Borderlands: The Pre- Sequel is a video game developed by 2k Australia. This video game was released back in 2014. The game follows Handsome Jack and his team throughout his transformation from adventurer to an evil dictator. However, Borderlands 3 seems to have left the Pre-Sequel behind.
The storyline of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
This video game is set at a point between Borderlands and Borderlands 2. However, four aspiring Vault Hunters fight alongside Handsome Jack witnessing his transformation into the merciless tyrant.
Moreover, the game begins as Colonel Zarpedon and her Lost Region attack and capture the Helios space station. Jack proceeds to send his new Vault Hunters. He sends them to the surface of Elpis, Pandora’s moon to find a way to retake the station.
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is the story told by a captured Athena to an audience of Lilith, Mordecai, and Brick. This happens with interjects from other characters as the story progresses. However, The Pre-Sequel is unlike Borderlands and Borderlands 2 where events take place as they occur.
The Playable Characters
The four playable character classes are familiar faces from the Borderlands Universe:
Athena the Gladiator
A former Lance Assasin turned mercenary and armed with a versatile Kinetic Aspis shield.
Wilhelm the Enforcer
A Hyperion engineer with a predilection to upgrade his body with cybernetics and a pair of Surveyor robots named Wolf and Saint.
Nisha the Lawbringer
A sociopathic, gun-waving sharpshooter is capable of short bursts of pinpoint accuracy, rapid reloading, and improved gun damage.
Claptrap the Fragtrap
A Claptrap robot is supercharged with an experimental software package.
DLC Characters:
Jack the Doppelganger
This is a body double of Handsome Jack who implements digistructed copies to help him in battle.
Aurelia the Baroness
This is a trillion sister of Sir Hammerlock who uses a homing Forst Diadem Shard to freeze her enemies.
Weapons and Manufacturers
Furthermore, The Pre-Sequel uses the Borderlands 2 Weapons system with some changes. However, many of the items return versions of their Borderlands 2 counterparts. Legendary items continue to have flavor text and associated weapon effects.
The differences between games are:
- Cryo replaces slag as a weapons effect
- Laser weapons are included as an additional weapon type
- Scav weapons replace Bandit weapons
- Glitch rarity weapons are introduced with the Claptastic Voyage DLC
Every Manufacturer has a focus unique to their weapons:
- Dahl’s weapons focus on stability, precision, and burst fire, and feature camouflage coloring. Most Dahl weapons feature a full auto fire rate without scoping in, while scoped in the gun shoots in bursts.
- Hyperion weapons focus on high accuracy, with sleek styling. Unlike with other weapons, the accuracy of Hyperion weapons increases the longer the trigger is depressed, but they start with low accuracy. There are two types of Hyperion weapons – those that were previously featured in Borderlands 2 featuring mostly yellow/green coloration. And ‘old’ Hyperion weapons that are red with black stripes, featuring higher bullet damage but lower fire rate.
- Jakobs weapons retain their tradition of high non-elemental damage except for a few weapons, high recoil, and low magazine sizes. Assault rifles, shotguns, and pistols fire as fast as the trigger is pulled. While sniper rifles range from slow bolt action to semi-automatic.
- Maliwan’s weapons focus on elemental damage and take on a very sleek and futuristic design with rounded corners and bright colors.
- Scavs make many of their weapons. These weapons appear as if poorly taped together, and while mostly featuring mediocre stats, sport the largest magazine capacities.
- Tediore weapons are thrown away and explode like grenades; the more ammo left in the clip, the more powerful the explosion. A fully-loaded gun district in the character’s hand after the expended weapon is discarded. In addition to this, Tediore laser weapons also discharge a mildly damaging shock tether to nearby enemies before detonation.
- Torgue weapons focus on explosive Gyrojet ammunition, which balance area-of-effect damage with low projectile velocity and reduced magazine capacity.
- Vladof continues their tradition of weapons with extremely high rates of fire and produces rotating minigun-like barrels.
What You Should Know Before Playing Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
Below are some of the things you need to know before you start playing Borderlands; The Pre-Sequel:
The Oxygen Mechanic can Change How You Play
In addition, any time you step outside of a force field on Elpis, you’re officially on a countdown timer. It is not that oxygen is hard to find, rather it is not. This game does a good job of making that an added layer of strategy while you shoot.
The Grinder is Spectacular
Instead of uploading crappy guns, you can dump them in the Grinder and try for a different gun. It changes how you view vendor trash. However, every gun is now valuable and you will find yourself comparing its attributes. And hoping that you manage to combine stuff into just the right weapon.