Borderlands Legendary Collection (Switch) Review

First person shoot and looter series Borderlands has finally made it to the Switch. Those still haunted by the Borderlands 2 port for the Vita will remember the last time the series was made portable. This time it’s not only the second game, it’s the original trilogy of games in their complete editions. While this doesn’t include Borderlands 3 it’s still a whole lot of Skag shooting. 

It all starts with the first Borderlands. Four Vault Hunters arrive on Pandora seeking the fabled Vault (it’s in their name), risking their lives for the possibility of getting their hands on alien technology and weapons. Roland the Soldier, Lilith the Siren, Mordecai the Hunter and Brick the Berserker will have to shoot and loot their way through countless bandits and Skags to get to their prize.

Borderlands 2 sees a new team of Vault Hunters on Pandora, once again seeking one of the Alien Vaults. This time they’re up against Handsome Jack, a corporate President who has the planet under his control. Fortunately the original Vault Hunters, a few familiar faces and a claptrap can help on this lootinest tootiness (shootiness?) adventure this side of Pandora. 

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! Is exactly what it says, the prequel to Borderlands 2, or Borderlands 1.5. It takes place before Handsome Jack becomes the villain in the sequel. Once again you get to choose from four (six with DLC characters added) Vault Hunters you might be familiar with from the sequel. After escaping the Helios base you wind up on the moon of Pandora; Elpis, which is pretty much Space Australia. Over the course of the game you’ll discover more about what brought Jack and the main characters to where they are in the sequel. 

If you’ve managed to miss the whole Borderland franchise then I better get you up to date. Borderlands is a first-person shooter combined with RPG elements and a lot of loot. As you progress through the story you’ll pick up heaps of side missions to help out citizens along the way. You’re often rewarded with more guns, and if you’re lucky it’ll be a unique one. The rarer guns can have extra qualities, such as elemental damage, your gun can be thrown like a grenade when you reload or it can swear like an Aussie bogan whenever you use it. As you level up you get points you can spend on a skill tree. Each character gets one main skill that can be levelled up in several ways depending on where you spend the points. For example, do you want to upgrade your turret so you can have two at once? Or do you want it to fire rockets? Or do you want the turret to provide support to your team through ammo and health? Across the games, you have 16 Vault Hunters who all come with their own ability and skill tree. Some characters you might prefer when playing solo, and another when playing as part of a team. Over the years Gearbox has also provided interactive skill trees online for you to mess around with if you want to plan ahead. It could save you an hour or two with a character where their skills aren’t what you expected.

Borderlands is the game of the year edition that came out on current gen consoles. It doesn’t have the same enhanced 4K visuals or framerate, but it does bring some quality of life improvements from the sequel. The inclusion of a mini map is a vital upgrade, I had forgotten how annoying the compass was until I checked back on some old footage. Holding down the pick up item button to pick up multiple items might seem like a pretty small improvement, it matters. I remember it being such a relief when it was added in the sequel back at release. Borderlands overall is still a pretty fun game, not as fun as the sequel, but sequels are meant to be an improvement. It’s still important if you care about the series overall as the game lays a lot of groundwork for the entries after. You can leap right into Borderlands 2 and pick up what’s going on (the opening narration helps), but it’ll make it harder to go back to the first game. 

Borderlands 2 ramped everything up – more guns, more environments and a lot more memes. It takes the lessons learned from the first game and makes for a more enjoyable game. The story was a surprising continuation of the original Vault Hunters through the eyes of the new crew. Almost to even out the enjoyable combat, the humour forces itself to nearly every situation. What someone will find funny is subjective, and there are some chuckles or amusing moments. Just be prepared for some tired memes or awkward jokes, after all these years it’s nothing new compared to a few minutes on social media anyways. Jokes aside, the rest of the game is a blast to play. The variety in locales really helps keep the world interesting. The story does a lot more with the characters from the original, while upping the ante for the world of Pandora. 

The Pre-Sequel had the misfortune of not being a proper numbered game in the series. The team from the now-defunct 2K Australia managed to put a localised spin on the Borderlands series. Most notably the Australian accented characters, always nice to see as an Australian. Give us Aussies the slightest mention and it makes us chuffed. The Pre-Sequel tries to do something different by adding in floaty moon physics and using your limited O2 to hover around. A lot of the make or break of this game is around how enjoyable you find this new mechanic. I can’t say I’m a fan, it’s not bad, it feels more cumbersome to me than it ever feels fun. But I still wanted to see the tale of how Handsome Jack became such a jerk and how it all ties into the other games. 

While the standalone games are already sizeable, when you add in the DLC packs you’re adding another ten hours minimum per game. Not all of the DLC is that fun to delve into, especially ones that are essentially a series of arena fights. There’s still some great stuff there, whether it’s a story that adds to the lore, or some fun side content when you’re not ready to leave the world of Pandora just yet. 

One of the big features Borderlands has always boasted of is the amount of guns, and these games have a lot of them. There’s hundreds of randomised combinations of guns you can loot, either from crates, vending machines or from the carcass of your enemy. Like with any loot-based game it gets exhausting, especially when your carrying capacity is never that generous. The earlier sections of the games limit you to easily switch between only 2 guns. It all feels limiting in a game that wants to present itself as being armed to the teeth. Once you get access to weapon storage it does alleviate the worst of the limited capacity. Over time you just get used to being able to ignore useless guns, they’re not even worth the money to sell. 

Besides the iconic comic book/cel shaded visuals and the Mad Max aesthetic, another association with the series is its humour. Firstly, it’s not for everyone. The first game didn’t go too ‘wacky’, while the sequel really leans into ‘random’ humour that was bigger at the time. The DLC and the Pre-sequel even out a little bit, but it is still very much Borderlands. If there’s one area of the game that hasn’t aged well it’s the humour. some language used doesn’t fly in this day and age, it’s at times shocking . If you can get past all that awkwardness there is a series of fun games under that. Even though it got a bit forced, I still have time for Claptrap and its stupid dialog and dancing.

The games included have all been released on last-gen consoles, so it’s not a surprise that all three games run really well. Not only do they run at 1080p, but they also maintain 30FPS. Unlike the original games they don’t dip below that, it’s a nice solid 30FPS. While the Vita port of Borderlands 2 did the best it could with its hardware, the Switch ports never feel like it breaks a sweat. This collection also adds in gyro aiming, while I don’t use it, I am aware that there are plenty who do. 

Loading isn’t always the quickest, but it’s never too long. There’s a strange amount of loading when pop up messages show up, and you can’t just skip out of these messages straight away. It could just be a measure to ensure you’re not skipping past anything important, but it’s still weird.

Borderlands is just fine playing it solo, and it’s much better to share it with friends. The three games offer split screen for local co-op, local play if you both have the game and your own switch, or online play. In the time I checked out either online or tested out the split screen, there weren’t any issues. If you have the people around to join you on Pandora it’s as fun as it’s ever been, only now you can on a handheld a lot more people actually own (I’m sorry, I still love you Vita) 

With the Borderlands Collection being a part of the 2K Switch ports that all dropped at the same time, there is one unavoidable let down; the price. Now really it’s not an unreasonable price for three games that will keep you busy over 20-30 hours per game. It’s the old issue where all three games can often be found much cheaper on the other platforms, more recently it’s even been free! If you love the series and really want the games on your Switch the asking price is still decent value for the sheer amount of Borderlands packed in here. It’s a tough decision to make, especially if you have the games on other platforms, the price of portability is steep. Definitely keep an eye out for any sales if it’s currently a tough sale for you, it is a great bundle to have.

The Borderlands Collection finally brings the series to the Switch without compromise. It plays well and looks even better than I expected, even in handheld. The humour definitely isn’t for everyone, but it’s hard to not be sucked into the world of Pandora. While I won’t hold my breath for a Borderlands 3 port, the rest of the series on the go is a more than reasonable trade. The collection provides great value, while the price is a little high, there is easily over 100+ hours of content. If you’ve sunk many hours into the series in the past now there is a way to play it anywhere. If you’re a newcomer it’s about time you made the trip to Pandora.

Rating: 4/5