on fire or lightning never stops being fun.

More than anything, what helps Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands feel like it could be the start of its own sub-franchise is in how seriously it takes the franchise’s marriage with D&D. You see it in how a big-headed version of your character walks around the overworld map, which is littered with food and drinks. You see it in the moments where its tabletop RPG humor feels like the writers consume such