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If you told me
six months ago
that I’d be firing
up Borderlands 2
again to play a
new bite-sized
campaign, I simply
wouldn’t have believed you. Heck,
even Gearbox’s long-awaited
threequel, which was merely a faint
glimmer in my eye by that point,
seemed more likely. And yet here I
am jumping into Commander Lilith &
The Fight For Sanctuary, the latest –
and presumably final – piece of DLC
for everyone’s favourite cel-shaded
looter-shooter, offering up new plant-
riddled enemy types to kill and a new
Effervescent gun tier to do it with.
Hopefully, by its end I can consider the
story gap between 2014’s Tales From
The Borderlands and the upcoming
Borderlands 3 satisfyingly filled.
The story kicks off about as
explosively as you’d expect
from something with the words
‘commander’ and ‘fight’ in its title,
with the sky-high haven of Sanctuary
quickly under siege at the hands of
a new antagonist, Colonel Hector.
It’s immediately made clear that
this grizzled army-type won’t ever
hold a candle to the sweet-talking
dementedness of Handsome Jack,
but it’s a relief to have another baddie
to aim my anger towards rather than
just another vault like in the first
Borderlands. Hector is someone with
a particularly personal grudge against
the planet of Pandora and all that
it represents (for reasons that I’ll
eventually learn about later), feeling
the need to unleash a deadly gas-like
toxin that forces my ragtag team of
Crimson Raiders to fall back and find a
new base of operations.Psycho killer
The opening shootout against the
freshly corrupted psychos and brutes
is frantic, fun and thrilling, instantly
reaffirming why Borderlands’ classic
‘shoot, loot and repeat’ cycle proves
so addicting. It feels all the better
when doing so as my level 50 Assassin
who I likely haven’t controlled sincethe release of 2015’s Handsome
Collection. Commander Lilith & The
Fight For Sanctuary lets you boost
any character class to level 30 to
allow anyone to instantly jump in, but
I’ve previously sunk many hours into
Borderlands 2 to gain this extra edge,
so you can bet your butt stallion I’m
going to use it.
Of course, this does mean that the
selection of randomised weapons
in my inventory are probably too
overpowered, so it’s only a little
while until I compromise and pick
up whatever four guns Fight For
Sanctuary spits at me first. With one of
these I luck out and find an incendiary
sniper, perfect for setting fire to any
green-fingered menace attempting
to fill my lungs with poison. I still have
Zer0’s fully augmented ‘Decpti0n’
ability, though, which will let me enter
stealth mode for a healthy time should
I ever need to get out of a pinch.Gearbox has made no bones
about Commander Lilith & The Fight
For Sanctuary serving as filler DLC,
albeit a free one, in the lead up to
Borderlands 3. Because of this, the
basic fundamentals of what makes
Borderlands haven’t changed all that
much here – far from it. But still, any
potential criticism that this is a half-
assed attempt to build buzz is swiftly
disregarded when you consider that
there’s a total of seven new locations
readily available to explore, each one
stacked with a hefty helping of side-
missions that sit alongside the central
plight. The Backburner, as Sanctuary’s
suggested replacement, is the one I
naturally become familiar with most.
Initially, there’s not much to discern
The Backburner from the sandy dunes
of other staple starting locations
like Fyrestone and the Arid Nexus’
Badlands. However, soon after being
teleported to safety here by Lilithextra
Revisiting Borderlands 2 ’s brand of loot-happy gunplay as
part of its surprise final DLC pack, Commander Lilith & The Fight
For Sanctuary AARON POTTER
PUBLISHER 2K GAMES / DEVELOPER GEARBOX SOFTWARE / FORMAT XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE JUNE 2019096 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE