Let’s Take This Up a Notch

The idea of multiple playthroughs in the 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. series is nothing new. Even in the very first game there was “Playthrough 2”, a New Game+, a kind of hard mode replay version of the game that provided players with better gear, harder enemies and, of course, more levels to grind for. It was a great way to extend the gaming experience and keep players hooked for another twenty-plus hours of Borderlands. So naturally Borderlands 2 included a similar mode, rebranded at “True Vault Hunter Mode”.

Functionally True Vault Hunter in Borderlands 2 was equivalent to Playthrough 2 in Borderlands. You got to play through the whole experience again, this time with enemies that were amped up and more powerful, all for the benefit of getting even better gear and more levels. For fans of the game this was a solid experience: it’s more Borderlands 2 (which is, arguably the best game in the series) to keep you hooked. What could make the experience even better?

That is, really, the question Gearbox tried to answer with the Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack. Along with expanding the level cap from 50 to 61 (granting even more levels to grind for), the expansion added in two new things. The first were Pearlescent weapons, a “new” type of gear that was even higher (and, theoretically, more powerful) than the orange Legendary items. These “Pearls” could be ground from tubby enemies, legendary loot enemies, and certain final bosses. And while, yes, Pearls did technically exist in Borderlands, they were originally an accidental inclusion that was only later codified. The Pearls in this expansion made them legitimate and on purpose.

The Pearls in Borderlands 2 are purpose built, but that doesn’t actually mean they’re all really good. While the Pearls in the first Borderlands were generally just overpowered versions of standard weapons, the Borderlands 2 Pearls were more… interesting. There’s the Bearcat, for example, a Dahl assault rifle that shoots out waves of burst fire grenades, which are great in close combat but weaker from a distance. Or the Storm, a Maliwan sniper that shoots a projectile that, quite literally, creates a storm of electricity around targets. These can be powerful, but the unique way the guns work is part of their charm.

Unfortunately then you also get a number of Pearls that simply aren’t worth using. Despite their rarity, and the difficulty in getting them, the guns themselves are little more than jokes. Take the Stalker, for example, a Vladof pistol that has ricocheting bullets. The gun is powerful in very close quarters, making it a viable replacement for a submachine gun, but it has slow bullet speed and a high ammo consumption rate, which make it hard to use effectively. And then there’s the Unforgiven, the single worst Jacobs pistol in the game. While the critical hit damage on the pistol is good, it actually can get outclassed by purple and orange Jacobs guns of equivalent level. And, unlike other Jacobs pistols, you can’t fire it “as quickly as you can pull the trigger”, making its total damage-per-second worse than any other Jacobs gun.

Still, you’re going to have a lot of time to grind in this upgrade pack so you can get all the Pearls, good and bad, since the Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack adds in one major feature above everything else: Ultimate Vault Hunter mode. You can think of this as New Game++ or Playthrough 3 as it’s, functionally, a third playthrough of the game for you to go through once again. But while the game is made harder once more, and enemies and gear are clocked even higher, there are some specific changes that make this playthrough different from the replays before.

Firstly, everything in the game is now tuned to the highest level party member playing. In previous playthroughs the levels of enemies and gear was fixed based on where you were in the story. If you were in a level 20 zone, but a player joined you that was level 30, the enemies stayed at level 20 and the level 30 player had a much easier time. It was a good way for more experienced players to carry newer ones. But Ultimate mode changed that. Now if, say, a level 60 player joined a group of level 50s, the enemies (and gear) would all scale up to the level 60 player. Suddenly you couldn’t easily be carried by a stronger character.

Of course, with the level cap getting raised from 50 to 61 (and then further raised with later updates) that meant there was plenty of grinding that could be done in Ultimate mode. Not that the mode actually encourages grinding. Because everything scales to you, the mode actually encourages you to play through the mode as fast as possible, doing as little killing as you can so that you don’t outscale your gear before you finish the game. If you have really good items at level 50 but you spend your time killing everything such that you reach the final boss at level 60, your gear won’t keep up and you’ll very quickly start to struggle.

You are going to want to make sure you have a solid compliment of equipment, too, because the mode makes some key changes to enemy weaknesses. Elemental weaknesses are doubled in the mode, making on-element weapons (fire to flesh, shock to shields, corrosion to armor) more effective, while mismatched elements (like flesh to armor) are made weaker. To aid this, though, slag damage is quadrupled, meaning that if you have a good source of slag that you can pair with a matching-weakness elemental weapon, you can rip through enemies very effectively.

You will need all that extra firepower, though, because Ultimate mode adds in one more complication that greatly increases the difficulty: enemies have heal regeneration. If you damage an enemy you’ll see their health bar go down, but then very quickly their health meter will start ticking back up again. The health regen is strong, too, quickly outstripping the power of “dot” damage (the burn, bleed, etc. damage over time weapons can inflict). You still want to match elements, but you need to rely more on direct damage over dot damage to carry the day.

Thankfully not every enemy has health regen. Many of the basic ones do, but some badass type enemies, and most bosses, do not. This means that a particularly nasty encounter could be handled differently than standard mobs by grace of the fact that you can pick and choose when to strike while the boss continues on its pattern. And if a big boss with a ton of health did have health regen, that would make them all but impossible to kill anyway, so this is a small concession that does aid the playthrough a lot.

Still, Ultimate mode is difficult. I’ve played through it a couple of times and it can be a struggle. If you don’t grind for the best gear you can get, and if you don’t have the patience to make sure your build is locked down before you enter the mode, you could get steamrolled. It’s not for players looking for another casual experience, like they got in the first or second playthroughs of the game. This is a real hard mode style play, and it upgrades Borderlands 2 into being the most difficult game in the series by far. Of course, if you’re the kind of player that likes harder gameplay then this is probably a selling point for you.

The Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack is a solid upgrade for Borderlands 2. It’s good enough that most of its features (barring health regen on enemies) has come back in subsequent sequels. More time to play, and more to do, is never a bad thing, and that’s what this upgrade provided. It makes Borderlands 2 into the fully fleshed out experience it needed to be.