It’s been two and a half years since Borderlands 3 and by now fans are undoubtedly thinking ahead to Borderlands 4, but developer Gearbox had a different surprise in store for players before giving them a more direct sequel: Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, a fantasy take on the Borderlands formula — or rather, a Dungeons & Dragons co-op FPS through the chaotic lens of Tiny Tina. We got a chance to sit down and play a whole section of the game ahead of the release date next month.
Announced back at the Summer Game Fest 2021 prior to E3 2021, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is not a Borderlands game — and yet, it is. It’s a four-player co-op loot shooter in the Borderlands style, set in the imagination of one of the series’ best characters. Claptrap is still here, and despite Gearbox’s efforts to market it as more of a fantasy RPG, there are still guns — lots of guns.
Yes, Wonderlands is still an FPS and the player predominantly kills things by shooting them. The guns on offer don’t even attempt to be anything but anachronistically Borderlands-like — they’re not magic wands pretending to be guns or anything, they’re just futuristic guns. Fortunately, Wonderlands gets away with this by being a game that Borderlands characters are playing, rather than a fantasy universe in its own right. Plus, there are also magic powers to keep things a little different.
Down Down to Goblin Town
For the preview, I got to fully explore one particular area — Mount Craw, a goblin-infested cove consisting of mines, ice caves, lava caves, a frozen lake, a haunted tomb, and more. I didn’t get to see the overworld but this area certainly wasn’t lacking in things to see, even though it’s only a very small part of the game. It seems to be quite early in the main campaign, and mostly dealt with a goblin revolution.
Very quickly I met Jar, a young goblin who wanted to free her people from the tyranny of the dragon god Volcanar. Jar had started a movement that gave the quest its title: “Goblins Tired of Forced Oppression,” or “GTFO” for short. In case you were worried that Borderlands’ trademark humor wasn’t in effect, don’t be — if anything, Wonderlands is even weirder and sillier than other Gearbox games.
The skeleton boss Freezicles, for example, talks a lot like the original Skeletor from the ‘80s He-Man cartoon. My personal favorite quest was actually separate from the main GTFO mission and is called “Non-Violent Offender,” where the goal is to subdue most of the mission’s main opponents without killing them. In my case, I ended up trying to seduce the bosses in the most ham-fisted way possible. What was even more surprising was when it actually worked on one of them and they ended up being my NPC co-op partner for the rest of the mission, although I was forced to friend-zone them at the end.
First-class
While there will be several player classes in the final game, the preview version I played only came with two: Graveborn and Stabbomancer. The Graveborn is seemingly a more magic-focused class, albeit one where the devastating sorcerer’s ways are paid for with their own blood. The Graveborn’s main power is unleashing a massive explosion but it takes a chunk of the player’s health with it. This class also comes with a companion familiar, which will undoubtedly make it popular – especially as the demo’s one was a floating mouthy skull.
The Stabbomancer is ostensibly a more stealthy class, however, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is not in any way a stealth game. This character’s ability to melt into the shadows is probably more useful in a group, where enemies can be easily distracted. Otherwise, Stabbomancer can summon some whirling blades as a low-damage trap for opponents. I tried both classes and had a lot more fun with the Graveborn.
Other than these special abilities and the Graveborn getting an ally, however, both classes played very similarly. All classes have access to the same set of melee weapons, guns, and magic spells — other than their own unique power, of course. Melee weapons mostly veered between strong and slow or weak and quick, but if the guns work the same as in Borderlands – as it felt like to me – there could be an infinite number to find.
Magic powers fall into two camps — very useful and utterly useless. There were a number of truly spectacular powers that I encountered, like summoning a massive fireball meteor that explodes on contact. These ones are fun, but too many of the spells are simple weedy sprays of ice or electricity – which half of the time will miss the enemy if they move even slightly. Hopefully there will be more of a range in the final game.
Tales From The Wonderlands
The most amount of fun in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands comes from the talk between the real-world characters, who in the preview consisted of the easily-bored Valentine, the nerdy nitpicker Frette, and Tiny Tina herself. Apart from the comments, I didn’t encounter any fourth-wall-breaking moments of the type suggested in the trailers, where Tina would change something or the real world would interfere with the game – which is something that would help Wonderlands stand out more from Borderlands.
At the moment, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands feels a lot like Borderlands with a few tweaks and a mostly-fantasy makeover, so it’ll need to expand the concept a bit more to avoid complaints of it being a reskin. Nevertheless, simply based on the very Discworld-style setting I can imagine players actually getting along with Wonderlands more than Borderlands. Get a few co-op players in these tombs and it’ll definitely be a lot of fun. We’ll have to see when Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands releases on March 25.
