Tiny Tina's Wonderlands: The Final Preview

ign.com:

I can't put a finger on why Borderlands 3 never clicked with me, but outside of its excellent expansions, I never felt enamored with its world. It wasn't until my chance to play a few hours of Tiny Tina's Wonderlands I think I unraveled my feelings towards the last numbered entry in the series: the stakes felt too high and were often at odds with the humor Borderlands is known for. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, on the other hand, is pure fantasy, in more ways than one.

Its story is completely self-contained, and so while I was playing through the quests offered during the four-hour preview, I never got the dissonance I felt from Borderlands 3. Instead I felt exactly how I want to feel when I'm playing Borderlands: invested in the story so much as it helps guide my path to more loot and ridiculous enemy battles. I was really excited by the creative flexing the Gearbox team is able to do within the self-contained Wonderlands universe, and its ties to the Borderlands series gives it that extra sense of familiarity without feeling stale. In other words, as far as Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is concerned, I'm pretty optimistic about the final product, even if I did run into a few Borderlands staples I'm less than fond of.

Borderlands has always worn its RPG roots on its sleeve, so it's really awesome to see the Gearbox team go all-in with Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. If you haven't been paying attention to our IGN First coverage, here's a brief to help you orient yourself: Pandora's most popular tabletop RPG, Bunkers and Badasses, is back, with everyone's favorite BM (that's Bunker Master, what did you think it meant?) at the helm. You're Fatemaker and you're tasked with stopping the evil Dragonlord from doing his evil Dragonlord things.