For the most part, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was yet another solid entry in the beloved franchise, with some satisfying gunplay, plenty of progression systems, and enough over-the-top characters to make even the original trilogy blush. But Tiny Tina’s wasn’t perfect, and if an eventual sequel is going to truly succeed, there are a few glaring errors that need to be addressed.
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What Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands 2 Needs to Do To Succeed
There’s no denying that Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands has a very strong basis at its core. The premise alone is enough to warrant a fully-fledged game, and Wonderlands goes above and beyond with it, both being a lighthearted criticism of the fantasy genre and its many, many tropes, while also being a love letter to the genre as a whole. In fact, out of the entire franchise, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands may strike this balance the best, with its humor actually feeling baked into the DNA of the game as opposed to just feeling like an extra sprinkling on top.
On top of its incredibly unique satirical fantasy setting, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is also a pretty solid title in terms of actual gameplay. Shooting feels better than ever, each class feels genuinely distinct, melee weapons are a nice addition, and class abilities feel even more impactful than ever before. The game’s overall aesthetic and visual design is also top-notch, with bright and bold colors galore, and plenty of variation when it comes to environments and arenas. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands has a very strong core, but the overall experience is significantly worsened by its weaker elements.
On average, most Borderlands games take over 20 hours to finish, and well over 50 hours to complete. Even the shortest Borderlands game, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, still comes in at about 18 hours to finish its main campaign. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands can be beaten in just 15 hours. While this length isn’t too bad for an average AAA title, it pales in comparison to the rest of the franchise, and for a series so dedicated to replayability, the shorter runtime is certainly a weak point. The skill tree system in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands could also be improved, with it offering just one skill tree per character class, as opposed to the former games’ multiple skill trees. While this streamlined the whole progression process, it made some fans feel a little limited in how they could go about creating their build, and didn’t exactly encourage repeat playthroughs or experimenting with different characters.
But by far the most disappointing aspect of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was its post-launch DLC. Throughout Borderlands history, post-launch expansions have been widely considered to be some of the best content in the entire game, with Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep being the perfect example, offering a ton of unique content for a fairly low price. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands’ expansions aren’t quite as impressive, not offering whole campaigns, but instead just offering one dungeon each that players are expected to repeatedly play through in order to earn new loot. A Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands sequel should definitely be considered by Gearbox Software, just as long as it fixes the issues fans had with the first game.
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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