The first major thing to note is
that we’re not on Pandora any more.
Borderlands 3 considerably expands
the series’ universe to include other
planets – which you can travel
between on a spaceship that also
acts as the Crimson Raiders’ base and
your hub. So we’re on Promethea, at
the outskirts of a spectacular-looking
futuristic city called the Meridian
Metroplex. Lilith has tasked us with
tracing the source of a distress call,
so we’re not-so-cautiously entering
the city via some skirmishes with
beetle-like creatures and assorted
COV nutters. To maximise Amara’s
combat effectiveness, we can choosea loadout of action and passive skills.
Skills are organised into different
skill trees, representing various
possible play-styles, and acquired
skill points can be allocated to each
as you prefer; Action Skills, Augments
and Passive abilities. PhaseGrasp is
an action skill that utilises Amara’s
magical Siren abilities – she can
summon a giant fist that bursts from
the ground and holds a targeted
enemy in place for seven seconds.
Some enemies are immune to being
held, but the PhaseGrasp will simply
damage those enemies. It’s a lot of
fun to use as the fist throws enemies
up into the air, holding them in a
forcefield while you empty your clip
into them. PhaseSlam allows Amara to
leap into the air and slam back down
into the ground, dealing damage to all
enemies within a certain area. With
PhaseCast, Amara shoots an astral
projection of herself into enemies,
dealing damage.
We soon find the source of the
signal at a location called Fort Pissoff.
Yep, that cheeky Borderlands humour
is still not-so-subtly woven into its
fabric. Here we meet a woman called
Lorelei, who swears a lot in a British
accent and informs us that she iswith the Atlas Corporation, which it
seems is at war with rival corporation
Maliwan. Meanwhile some Children
Of The Vault grunts have turned
up in the middle of it, armed to the
teeth by Maliwan, manufacturer of
weapons that use elemental effects.
This makes Lorelei an ally against the
Children Of The Vault, and she offers
to introduce you to her Atlas boss,
Rhys Strongfork. Before we meet Rhys,
we get the chance to stock up on
ammo from a vending machine.
To reach Rhys we need to travel
through the city’s Spillways, basically
concrete urban rivers. For this we
need a ride, and we get to drive the
classic Borderlands Outrunner. There
are fast travel points to places already
visited, which will be handy later, but
in the meantime we have to follow
Lorelei through the hostile Spillways.
Driving, it turns out, is a tricky enough
skill. The handling of the Outrunner
isn’t great, to be honest, requiring
both sticks to steer, but since the
left stick also controls the camera,
this makes negotiating the Spillways
trickier than we were expecting. Still,
once we’ve got the hang of it, and
the handy weapon mounted atop
the dunebuggy-style chassis, we’reABOVE Atlas
corporation’s
Rhys has a lovely
moustache.
FAR RIGHT
Setting psychos
on fire is a lot
of fun. Who
knew?
050 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE