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Borderlands 2 is the game that really turned the looter-shooter franchise into the behemoth it is today, refining the concept from the original Borderlands in almost every way. That said, while still vastly enjoyable, not all aspects of the game have aged particularly well
When I reviewed the GOTY Enhanced edition of the original Borderlands, I called the game a “proof of concept” that essentially already included all of the elements a Borderlands game needs - it just lacked the necessary refinements for all of it to really come together (an issue the GOTY Enhanced upgrade unfortunately didn’t fix). Borderlands 2 is exactly that, successfully polishing the concept to the point where it became one of the most popular coop-shooters out there: To this day, almost 12 years after its original release, Borderlands 2 still boosts an impressive Steam player count, with 24-hour peaks of almost 3000 concurrent players.
As someone who 100%ed Borderlands 2 on both, PC and PlayStation, I decided to return to the game I had always called my favourite in the franchise (after the amazing Tales from the Borderlands, of course) once more and see just how well it still holds up. The answer to that would be “surprisingly well”, thankfully, although some small issues of the game have only gotten worse over time.
As mentioned before, Borderlands 2 didn’t reinvent the wheel on it’s own, it took what already worked in the original Borderlands instead and simply refined it, polished it to the point where the sequel overshadows it’s predecessor in almost every way – except for atmosphere maybe, which the original Borderlands still excels in thanks to its bleak world design and moody soundtrack. Borderlands 2 is a more colourful game instead, providing a larger variety of zones (snow, desert, grassland, volcano, city) to visit, which might not create the same oppressive atmosphere but are making the journey through the game less monotone and more interesting - the same goes for the fantastic soundtrack by Jesper Kyd of Assassin’s Creed II fame.
Other notable improvements include the gunplay, which feels less stiff now and features a lot more gun-types to loot, an improved selection of enemies that also behave smarter, more vehicle types, new character classes and so on. But most notably, Borderlands 2 offers an actual story now, while its predecessor was restricted to quest description and very few dialogues. The franchise finally found its identity here and also introduced the world to Handsome Jack, who remains one of the most iconic videogame villains to this day and became so popular that an entire game was dedicated to telling his backstory afterwards. It also has to be noted how well Borderlands 2 handled characters and even locations from the original Borderlands, finally giving them the personality they were previously missing without it ever feeling out of place.
Combine all of this with the option to play through the extensive campaign alone or with up to three friends, a wide selection of game-expanding DLC that also includes one of the best game expansions of all time (Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep) and an extensive endgame thanks to multiple difficulties, legendary loot and endgame super-bosses and you got what’s probably one of the best looter-shooters out there – even though it’s unfortunately held back by some issues that are especially noticeable more than a decade after the initial release of the game.
Some of these issues are just a result of its age – for example, the cel-shaded graphics of Borderlands 2, while timeless to a degree thanks to the chosen art-style, are simply lacking in detail and lighting even on the highest settings nowadays. Of course, Borderlands 2 is far from ugly or unplayable but especially when playing Borderlands 3, I was impressed by how even cel-shaded graphics have a lot of room left for improvement.
Other issues of Borderlands 2 pertain the gameplay, as Borderlands 2 is missing a lot of the modern features it’s 2019 sequel offered - notable examples include sliding, vaulting, few fast travel stations, setting coop loot rules or the option to refill all ammo at vending machines at once. It also doesn’t offer the option to track more than one quest at once, with the need to open the quest and then the map menu every time to see where your nearest quest objective might be. Granted, even Borderlands 3 didn’t allow for multi-quest tracking, but it at least allowed for quick-cycling through the quests at the press of a button.
More importantly however, even the core mechanics of Borderlands 2, most notably the quest flow, gunplay and loot-pool, unfortunately feel outdated when compared to Borderlands 3. Don’t get me wrong, the core gameplay loop of Borderlands 2 is definitely quite enjoyable even to this day, but on my re-visit, I was quite surprised to see the weapons lacking the “oomph” and the unique handling I remembered them having. Additionally, I was once again reminded that the opening section of Borderlands 2 still takes way too long until things finally get going, which is really unfortunate compared to how much better the remaining game is – save for one last annoying mechanic.
Most veterans of the game won’t be surprised that I’m talking about “Slag” here, a new type of element that Borderlands 2 introduced, an addition to the incendiary, corrosive, shock and explosive elemental damage that was already present in the original Borderlands. As to what it does, once an enemy is slagged, they take increased damage from all non-slag sources – which makes slag basically a defense debuff, if you will. On normal difficulty or even True Vault Hunter Mode, slag remains an option which can be ignored – but that changes when you’re playing on higher difficulty (UVHM), which basically requires you to constantly slag enemies to stand a chance. As a result, most if not all endgame builds won’t be efficient without some form of slagging enemies, which ultimately limits the potential builds you might’ve planned for your character. As this goes against the “play it/skill it your way” philosophy of Borderlands’s RPG-side, it’s hardly surprising that slag didn’t make a return as a player game mechanic didn’t make a return in any other Borderlands game afterwards - but that unfortunately doesn’t improve its existence in Borderlands 2.
Still, overall Borderlands 2 remains an amazing looter-shooter for solo-players and coop teams alike, even if you’re playing the game for the first time. There’s no denying that some aspects of the game have aged (graphics, missing modern conveniences, gunplay, loot-pool) or weren’t great decisions to begin with (limited quest-tracking, slag) but the core gameplay loop (questing, shooting, looting) remains a lot of fun to this day and offers a high amount of replayability. Even the majority of the writing still holds up quite well, save for some dated pop culture references or quests that were never that great to begin with (e.g. “The Name Game”). Simply put, (re)visiting Borderlands 2 remains a great idea, at least as long as you’re not expecting it to be just like a Borderlands 3 in terms of gameplay.