Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel — ReviewLow-gravity shooting and Jack's origin story anchor this lunar spin-off, but barren environments and repetitive fetch quests dilute the signature loot grind.

The first time I jumped on the moon, it took me five seconds to land. In that moment I understood—low gravity isn't a gimmick, it's the only thing that sets this game apart from Borderlands 2.

The core shooting feel is still there. Gun feedback is solid, headshot sound effects are crisp, and the beam of light when legendary loot drops can still trigger a dopamine rush. The four characters' skill trees are designed with depth—Athena's shield build, Wilhelm's dual-wield berserker, Nisha's sniper crit—each build offers plenty of variety.

But lunar gravity is a double-edged sword. Floating in the air for three seconds lets you find the perfect shooting angle, but also turns you into a sitting duck. The oxygen system feels more like a countdown reminding you "don't overextend"—stay outdoors too long and you'll need to find supply points, disrupting combat flow. Laser weapons are a novelty, but aside from cool visual effects, their practical value falls short of traditional firearms.

The most annoying part is navigation. Quest markers often point at a wall, forcing you to guess the route yourself. Tons of "go to point A to open a door—return to point B for a key—go back to point A" fetch quests feel like lazy design. After twenty hours I was numb to it, just mindlessly driving vehicles around—not like there's much scenery to see on the moon anyway.

Jack's descent is the most compelling drama in this game. Early on, he's a talkative but reliable programmer who gets angry over teammates' sacrifices and shows mercy to traitors. By the late game, the moment that mask goes on, you can feel something shatter—not a sudden descent into madness, but a gradual grinding down by reality into the tyrant from Borderlands 2.

The problem is this story only works for veteran players. Newcomers don't know who Jack is, don't understand why Elpis matters, don't get the references with those cameo characters. The flashback narrative structure kills the suspense—you know Jack will turn evil, you know this moon will end up with a giant crater blasted into it, every twist feels like going through the motions.

Side quest quality is inconsistent. A few missions show the writers' ambition, like that one about AI ethics, but more often it's the tedious loop of "kill ten enemies-turn in quest-collect reward." The series' signature dark humor has also faded, missing that insane edge that made you uncomfortable.

The cartoon rendering style is still the same engine—thick outlines, saturated color blocks, exaggerated character proportions. The lunar environment of Elpis provides some freshness—gray-white wastelands, floating boulders, distant gas giants.

But the freshness only lasts about five hours. The interior of the lunar base is all metal corridors and industrial facilities, which becomes visually tiresome after a while. The particle effects in low gravity are well done—the way bullet trajectories and explosion sparks drift through the air feels pretty good. But overall visual progress is minimal, like a high-definition texture pack for Borderlands 2.

The boss battle scene design does show some effort. A giant ice crystal monster chases you outside the space station, with rotating planets and shattered station debris in the background—this sense of scale is something the previous games in the series didn't have. It's just that such scenes are too rare; most of the time you're still clearing mobs in repetitive rooms.

Jack's voice acting carries the entire audio dimension. From the early cynicism to the later hysteria, the voice actor brought out the character's depth. Especially that line "I am the hero" - combined with the plot at that moment, it gave me goosebumps.

When breaking enemy oxygen masks, there are new voice lines - the struggling sounds of enemies suffocating, the hissing of ruptures. This detail is well-designed, giving lunar combat a unique auditory signature.

The soundtrack is mediocre. The combat BGM gets intense when it should and tense when it needs to be, but not a single track has a melody I can remember. The ambient sound is decent - the mechanical hum of the space station, the silence of the lunar surface are all there, but unfortunately they don't translate into immersion - probably because the mission design is so boring that I have no mind to listen to the ambient sounds.

Main story takes twenty hours, add side quests and gear farming to stretch it to forty hours. Sounds like a lot, but there's plenty of padding. First ten hours you're running around lunar wastelands, maps feel empty like they're unfinished. Quest density is low, often driving ten minutes in a vehicle just to reach the next objective.

Four-player co-op is a highlight, low-gravity combat tactics are more interesting than the previous game—someone suppressing from the air while someone pushes on the ground. Unfortunately the matchmaking system doesn't work well, random teams often have AFKers.

The gear grind is still fun, legendary drop rates and stat randomization maintain the series' standard. But the weapon pool isn't as rich as Borderlands 2, gets repetitive in the late game. DLC did add some content, but that's another story.