Not the Redemption the Game Needed

We’re at the third (and for our coverage, last) expansion for Borderlands 3 and it’s the one that many online said actually redeemed the game. “If you hated the first two expansions, worry not. This third one is really good.” Titled “Bounty of Blood: A Fistful of Redemption”, it’s an expansion that clearly wanted to reinvent the base game a bit. A new vehicle, a new setting, with very little connection to the previous characters, story, or ideas. On paper that sounds like a nice idea. A fresh start for the game so players new, and old, can have a new access point into the adventure. On paper, anyway…

In practice, though, this has got to be the worst expansion I’ve played yet for the game. And considering its the last one for Borderlands 3 I have to play that is not a bar that’s likely to be sunk beneath at this point, not unless Gearbox decides to revisit this game down the road and surprise release another expansion (like they did with Borderlands 2 and “Commander Lillith and the Fight for Sanctuary”). It’s really depressing because you feel like the designers really did want to do something interesting and different, but whatever good ideas they did have are buried under an absolute mass of bad decisions.

The expansion focuses on Gehenna, a planet once ruled over by “The Company” (aka the Jackobs Corp.). This corporation ruined the planet, running experiments on the surface while stripping all the resources they could. The populace was treated poorly by The Company, and then left for dead after when the corporation pulled out. It left the surface a lawless place, where the good people of the one thriving town, Vestige, have to battle against a gang of outlaws, the Devil Riders, just for the right to survive.

Into that conflict falls the vault hunters, who first make contact with Rose, a seemingly nice woman who helps them make it to town. But Rose is actually “Butcher Rose”, leader of the Devil Riders, and soon after the Vault Hunters make contact with Vestige’s Sheriff, Rose and her gang attack, killing the Sheriff in cold blood before stealing a massive, black Coresploder that sat in the center of town. This black orb might just be the key to awaking a massive superweapon, and if the Devil Riders had that, they could do untold damage to Gehenna… if not the whole galaxy.

There are a number of factors working against “Bounty of Blood”, but the prime issue I had was that this expansion, despite its Old West trappings (locations dressed up like Old West towns, people talking about duels, about sheriffs, about wanted posters and gunslingers), doesn’t actually feel fresh. We’re already gotten a story about a corporation stripping a planet bare and leaving its denizens for dead (the original Borderlands). We’ve already gotten a tale about outlaws stealing alien tech (Borderlands 3). We’ve even gotten a story about a crazed villain seeking to resurrect an ancient evil (Borderlands 2). The story of “Bounty of Blood” feels like a retread of so many plot points we’ve done before, just not as well by any means.

Maybe it’s, in part, the fact that by the time I got to “Bounty of Blood” I was already very level capped, with little reason to actually fight or so any of the side content. I ran every mission (and side mission) and went through all the story, but I found it very hard to engage with anything going on when there was so little to gain from the proceedings. I’m already level 72, with a ton of extra rank points under my belt. I already have a loadout of guns that can wipe the floors with enemies, even at higher Mayhem levels. Running around, killing things just for the sake of might be the whole purpose of this expansion, but it feels so hollow when there’s nothing to back it up now.

It certainly doesn’t help that everything in this expansion feels like it was pasted from other expansions and the base game. The same enemies, the same creatures, the same gameplay loop I’ve already spent dozens upon dozens of hours on before. Instead of reinventing the game, this expansion is just more of the same of Borderlands 3 at this point, and even enjoying that game for what it was, I have to admit that you can only play it for so long before it gets boring, especially when the expansions don’t actually add anything new. More of the same wears out its welcome eventually, and that’s the wall I hit here.

The fact that I didn’t care about the story at all is also a point against the expansion, though. The expansion drops you in and gets you talking to Rose. She’s your first contact on Gehenna and she sets the first impression. She seems nice enough, but she does the same thing so many NPCs in this game have done, which drives me up the wall: she stands there and talks at you endlessly without letting you progress. Then you have to follow her around at a glacial pace just to get the story moving. If this were a tutorial at the start of a game I might be okay with it. At least we’re getting acclimated to the experience. But this is three expansions in, after a pretty lengthy main game as well, and I don’t need NPCs holding my hand anymore. Set me on a planet, point me in a direction, tell me what to shoot. That’s all I need now.

Not that the shooting is engaging. Hell, because I was so bored with the experience at this point I started running past everything. I ignored all the enemies that weren’t required kills, and I absolutely disregarded most of the Crew Missions (go out and kill a guy, or go and pick up an item) because the rewards were meaningless to me. I didn’t need even more experience at this point, and I absolutely didn’t want to spend time upgrading a new vehicle that I’d only be using on Gehenna anyway.

That vehicle, the Jetbeast, is functionally a hoverbike. It’s a weird addition since we already got a bike-like vehicle in the main game, the monowheel, which isn’t allowed for use on Gehenna. So you get this bike instead, which is painfully slow, doesn’t have the firepower to kill anything, and frankly shouldn’t be used at all. At this point I already had perks that gave me faster running speed when I’ve killed an enemy, and the fast running speed was actually quicker than using the Jetbeast, so I generally found an enemy to off, went running, and made my way across the countryside (ignoring everything else) until I had to kill something else for another quick boost of speed.

I think, in all honesty, I ignored more of the content of this game than I actually enjoyed. The story didn’t hook me (because I don’t know why I’m supposed to care about two factions I know nothing about on a planet I’ve never been to before), the action was pointless and repetitive, and there weren’t any good, new ideas in the game that reinvented the experience in any way. This was just more Borderlands 3, told to me with a lackadaisical pace, all to keep me running around for another few hours so I don’t go and play something else. Even in comparison to the other expansions, “Bounty of Blood” sucks. If I come back to Borderlands 3 in the future I know I won’t be visiting with the denizens of Gehenna again. Next time, they can solve their own problems.