That new Borderlands movie sure does look like…something. Early reviews have panned the thing to hell and back, but even if the film they inspired is reportedly garbage, the games are pretty great. Borderlands’ humor is certainly an acquired taste, but there’s no denying that the games are vibrant as hell, and the gunplay and looter-shooter framework helped define a generation of games. Now, you can wash yourself of that terrible film and get in on the main games for the price of a ticket to the movie.
PlayStation is currently doing its own summer sale, and some of the discounts are really steep. The entirety of the Borderlands series happens to be among the cheapest things available on the store right now. For example, you can get Borderlands 3 for $US6 right now, and the Legendary Collection, which comes with the first title and all of its DLC, Borderlands 2, and the confusingly titled Pre-Sequel, is on sale for another $US10. Save yourself the 15 smackeroonies—as well as the trip to the movies, the money you’ll spend on concessions, and the hour and 40 minutes you’ll never get back—and lock in with some friends on Pandora instead.
If you’re a completionist, you’ll have to spend some more money to experience everything that the four mainline games have to offer. Say that you take things one game at a time and you really want to play all of Borderlands 3 and its expansions: that’ll run you $US25. That alone will net you and some of your closest buds a couple dozen (if not hundreds) of hours right there.
However, the Gearbox-developed shooters aren’t the only games in the franchise. About a decade ago now, Telltale Games carved out its own story on the planet of Pandora with Tales From The Borderlands, an adventure game which went on to receive critical acclaim throughout its episodic run. Many still hold that game up as having the best writing in the whole franchise, and herald it as some of Telltale’s best work ever. In my opinion, the game is worth playing for the incredible needle drops alone, and you can currently snag Tales From The Borderlands for another $US15. Playing it isn’t necessary to enjoy the mainline shooters, but it certainly made me care a lot more for some of the series’ characters and their struggles.
Gearbox eventually followed up Telltale’s game with a sequel, appropriately called New Tales From The Borderlands, which has some fans but isn’t as beloved as the original. The standard edition isn’t on sale right now, but the deluxe edition of New Tales is and it’ll cost you $US25.
I am saving the best for last, though. If you’re at all curious about every game in the series, including both the fun shooty main series and the narrative-heavy subseries, there’s a collection of all the games that’s at almost too good a price to pass up. Borderlands Collection: Pandora’s Box, which typically goes for $US150, is on sale for $US37.49 and includes every title in the franchise and all of their respective expansions. That’s simply too many games for about the price of a date to the Borderlands film.
Most of these games are on sale for the same prices on the Xbox store right now, too! The notable exception to this is that the Legendary Collection is unfortunately full price there at the moment. You can still grab everything in the Pandora’s Box bundle for the same price, so that may be the way to go about snagging these deals on Xbox.
I haven’t really played the games much since falling off of Borderlands 2 way back in the day, but I can definitely tell you that for these prices, you’re getting your money’s worth. At a time when there’s a seeming resurgence of cooperative games, why not look back at one of the only franchises that really kept that genre afloat during a decade that saw very little of them? Four huge co-op campaigns that were then supported by lengthy DLCs is going to give you and your friend group plenty to chew on, and I’d be surprised if you weren’t still playing through these at a regular cadence well into the next year.
Even if multiplayer’s not your bag and you just want to play these games alone—I 100%’d the first game entirely solo—the series is outlandish enough that you’re bound to have some fun with it. Between all the games, there’s something like 5 gazillion weapons, about two dozen playable characters, and several raids to take on. There’s a lot of things to enjoy across the Borderlands games, which I cannot stress enough, does not seem to be the case for the movie.
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