Borderlands 3
Yesterday, we got a whole lot of details about the upcoming new DLC for Borderlands 3, Bounty of Blood: A Fistful of Redemption. I am fully on board with the western theme, and trying out the idea of using new characters to lead a DLC rather than returning ones. But I do have one central question about the DLC.
What’s going on with character progression?
The only thing we heard about actual builds and such during the show was the reiteration that Gearbox would be “fixing” Mayhem 2.0 by the time the DLC hits, adjusting things so Mayhem scales action skill damage, grenades, melee damage and so on, things that honestly should have been done before Mayhem 2.0 even launched. And yet when I talk about character progression, I mean evolutions of our characters themselves.
We did not hear anything about a level cap raise, though moving to 60 or 61 seems obvious pretty soon, despite the fact that I am no way eager to re-grind all my great level 57 gear again and have all my Cartel weapons I’ve slaved over be useless.
And leveling is not really “true” progression, it’s just a couple extra skill points that can make your build just a little bit better. The big deal was hitting two capstone skills, but now that we’re past that, more points really don’t do all that much.
Borderlands 3
This all comes back to the decision Gearbox made not to introduce new vault hunters in Borderlands 3, despite those being some hugely popular characters in the canon of the universe. I maintain that this is a mistake, but if they weren’t going to do that, I figured that at the very least, they would keep evolving the existing characters in some way.
So far, past more skill points, that has not happened, and does not seem like it’s happening all the way in the third DLC here.
What I mean is that I thought we would be getting entirely new skill trees for each class. Another pet for FL4K, more Iron Bear guns for Moze, another toy for Zane and a new Siren ability for Amara. Along with the “theme” of whatever tree is supporting that new skill.
Borderlands 3
We haven’t gotten that at all, and the problem has been that character progression has just solely relied on new gear and new gear alone. It’s just changing your build with new guns and anointments, and maybe a new class item or two if we’re lucky. But these are all much more minor changes than the ability to utilize a fully new tree would be.
We don’t know Borderlands 3’s long term plans. I suppose this could be something they plan for a larger, teased fall expansion starring Krieg, which is the final DLC that we know about. But with Borderlands 3 outperforming Borderlands 2 sales by 50%, I would imagine Gearbox will be supporting this game for a long, long time to come.
I do hope they revisit the idea of making new vault hunters someday. I think it’s a mistake not to do that, and limiting to four, and not even expanding their skill trees, is getting a bit dull. Nothing seems to be changing by next DLC, but we’ll see what the one after brings, I guess.
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