Enter a World of Fantastical Wonders

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. expansions will, frequently, reuse a number of materials from the main games to populate content in their DLCs. One of the most obvious cases of this was with the Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot DLC for Borderlands which was, almost exclusively, enemies and bosses we had seen before, repackaged into a couple of small arenas. Mr. Torque’s Campaign of Carnage, which I thoroughly enjoy every time I play Borderlands 2, is another example as you’re fighting many of the same mooks and goons from the main game here again, just reskinned to a certain degree. If you liked fighting psychos, bruisers, and the like before, you’re going to get to do it all again.

And don’t mistake this for a complaint. Most of the time what I want from my Borderlands is more Borderlands, so I don’t mind a certain amount of reuse. But I do like it when the games are able to really expand their concepts in their expansions. And when an expansion comes along that almost completely reinvents its core game, that’s something worth noticing. Gearbox could have just re-released some repackaged content with a new story and we would have accepted it. The fact they put in some effort is appreciated.

That’s probably why Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep is so beloved. It’s not just a huge and expansive DLC pack for Borderlands 2, although it absolutely is that mind you, but it also completely reinvents the experience, putting a fantasy RPG skin over everything while introducing a completely new set of monsters, minions, and mayhem for you to take on. It’s such a complete reinvention that after it was released, Gearbox then repackaged it as a standalone expansion you could play without ever getting into the main meat of Borderlands 2 (although to really enjoy it you should at least have some knowledge of the parent game).

While the vault hunters are interrogating a Hyperion spy downstairs in the Crimson Headquarters, Tiny Tina convinces Lilith, Mordecai, and Brick to play a game of Bunkers and Badasses (read: Dungeons and Dragons) upstairs. Tiny has a whole adventure planned and she wants to hang out with her friends. After much begging and pleading, they agree to the game, and Tiny drops them into a fantasy world of myths and magic, dangers and demons, and a whole lot of evil.

As it turns out, the Handsome Sorcerer has kidnapped the beautiful queen and taken her away to his fortress. This has caused darkness to spread across the land, and our heroes (who, it should be noted, are the Vault Hunters from the main adventure) have to venture forth and find the path to the Handsome Sorcerer’s fortress. Along the way they’ll battle treants and goblins, spiders and orcs, dwarves and soldiers, all before making it to the fortress to take on the Sorcerer himself. If they succeed, light will be brought back to the land. But if they fail… well, they better not fail.

Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep works on three levels, all of which build to make this one of the best expansions the Borderlands series has ever had (before or since). The first factor is that this really is a true reinvention of Borderlands 2. Unlike all of the previous expansions that came out beforehand (and the few that came out after, also),Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep redesigns all the artwork for the experience. Everything from the world itself, to all the monsters, down to even the weapon and armor shops (which even have all new voice lines recorded for them) were redesigned. This was a complete labor of love that needed a major team to pull it off. This wasn’t a simple repackaging of materials, and the level of craft and care shows from minute one, and through every area of the expansion.

On the second level there’s the basic story of the adventure. Yes, it follows the beats of Borderlands 2, with the Handsome Sorcerer (Handsome Jack, of course), trying to take over the world. He has a captured princess, Angel, who actually turns out to be his daughter (and she is evil here, just to please the fans that hated Angel for her double-cross that, in the end, got Roland killed). He commands an army of minions that drop in at his beck and call. But there’s also a ton of fun, fantasy content packed in, from jokes about other franchises, to jokes about the very format of RPGs. The story suits the adventure, and the adventure is packed to the gills with fun material you can enjoy just for the sake of.

But then there’s a deeper narrative in the story, one about love and loss. Roland died in Borderlands 2, and he was kind of a parental figure for Tiny Tina. While we had to move on from the death and process it while we were running and gunning, characters like Tina didn’t have the distraction. So she puts Roland into her game and makes him the shining knight so he can continue to live on. By playing through the adventure Tina, Lilith, Mordecai, and Brick all get a chance to grieve and mourn their lost friend, bringing their group closer together in the process. The Borderlands series isn’t exactly known for being very emotional or heartfelt, but this was one of the few times they not only tried for it but really pulled it off.

It’s fun to get dropped into this fantasy world, with the freedom to explore so much of it and see a world so different from the landscapes of Pandora that we’re used to. It’s amusing to have Tiny’s constant storytelling in your ear as she narrates the adventure and tells you about the world. It’s fun to get all the jokes, to see all the characters, to have amusing asides from the other players. All of this works together to provide you a fun and amusing fantasy adventure that also feels like an immersive world.

And then, when the real moments hit, they hit harder. When Tina tries to pretend that Roland isn’t dead, you feel for her. When Lilith gets upset at Tina, you understand where the anger and grief come from. And then the catharsis hits at the end, and Tina has to admit the depth of her loss, it strikes home. You didn’t expect it dropping into this lighthearted fantasy expansion, but the Gearbox team pulled off the trick of being both irreverent and emotional in the same expansion, showing a level of care in their writing that, one could argue, they’ve struggled to meet ever since.

Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep is peak Borderlands. It takes everything that worked so well in Borderlands 2 and reinvents it, leading to a funnier and deeper story. It has all the action, adventure, and heart that players wanted, wrapped in a refreshed skin that made it all feel like a nearly new world. And all that in an expansion that was priced like the other expansions for the main game. This was the kind of content fans wanted, and it set the bar for the series. The fact that the franchise has struggled to meet this height does illustrate how good this expansion is… while also showing just how far off the series has fallen in the aftermath.