E3 2014 - Tales From The Borderlands

One of the coolest demo sessions I attended at E3 was for the upcoming Telltale Games release of Tales from the Borderlands, a whole new saga that takes place in the Borderlands universe created by Gearbox Software.

At the start of our demo we were told that like all Telltale games, choice is a big part in the story outcome. Players will have the chance to see the story through the eyes of two protagonists, Rhys a wanna-be Handsome Jack and Fiona, a con artist who has fleeced almost everyone on Pandora. Taking place after the events of Borderlands 2, players will start as Rhys who makes his way out to an abandoned looking settlement where he meets up with a mysterious man and Fiona. It is at this point that the man shows his true colours and that he wants the vault key that was held by the two of them. Rhys then tells us in order to tell him where it is now, we need to know how it came to be in their hands.

We are then taken back to the moon base of Hyperion, where newly elected head of the company Vasquez is showing off his new office and ordering a new car, all the while Rhys sits around waiting. Vasquez is voiced by the impeccable Patrick Warburton, known for a variety of roles and now with his sultry tones makes us believe that Vasquez is the jerk we expect him to be. I mean with a role of VP of Securities Propaganda, what else is there to expect.

After a while Rhys is able to find out about the vault key and then sets a plan in motion to buy it before Vasquez in order to boost his position in the company. The game sets the same outlandish tone of previous borderlands games really well, the look is solid without a doubt and the humour is just as fresh and great as we expect it to be.

Upon landing on the planet, Rhys and his buddy Ryan Clements… I mean Vaughn are ambushed by some bandits, this gives players their first taste of the combat offered up by the game; Well by combat I mean summoning. See Rhys is a corporate guy, not a soldier so he does not fight himself, but you can summon loader bots to do your bidding. Even the choices here allow for a different experience.

After sometime, players meet up with August, voiced by Nolan North, who is selling the vault key. Events unfold here, based on your choices until they build to a super wacky level of unbelievable and which point Fiona steps in to correct Rhys. At this point Fiona mentioned that she was there as well and just as we see what she was up to the demo ended.

This small sample of the game has me very excited, with the game being a fresh take on an existing universe; players are able to travel the world of Pandora like never before.  The staples of the Borderlands games are still around, the humour for one is still present, the look and feel of the game as well as the loot. In fact looting plays perhaps more of a role here than it did in the main series, looting corpses might net you cash but it might turn your allies away if you do it too often. But without money, you won’t be able to bribe people. So there is a lot of risk/reward going on there.

As the game progresses, players will be tasked with a variety of choices and these choices will define how the story plays out in the end. But be warned there is no way for you to see the truth of the tale because both the main characters are out for themselves, they are always lying. This also may result being caught in your own lie, so you also need to watch out for that.

Gamers will also be happy to know that some familiar faces will make apperances through out the game. Some of them are actually critical to the story and some are just cameos. Other characters appear as well, but they may not be from the Borderlands universe but from other Telltale games. 

Players who want to know what choices were popular will be happy to know that the stats will be shown at the end of each episode, allowing players to maybe think about choosing a different story path next time they play through it. With the first episode being released in just a few months players won’t have long to wait before they are indulging in all new Tales from the Borderlands.