Perhaps the best way to describe Borderlands 3 is to say it is exactly the game you would expect it to be. There are plenty of familiar faces, and it has the same sort of ambiance and atmosphere. People will still keep going into quest after quest for the same reasons (loot). While it might be difficult to accept the new villains after a great one like Handsome Jack, the twins are fine. Most importantly, the new Vault Hunters work well and the game is as fun to play alone as it is with friends. It looks, works, and plays well, and fans of the series will be more than happy to join the Crimson Raiders.

Borderlands 3 is more of the same in the best possible way, while some small tweaks to gunplay and exploration - being able to fight your way through multiple planets is invigorating - are welcome additions to the franchise.

Borderlands 3 comes with great growth in gameplay, but a safe story that had the opportunity for so much more.

Borderlands 3 may be a brain-dead story of already dead on arrival memes and a cast that is largely forgettable (Save for Tannis, I still love you for being my socially inept spirit animal), but it’s easily the most satisfying power fantasy of the year thanks to its amazingly tuned gunplay and a sophisticated flow of action that picks up the juvenile slack.

Borderlands 3 is, quite simply, more Borderlands. That means excessive charming humor, great variety in environments and sidequests and a lot of fun coop action spread throughout. The things that hold the game back are mostly minor annoyances – like the overabundance of everlasting boss fights and the gruesomely tiresome inventory management – but all in all this is a package that simply works.

Borderlands 3 is a by-the-book sequel that takes no risks. Veteran Borderlands players will embrace it, but others will find that it has not evolved enough.

The game is boorish, infantile, and violent, and, in refusing to take any sort of consistent stand, is wildly off the mark.