Borderlands Triple Pack

The Borderlands Triple Pack is a bundle of three Gearbox FPS-RPGs glued together by a common loop: shoot things, collect guns, level up a skill tree, repeat at increasing difficulty until your brain chemistry changes. If you have never touched the series, this is the chronologically sensible starting point. Play the original to understand the bones, then let Borderlands 2 refine and expand everything, and finish with The Pre-Sequel to see villain Handsome Jack's origin story close out the era. The original Borderlands is the roughest of the three. Its writing only really sparks in the DLC campaigns, and the main story is largely an excuse to push you toward the next firefight. That said, the cel-shaded Pandora still has atmosphere, and the four Vault Hunter classes (Soldier, Hunter, Berserker, Siren) give enough build variety to reward a second run. Borderlands 2 is where the series found its voice. Six playable classes (four base, two DLC) each with three cross-pollinating skill trees mean that build variety holds up far past hour 40. Axton's deployable Sabre Turret, Maya's Phaselock crowd control, Salvador dual-wielding anything, Zer0's assassination windows, Gaige's summoned Deathtrap robot, and Krieg's Buzz Axe Rampage all play meaningfully differently. Handsome Jack is one of the few looter-shooter antagonists written well enough to actually carry a narrative, which is no small thing for the genre. The Pre-Sequel takes place on Pandora's moon Elpis and introduces low-gravity traversal, O2 kit jetpack double jumps and ground slams, cryo freeze weapons, and new laser gun types. The core combat loop is tight, and the Jack-focused story has genuine payoff for anyone who finished BL2. The criticism the game earned on release was fair though: the maps lean small and oddly empty in spots, the oxygen depletion mechanic often feels like a leash rather than a design tool, and the mission writing dips in quality compared to its predecessor. Think of it as a very large, well-crafted DLC rather than a fully fledged sequel and the experience lands much better. One important caveat for PC buyers: the Steam PC version of this Triple Pack has historically bundled the base games with DLC content from the first Borderlands, but may not include every piece of downloadable content for BL2 and The Pre-Sequel the way the console physical editions did. Verify what is included in your specific key before purchasing if complete DLC coverage matters to you. Assuming the content lines up, the sheer volume of campaign add-ons, level cap upgrades, character packs, and combat arenas across all three titles represents a genuinely staggering amount of playtime for players committed to the series. For RPG-leaning players who want build depth inside a shooter shell, BL2 alone justifies the bundle. The original and Pre-Sequel are solid bonuses. Filler quests exist in all three games and none of them will win awards for subtext, but the mechanical satisfaction of a well-constructed build paying off in Badass difficulty is real and repeatable. Monika, Scout Team