Third installment in the Borderlands series arrives amid controversy
September 20, 2019
On September 13, 2019, Gearbox Software released Borderlands 3. The Borderlands series features first person shooter action with RPG element and is set on a distant planet where players seek out alien technology. The series is very popular, with one of the highlights being it’s humor. “Borderlands is my favorite series to play because it doesn’t take itself too seriously,” says sophomore Cooper Stockford. While the crude humor isn’t for everyone, it has been successful in drawing players in. The games are also well received because of their comic art style and gameplay.
Borderlands 1, 2, and the Prequel were released on Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC (specifically the Steam launcher) respectively. There actually is a small controversy surrounding Borderlands 3’s release: Epic Games made a deal with Gearbox to have Borderlands 3 be exclusive to their own launcher, the Epic Games launcher, for the next 6 months. This angered fans of the Borderlands series, because they were not wanting to get another launcher to play a game in a series that has been on Steam for about 10 years now. In response, most fans of Borderlands games turned to buying it on console.
Others are choosing to wait 6 months for it to be released on Steam. “Borderlands 3 being releakie and Clsed exclusively on Epic Games is a disappointment,” says Josh Hannahs. “Epic Games has created an anti-consumer situation with exclusivity similar to Xbox/Playstation exclusives. I have enough launchers already and will not install yet another launcher. If these game companies do not release it on other launcher, I will just not buy it. There are other games to play.”
Despite the controversy and overall negativity towards the situation, Borderlands 3 released with good reviews across the board. It received a 9/10 rating on IGN, with reviewers noting: “Borderlands 3 sticks to its guns and outdoes itself with an amazing arsenal of weapons, humor, and missions.” It also received a 95/100 on Metacritic, with reviewers stating: “Borderlands 3 has surpassed the bar that its predecessor had set. The story is grand in scale, the humor is on-point and updated to 2019, weapons are diverse and the new Vault Hunters are unique in every way. Every BL-fan must pick this game up.”
Trintin Wallace • Sep 25, 2019 at 11:04 am
I think the borderlands cerise is awesome because i used to play both 1 and 2 and they were great.The only thing i wish was that epic games didn’t release a borderlands theme on one of there games.Even though Epic Games did this i don’t really care to much but its a bummer they took a good game and combined it with a big game that no one really plays much any more.
Ben Edds • Sep 24, 2019 at 4:25 pm
This article was very well written. When I was reading it, it made me feel exactly like any other Borderlands fan, even though I’ve never seen nor played the game. The emotion was put into the article in just the right style so it didn’t seem like it was a personal issue.
Justin Harpole • Sep 24, 2019 at 1:38 pm
I will say that Borderlands 3 was hyped up by many people in the borderlands community, but as a fellow gamer myself I will say that Gearbox signing a contract will Epic Games to have borderlands 3 only on their launcher is a big problem. As a huge gamer myself I do not support epic games in anyway at all. I think Gearbox made a mistake signing Borderlands 3 to epic games. I will not play Borderlands 3 as long as it is under epic games name.
Hunter Smith • Sep 24, 2019 at 11:52 am
I really want to buy Borderlands 3 soon, but I already pre-ordered Destiny 2: Shadowkeep for October, so I will probably buy it later. I have known about Epic Games ruling the online game market, an example being Metro Exodus, I game I really enjoyed but was made exclusive to Epic Games. Since I have an Xbox One, I didn’t have any problems with playing it, but it causes difficulties for people with computers that want to play the game. Epic Games wasn’t really a big company until they created Fortnite and now it feels like they are trying to take over the entire industry. It isn’t fair for many people who use Steam because Steam is one of the biggest online game purchasing mediums and almost no one uses the Epic Game Store. Overall, Epic Games needs to stop trying to make everything exclusive.
Seth Paige • Sep 24, 2019 at 11:35 am
this article was very interesting to read because I do enjoy gaming as well with humor and first person shooting. however I have never gotten into the game borderlands, I have heard a lot of great reviews from it. I think that adding a third game to the trilogy was a good idea because the public enjoys this type of game from the positive feedback. as far as the controversy goes, I think its pretty stupid to only release the game on one platform. by doing this I think the company is limited to their revenue. thanks for sharing this article.
Elijah Block • Sep 24, 2019 at 9:01 am
With being a Borderlands gamer myself, I am also angry at Gearbox for not having the game on steam. With the tradition over having it on steam, and on console, I do own all of the other 3 myself, and they are pretty fun . I am going to just wait for it to come out on steam because Epic games is toxic. Also, gear box is probably just doing to for the money and not the fans like most companies do.
Michael Arciniega • Sep 24, 2019 at 8:46 am
I think the controversy surrounding the release has grown out of proportion. It started because Epic Games was bringing many games exclusively over to its store as it did with Borderlands. I think many people are mad about this since they will now have to have two launchers but a little competition is always good between companies. Although steam was already pretty good, there’s still room for them to grow and now they have an incentive. It also gives Epic room to grow because the launcher/store is much worse overall than the steam store. Overall I would still rather use steam right now, but I think it’s good that other companies are coming in to create some competition.