Little Tina’s Wonderland needs less Borderlands, more DnD
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In the opening minutes of Borderlands 2’s Tiny Tina’s raid on the Dragon Keep DLC (which, coincidentally, you can buy it here), Gearbox does a trick that gets you on board right away. Tiny Tina is an in-game DM in DnD for her fellow vault hunters. As the player, you are looking at the world that one of the characters is describing through her eyes. But there is controversy about Tina’s creative direction. If the wizard just ruined the town, why is it a good day? Why do rainbows appear in the sky? Tina has to improvise some tonal changes on the fly to plunge the world into eternal night before your eyes. It’s a moment on a visual level, but think about the level of conceptual abstraction its developers just made you feel: you’re another character’s imaginary DnD character, in a video game, watching her change yours in sequence Reality In order to appease her friend, some video game NPC suspects.
The new levels and genre of gameplay that broke the fourth wall defined DLC and made it popular enough to bring us here as an indie game. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands feels similar to the scope of Borderlands: The Prequel, rather than a mainline sequel, but it’s way ahead of that breathless lunar shift in terms of imagination and tonal confidence. It’s basically a comedy improv class performed as a predator shooter.
The preview build offered by PCGamesN features two classes, Graveborn and Stabbomancer, and a few hours of gameplay that feels like the first third of the game.
Led by a squeaky demagogue named Jar, the local goblins are revolting and you’re going to shoot for their Marxist cause. That means exploring a European medieval fantasy world full of Borderlands, such as fast-travel teleporters, vending machines, and boxes filled with loot every 4.5 moves.
Little Tina’s Wonderland Little Tina’s Wonderland Fanatical’s $59.99 Pre-Order Network N earns affiliate commissions from qualifying sales.
Get rid of the forest glades and the old English-sounding weapon names, and you’re still playing in the usual Borderlands template, using ranged weapons and character abilities against chatty enemies that spill numbers from your head as you shoot, and run to Switches with mission markers on them and pressing “use” move the story forward with disembodied voiceover presentations. As ever, the magic isn’t just in the mechanical satisfaction of the shooter — still excellent, by the way, and largely unchanged from the last major game — but in what Gearbox means for what you’re doing.
I thought I was too old and bitter to care too much about some goblins cheering in the clearing camp as they raised the GTFO flag in the name of freedom, but I’m glad to find out that’s not the case. I didn’t expect Tina’s Scenic Chew delivery to be so entertaining as she pops up, transferring the story to her DnD audience. Again, wrong and happy.
Borderlands knits a fine yarn, and DnD’s conceit gives it enough material to repeat
Of the two classes I screwed up, the Stabbomancer felt more satisfying. Unleashing their special ability, they become invisible and only deal critical hits for a long time. Spend some points to minimize skill cooldowns and increase your damage while moving, and you can basically play as a trigger-happy version of Rogue Master Garrett. Another special thing about him is a sword you throw and it hovers in place for a while, dealing its own melee damage, which isn’t very interesting, but does feel right for Wonderland. Then there’s a giant fireball that you can summon from the sky at will on a very short cooldown, when you feel like this whole invisible thing is overrated.
Graveborn is a bit complicated to play with. She’s special in sacrificing a bit of health for a massive AoE attack, and she also has a summon that deals a small amount of damage to her, just like Mordecai Bloodwing in previous games. Higher tiers grant extra summons, and one of her skill pools stacks with damage dealt the more summons she activates, so she’s a bit of a traditional DnD ranger and monk hybrid.
The lessons, like the quests and loot descriptions we play, are thematically cohesive and feel like settling into a well-crafted antique chair. Your partnership with Borderlands Spinning is great, and DnD’s conceit gives it a lot of repeatable material. Tina lives up to your expectations well and is completely free from irony, which is at least half the reason I liked the original DLC so much.
Where it does feel lacking, however, just moves you, is dedicated to that. I wish my paradigm changed more violently and more frequently through Tina’s impromptu DMing. I wish the melee weapons were more prominent in this fantasy setting. I want more new features that feel completely different and more specific to this setup. Maybe it’s there, I just don’t see it. But while I’ve undeniably enjoyed this preview clip, I do get the sense that Gearbox is trying to make the most of what it already has, rather than fully committing to fleshing out new ideas.
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