Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel - Season Pass (DLC)

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel sits in an odd middle-child position in the series - chronologically wedged between BL1 and BL2, developed by 2K Australia rather than Gearbox, and set mostly on Elpis, Pandora's moon. The Season Pass layers additional playable characters and story content on top of that already-niche foundation. What you're buying here is essentially the character DLC packs and campaign add-ons that extend a game that was already a slightly leaner, stranger cousin to Borderlands 2. From an RPG standpoint, the character DLC is where the real value sits. New vault hunters mean new skill trees, new Action Skills, and new ways to push the low-gravity, laser-heavy combat loop the base game built around. The Pre-Sequel leaned hard into the oxygen mechanic and butt-slamming as a core move, and the DLC characters are designed around that same weird sandbox. If you found a character whose skill tree clicked with you in the base game, the Season Pass gives you reasons to replay the whole campaign again with a different build identity, which is genuinely the best reason to extend your time with any Borderlands title. The narrative add-ons are less impressive on the writing front, and that's where I have to be honest with you. The Pre-Sequel's main appeal was the Handsome Jack origin framing - watching a mid-level Hyperion bureaucrat curdle into one of gaming's best villains. The DLC content doesn't quite match that central dramatic tension. It fills in corners rather than expanding the map in any meaningful direction. The writing has the series' trademark irreverence and fourth-wall awareness, but if you came to Pre-Sequel hoping for the layered characterization of BL2's main campaign, these additions won't scratch that itch. They're more like extended side missions with extra steps. The Mixed Steam rating (sitting around 79% positive across a large review pool) tells a fairly accurate story. Players who loved the base game and wanted more characters to grind with found decent value here. Players who were already lukewarm on Pre-Sequel's pacing - which does drag in the mid-game, loaded with the kind of fetch-quest filler I have zero patience for - found the Season Pass added more of the same without fixing the underlying problems. The Metacritic score of 75 lands in roughly the same honest territory: competent, enjoyable in bursts, not a revelation. Bottom line for the RPG-minded buyer: if build variety and co-op replayability are what you want from a Borderlands session, the extra vault hunters make this worthwhile. If you're hoping the DLC rescues a base game experience that didn't fully land for you, it won't. Play the base game first, get at least 20 hours in, and then decide whether you want more.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

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