Gearbox officially unveiled a new Borderlands game during Summer Game Fest’s Kickoff Live! event today. It’s not a sequel, nor a prequel, nor a cutesy phrase that honestly just means “prequel.” It’s a proper spin-off called Tiny Tina’s: Wonderlands, starring Tiny Tina. It’s out early 2022. Specific platforms TBA.
For the uninitiated, Tiny Tina is an effusive—either irritatingly or charmingly so, depending on who you ask—foul-mouthed child who first showed up in 2012’s Borderlands 2. She later received a dedicated expansion, Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep. Unabashedly poking fun at Dungeons & Dragons, Tiny Tina played the role of dungeon master for a fantasy-themed twist on the Borderlands formula. (It ruled.) She showed up again as a side character in Borderlands 3. No two ways about it, she’s widely considered one of the more popular characters in the Borderlands franchise. It was only a matter of time before Gearbox cashed in big time on this one.
Wonderlands has many of the trappings of a traditional Borderlands game: cel-shaded yet sickeningly gorey visuals, dialogue that wants you to laugh so bad, ha ha, aren’t we all having such fun? Oh, yeah, and you’ll have six guns. But you knew that already.
But there’s new stuff too, like spell-casting and customizable characters. Tiny Tina’s voice actor, Ashly Burch, caught up with Kickoff Live! host Geoff Keighley to detail how the game differs from mainline Borderlands entries. Burch clarified that it’s its “own standalone game,” saying that it has “fantasy elements inspired by Assault on Dragon Keep.” Like that DLC, Tiny Tina is the “bunker master,” who shapes the narrative on the fly. Burch described the cast of characters as “amazing,” but didn’t shed light on who they are. More details to come in the summer.
Ah, rats, just received word that I fumbled a key phrase two paragraphs up: It’s six bazillion guns. My bad!
DISCUSSION
Assault on Dragon Keep is the single best piece of content in all of Borderlands, so a big standalone game using Bunkers and Badasses (the Borderlands version of D&D) as an excuse to go full fantasy is a great, great idea.
BL2 is one of my favorite games of all time, but I absolutely loathe Borderlands 3. Since this can be its own thing and I don’t have to worry about them further fucking up the primary BL narrative, I’m actually pretty excited.