Tales from the Borderlands is a totally new story set on Pandora sometime after the events of Borderlands 1. The episodes first started churning out in November 2014 and the last one, “Episode 5”, came out on 20 October. It follows a Hyperion middle-management type by the name of Rhys and a con arist called Fiona as they dig themselves deeper and deeper into trouble, all in the name of a few million dollars.
If you’ve ever touched a Telltale game before then you’ll likely already be familiar with the mechanics found in Tales from the Borderlands. For most dialogue scenes you’re normally given a choice between 4 responses and a timer in which to decide the best one. Some of these can be pretty deceptive and more than once I found Rhys or Fiona making a dick of themselves. Outside of that you’re either doing sections of quick time events or just-kind-of-walking-about-looking-at-stuff sections. Neither of these are particularly groundbreaking mechanics but the qte’s are used well and become quite challenging by “Episode 5”.
Overall the story in Tales from the Borderlands is well crafted and builds the connection between the player and the characters. Most of the time it’s moving along at a pace that’s quick enough to sustain interest but not so quick that players become lost. “Episode 1” is probably the best start you could hope for in a series like this one; it does a good job of establishing Rhys and his buddy Vaughn and where they sit in the world. It also brings up conflict and provides a solid introduction to the story as a whole. Episode 2 though? Not so much. It focuses a lot more on Fiona and her sister Sasha and again, starts off pretty strong as it show’s the events of “Episode 1” from the other side. After that though “Episode 2” really peters out, it drags on for a long time without much of interest happening.
Thankfully “Episodes 3” through “5” remedy this pretty quickly and feature some simply amazing set pieces coupled with some excellent story telling. Graphically the game isn’t great — more on that soon — but an Atlas terra-forming facility found in “Episode 3” is, at times, absolutely amazing to look at and I’m left wondering why they couldn’t produce more of that.
The most impressive thing to me about Tales from the Borderlands is the moments it creates, the ones where you realise how strong you’ve bonded to characters and their situations. The power and weight of emotion portrayed in some scenes is something to be experienced. “Episode 5” in particular features two very memorable scenes, one as Rhys plummets back to Pandora in an escape pod and another as you assemble your own Vault Team. These are moments that I know will stick with me, and they’re why I love to play games.
Sadly it’s not all good though. Tales from the Borderlands runs on the same Telltale Tool engine used for The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us and Game of Thrones and boy is it ever dated. By far the biggest let down in this game was its graphics. The game hung from time to time, featured some awkward animations and, while the main character models looked fine, the models of secondary characters and even the environment left a lot to be desired. Ultimately graphics should be of low importance in a game with such a heavy focus on story but they really do let it down. It’s most evident early on in the game before players are attached to the characters when you find yourself focussing on the backdrop of Pandora. Eventually you come to overlook most of the minor issues but sometimes, such as during the final boss encounter, you’re really taken out of the action by the limitations of the engine.
My only other major gripe with Tales from the Borderlands is the walking/exploring sections. They’re used to break up the action and give the player some respite from constant dialogue but they often feel forced or even worse, boring. One or two of them feature a puzzle to solve but most can be described as “find the objective, walk to it.”
Tales from the Borderlands is definitely not built to be played all in one sitting. If the episodic format wasn’t enough of a hint then the constant reminders to sign up for a Telltale account certainly are. It’s a shame that Telltale didn’t take those out or make it easier for episodes to run into each other now that all 5 are released but I can understand why they didn’t. It’s nice to compare your own choices to those of other players and having those statistics displayed between episodes is gives you insight into how others played the game. For example: I was genuinely surprised that the Vault Team I chose was the most common one.
All in all, Tales from the Borderlands is great. The gripes I’ve got aren’t huge and they don’t really get in the way of experiencing what is truly a funny, exciting and feels-packed story.
Tales from the Borderlands was reviewed using a promotional copy of the game on PC, as provided by the developer.
