Taking Back What’s Hers

I am still struggling with Borderlands 3. This is going to be a common refrain, I fear, but the terrible story in the game, even in the expansions, really does make it hard to care about the actual game you’re playing. I have complimented the gameplay for the title, enjoying how chunky and fun the action is, alongside the solid guns the game has on offer. The struggle is, especially in the end game, there just isn’t enough to hang all that great gameplay on when all you’re doing is the same repetitive gameplay loop over and over in different settings, and that’s because there’s no story to motivate you.

Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot is a perfect example of this. As the first expansion for the games (yes, I’m playing these out of order as I’ve already gone through, and reviewed, Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck) it feels like something of a mea culpa for the main game, a backtrack to try and give people what they actually want. And what do they want, Gearbox assumes? More Handsome Jack. BorderlandsConceptually, Borderlands is Mad Max but set on an alien planet, with magic. The game play might be action-shooter-RPG fare, with a bit of Diablo thrown in, but the aesthetic is pure, Australian post-apocalyptic exploitation. has a Handsome Jack problem. He was a fantastic villain for Borderlands 2. It was somewhat interesting to see him again in the midquel tying the first two games together, Borderlands: The Presequel. But, counting that midquel, we’re now three games past his reign and yet still Gearbox feels like all the fans really want is Handsome Jack.

Is the character fun? Yes. Did he shine bright while he was around? Absolutely. But resurrecting the villain, in any form, doesn’t paper over all the flaws of Borderlands 3. It doesn’t change the fact that the writers involved don’t understand how to make interesting characters, a compelling story, or an adventure you actually want to play through. I worked through all of Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot out of obligation to see all aspects of the game for my reviews. If I weren’t committed to seeing this out for article space on this website, I likely wouldn’t have bailed on the expansion part way through and never looked back. There is nothing in this expansion that we haven’t seen before, done better, over in other parts of this game (or, really, much better over in Borderlands 2).

Apparently, in and around running a massive weapons empire solely focused on taking over Pandora so he could then break out an ancient alien monster, the Warrior, and use it to take over the universe, Jack also ran a casino. Somehow. It’s called the Handsome Jackpot (we see what you did there), and even though the big man is now dead the massive, space-based casino (which orbits a blackhole) is still in operation. It’s run now by Pretty Boy, a diminutive gangster who controls everything, and everyone, on the spacebase.

Moxxi, though, wants this casino. Apparently it was originally her idea to build it and, like with so many other things, Jack stole the idea and made it his own. With Jack gone, Moxxi wants what’s rightfully hers. She wants to own the Handsome Jackpot, and the only way to make that happen is to send in her (currently) favorite vault hunters and have them do what they do best: kill everything in their way until the job is done. It’s Moxxi vs. Pretty Boy, with the fate of the casino in the hands of the Vault Hunters.

On paper this could be an interesting idea. Of course, on paper so much of Borderlands 3 could be interesting. The devil, though, is in the details, and this heist-based expansion quickly falls apart because, aside from aesthetics, this expansion has nothing new to offer that hasn’t already been done to death in the main adventure. Here you come in, fight bandits, fight robots, and then do it all over again and again, while Moxxi (and her new friends that you make along the way in this adventure) tell you how you’re going to run a heist to steal the casino.

But you aren’t really running a heist. All you’re doing is running around and shooting things. I know that might come as a shock since this game is a shooter, but the limitations of the way Borderlands 3 is built so hamper the ability for this game to tell a convincing heist story. At each step you are told to go somewhere, collect some item, and shoot a bunch of guys in the process. It’s the opposite of a heist, in the traditional sense, because you aren’t stealthy, you aren’t slick, and you certainly aren’t actually running a heist. You’re gun-toting lunatics, making you a bloody, square peg being shoved into a round hole.

The struggle this expansion has, then, is to make any of this work. It can’t work as a heist because, well, you aren’t actually running a heist. The gameplay is also already tired and repetitive because we don’t get any new enemies here that we didn’t see in the main campaign. We’ve already fought hundreds of bandits and bots. Giving them new names, like VIP Slot Goon, and slapping an extra level of shields on them, doesn’t change the basic function of the experience. You’re doing the same things that you’ve already done before. Now you’re just doing it in a casino, which isn’t as novel as it might sound.

What the game needs to tie it all together is a good story. But, again, Borderlands 3 doesn’t have a good story. Moxxi was a fine enough character when she was first introduced, all the way back in The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, but over time she has been used again and again until the novelty of her appearances has long since worn off. Giving her an entire expansion very much overuses an already threadbare character, and by the time it all comes to an end, her schtick, along with the rest of this meager adventure, feels worn out.

It’s a problem of writing, which is very much the case with every aspect of Borderlands 3. The story sucks, the characters are annoying, and everything feels like it’s trying so hard to be funny that it fails to be either funny or interesting. Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck (which was the fourth expansion) has so far proven to be the only one that could hang together at all because it found a way to add some heart to the proceedings, letting Krieg mourn for Maya. There’s nothing that adds heart to this adventure because it’s Moxxi being greedy, stealing something from Jack (who’s dead and no one cares) that he stole from her first. It’s just a rote adventure.

So the expansion has no new enemies, no new dangers, and nothing interesting to say about its characters, the setting, or the story. “Hey, it’s another case where Jack was a bad guy. Isn’t it funny that he was a raging egomaniac?” Sure, back when we first were introduced to him. That was back in 2012. Like with Moxxi, Jack’s schtick has worn thin. We don’t need him anymore, or Moxxi, or just about anything else that happens in this staid and standard expansion. All Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot has is the same repetitive loop we just did for hours and hours on end, with the same annoying characters we don’t care about, using the same guns against the same enemies, repeated ad nauseam. The only difference now is it’s a neon-lit casino. Sorry, Moxxi. That’s just not enough.

Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot is a boring expansion that doesn’t do anything interesting with its setting, characters, or story. It’s as basic as it gets. It’s skippable content and if, somehow, I do come back to do another playthrough of Borderlands 3 in the future, I will not being running thought this expansion again.