What comes to mind when you think of the Borderlands series? First-person shooter + role-playing gameplay, manga rendering style, beautiful Pandora planet, witty and funny character design... For most players, the biggest charm of the Borderlands series is that they can burst and brush in a colorful world. The gameplay design of this set of fps+rpg not only achieves the "Borderlands" series, but also provides design ideas for many subsequent shooter games.
But when asked what story and what kind of world is depicted in a series with four titles and a total sales of more than 43 million units so far, many old players may only know exactly what kind of story it is. After all, for such a game with shooting gameplay as the selling point, the plot story is often easy to ignore. But in fact, as a science fiction game, the developer gearbox, which has always been good at making efforts in plot stories, is still not reduced, and through several works, it not only creates many vivid characters, rolls out a variety of future science fiction architecture, but also tells a story full of dreams, ambitions and feelings.
The ambitions of arms dealers
To understand the storyline of Borderlands, we must first understand some of the settings of this world and understand the origin of the stories of various battles that take place on the planet Pandora. This source is not complicated to say, whether it is our secret hunters coming to Pandora to explore the treasure, or handsome Jack controlling Pandora for evil, behind it is the result of the confrontation of several large enterprises.
The backstory of the original Borderlands takes place in the next 2864, and judging from the game's description, Pandora is supposed to be a barren area on the edge of the entire human sphere of influence, a truly barren borderland where government forces cannot or care about it. This also gives many large enterprises room to fish in muddy waters and lawlessness. Most of these companies are mainly military-industrial, and the various and strange weapons in the game come from them, but they are involved in a business far beyond arms trafficking.
First of all, the first big business players came into contact with in the original game was the old conglomerate: Dahl. As the largest arms manufacturer on the planet Pandora in the early days, Dahl's slogan was "Dead customers can't become repeat customers, and it is in our best interest to keep you alive." Dahl was one of the companies that rose up in the early human exploration of the universe, and thus accumulated great wealth and resources. In addition to armaments, industry, mining, refining, and other fields are all areas of Dahl's involvement, and the echo huds that the player-operated Vault Hunter obtained at the beginning of the original generation is a free gift from Dahl to every traveler who comes to the planet Pandora. As one of the first companies to develop on the planet Pandora, Dahl did a lot of infrastructure work on Pandora: from the garbage bins and toolboxes on the roadside to the sentry turrets and wind farms in the border areas, which were owned by Dahl; Dar even had his own territory on Pandora: dahl headlands.
But what is really special about Dahl is its catty relationship with the government, where Dahl's mining operations in Pandora use a large number of heavy prisoners as free labor. However, due to the deadlock in Pandora's secret treasure exploration and the near depletion of local minerals, Dahl chose to evacuate Pandora. When Dahl evacuates Pandora, the angry, desperate, and long-exploited prisoners who have suffered physical and mental problems are rightfully abandoned and become bandits running rampant in the game.
Most of the bandits on the original Pandora were prisoners abandoned by The Dahl Company
In the early days, we meet Dr. Tannis, a neurotic woman scientist hired by Dahl to explore Pandora's secrets. By the time our Vault Hunters approached Tanis, the female Ph.D. who was already suffering from autism had been abandoned by Dahl and had survived for a long time in Pandora's harsh environment and the constant killing of colleagues around her. Therefore, although the player encounters Dr. Tanis, although he has a lot of knowledge about secrets and ancient aliens, his mental state is already very unstable.
As a Vault Researcher, Tannis directs the Vault Hunters to find three Vault Fragments. Seeing that hunters are about to get rich from the secret treasure, Tanis can also prove the value of his research, but the secret treasure is like blood, which will inevitably attract vicious sharks.
Dr. Tanis is a character throughout the original generation
Upstart Atlas
The Quest Hunter's quest for the Vault under the guidance of Dr. Tannis is the basic storyline of the original Borderlands, and Steele, the frontline commander of the Red Spear Knights, overshadows the Hunters as they are about to find the Vault: she captures Dr. Tannis, forces him to hand over the Vault Key, and asks the Doctor to guide the Hunters toward the wrong goal.
As the commander of the Red Spear Front, Steele has a special identity--- she is a witch like the protagonist Lilith, and there are only six witches in the universe, and only witches have the ability to use the key to open the secret. The Red Spear Knights, led by Steele, were a force of mercenaries, veterans, and robbers, a private armed force formed by another large company ---- Atlas itself. Roland, one of the first four Vault Hunters, was originally an officer of the Red Spear Knights, and in the official comics Roland lost all his subordinates due to the suspicion and betrayal of his superiors, and he also went from a Red Spear officer to revenge on the entire Red Spear.
Commander Steele's witch tattoo proves that she is actually a witch
Like Dahl, Atlas is an arms-based business. Atlas is a giant god in Greek mythology, and there are many shadows of Greek mythology in the Borderlands series. Atlas was originally only a second-rate company, but Atlas accidentally discovered the remains of aliens on a planet called Prometheus. After studying the alien relics, Atlas mastered high-tech machine and weapon manufacturing capabilities, the technology of the product rose sharply, the profits soared, and the company's size once had a tendency to surpass Dahl.
Zeus fought the Titans for ten years, and the battle ended in a draw. We believe that as long as Zeus had our legendary weapon, he would be able to win in half the time." Atlas's "adventure" of sudden wealth has stimulated many other large companies to explore alien technology and resources, but often it does not work out, and Dahl's experience in Pandora is the best proof. Atlas's attempt to replicate the success of Pandora again was unsuccessful, and with the red spear commander Steele being stabbed by the boss destroyer in the original ending, Atlas decided to terminate the exploration operation in Pandora and evacuate directly. The remnants of the Red Spear Knights on Pandora were abandoned by Atlas, partly becoming lawless bandits in this outlaw land, while others joined the Red Spear Resistance Army formed by former Red Spear officer Roland to fight against another careerist who coveted the wealth of Pandora's planet and the huge enterprise behind him.
Behind the original destroyers is a man-made conspiracy
Ambitious handsome Jack
The end of the story of the original Borderlands era leaves the player with two important messages: one is that the vault on Pandora has been opened, and the other is that the vault hunter has actually been used. This also leads to the story framework of Borderlands 2 and the handsome Jack, a crazy, hypocritical but witty and pathetic villain ---.
Although Handsome Jack only appeared in the 2nd generation, he is actually the real needle in the entire series of Borderlands, and even some players have summarized the story of the Borderlands series as "Handsome Jack's Struggle History", which seems to be no problem. Behind the ambitionist must be an organization that supports his ambitions, and the organization behind Handsome Jack is the hyperion company that quickly rose to dominate Pandora by the weakening of the first two major enterprises, Dahl and Atlas.
Programmers also have dreams
At the time of the original Borderlands story, Handsome Jack was just an ordinary programmer under The Hyperion. Although Hyperion's early strength was not as good as Dahl and Atlas, it was involved in a wide range of businesses, from arms, robot manufacturing (that is, small noises), and the station system on Pandora. Originally, as a Jack with no background and special ability, he could only be a grassroots employee in such a large enterprise for the rest of his life, but the handsome Jack had a gift from Heaven--- his daughter Angel, one of the six witches.
The simple and happy life of Jack and his wife was changed by angel's arrival, and Angel, who could not control the magic well, accidentally killed his mother in an accident. This directly leads to the original humorous Jack gradually falling into the abyss of paranoia and madness: on the one hand, he still loves his daughter deeply, and on the other hand, he also hates the magic of her daughter. So he imprisoned Angel and made her a subservient being.
The worst of the six witches should be Angel
Angel's disguise in the original Borderlands who secretly guided the Vault Hunters was exactly what Angel had pretended to be, and eventually the Hunters defeated Atlas to open the Vault as Jack had wished. It was just that Jack's original plan was to use Angel's magic to gain the power to manipulate the destroyers, and by the way, he took over the group of hunters who had no use value, but he did not expect that the foot men were too powerful and killed the destroyers with one operation. However, although the Destroyer is killed, Jack gets the Destroyer's Eye and uses it to create a super weapon, the Eye of Helios, which he intends to use to suppress Pandora by force. Unfortunately, roland and Lilith, the original hunters who originally worked with him, saw through Jack's paranoid ambitions at the last moment, destroyed the Eye of Helios, and officially announced that they had parted ways with Jack.
By this time Jack had been completely blackened, and betrayal and defeat had caused him to completely tear off the mask of hypocrisy. He opened the secret vault on Pandora's Moon and obtained a wealth of information, including the knowledge of aliens and the distribution of the special mineral e-mine on the planet Pandora. Although Lilith once again destroyed the vault and left a treasure chest logo-shaped scar on Jack's face, Lilith did not choose to kill Jack on the spot, underestimating the power of ambition and desire.
Lilith shot, but didn't kill Jack
Jack became a fierce villain after the death of the Great Tribulation, and after returning to Hyperion, he used the information obtained in the vault to exploit the e-mine on the planet Pandora, so that Hyperion made a lot of money and gave himself a considerable position in the company. He then, without hesitation, murders Hyperion's boss and replaces him, taking full control of Hyperion, and using Angel's abilities to monitor the entire Pandora through the echo system, and since then the masked man who calls himself "Handsome Jack" has become Pandora's tyrant, although he still retains the humor and humor of once being a normal person.
Don't mess with the foot man
From the perspective of ordinary people, handsome Jack's history is quite inspiring: a programmer has become a planetary dictator, which is the rhythm that only online novels dare to make. Through the plot, we can see that Jack is not only an ambitionist, but also a thorough activist: he took the initiative to recruit the original hunters to defeat Atlas in an attempt to gain the power of the Destroyer; after the plan failed, he found helpers to try to control the Eye of Helios; it was not easy to fully control Hyperion, after all, Jack was originally just an ordinary employee, and how many intrigues and deceitfulness he had only himself knew.
A clear mind, huge ambition, full of energy and unscrupulous methods have made Jack a real tyrant in the world of Borderlands, and he has paid for the trust of all his family and friends. Handsome Jack made almost every major decision in his favor, except for one thing: he mistakenly provoked the mysterious Vault Hunter.
As mentioned earlier, the original four hunters, Roland and Lilith, one of them carved a scar on Jack's face, and the other formed the Red Spear Resistance Army on Pandora and Hyperion to harden to the end. And the other two aren't easy to mess with: Modkai was a wanted man with a multimillion-dollar bounty before the bus of the last generation, and was once disqualified from winning a sniper game with his revolver. What did Handsome Jack do to him? Well, killed Mordekai's only companion, Bloodwing; the big man Brick once slaughtered the bandit's den alone because the bandit kidnapped the child, and Jack killed his beloved dog... The four hunters were initially recruited by Jack, and even became Jack's companions for a while, but in the end they all formed a hatred with Jack and became the main force against Hyperion.
One generation of buses, two generations of trains, three generations of transportation
Jack's most bizarre maneuver is the solicitation of several hunters in Generation 2. Originally, Jack's idea was to recruit some thugs to deal with the resistance forces on Pandora, and Hyperion's HR was also quite capable, and everyone he found was talent: another witch in the Six Witches, the former Dahl Company was perhaps the most beautiful soldier, the killer who could use illusions invisibly and did not look like a human full of mysteries, the local natives who were thick and strong but jealous and hateful, and so on. But for some reason, several hunters had just boarded the train, and Jack was going to blow up the train. As a result, people did not explode, but instead sent a wave of fresh blood to the resistance forces, which was really incomprehensible.
At the same time, Angel, who has been imprisoned by Jack, finally can't stand Jack's control and is bent on liberation, so Angel and the rebel army led by the hunter should cooperate and kill Jack. Unsurprisingly, Jack unleashes another alien beast by kidnapping Lilith and opening another vault, but in the end he is no match for the Foot Man, oh no, the Hunter's sanction. This time, Lilith did not show any mercy, personally ended the life of Jack, the great conspirator, and removed his mask, ending Hyperion's dictatorship on Pandora.
Jack's emotional entanglement with Angel is complicated
New stories, new futures
The story told in the Borderlands, Borderlands Prequel, and Borderlands 2 trilogies came to an official end because of Jack's death. Both Atlas and Hyperion were unable to wage a decent conspiracy because of the huge losses suffered on Pandora. But the mysterious star map that appears in the finale of Generation 2 shows that there are secrets on countless planets, people's desires and ambitions are far from over, and the story of Borderlands will also move towards a new future.
Judging from the promotional video about Borderlands 3 released by Gearbox so far, the Children of the Vault will become the main villain cult of the game, and it is conceivable that the purpose of this organization is naturally to pursue various secrets. We don't know whether the big companies in the previous game are behind the scenes, but I believe that no one expects these mercenary companies not to continue to participate. As always, a new witch will join the four new hunters of the 3rd generation, while Lilith and Maya will also appear, plus the villain female character is also suspected of being a witch, and the remaining four of the six witches in the setting will all appear. Just as six Infinity Stones together can cause big trouble, will the real secret behind the witch be revealed in the game?
There should be no doubt that the villain is a witch
The hunky Brick grew up his beard and played the instrument, and after the revenge he seemed to let go of himself; little Tina was still strong after Roland's death, and Moses and Marcus didn't know if there was a new story; Dr. Tanis seemed to be in good spirits, and the secret of your life should also fill a hole...
Although the theme of the "Borderlands" series is shooting and treasure hunting, the plot story, characters, and background settings add real connotation and color to the world, and also make "Borderlands 3" more exciting.
Borderlands 3 will be officially available worldwide on September 13, 2019 on epic game marketplaces on PS4, Xbox One, and Windows PC platforms!
The epic game marketplace has opened pre-orders, with Borderlands 3 Standard Edition priced at $29.99, and the Super Deluxe Edition sold for $69,99 for a limited time during the pre-order period, which will revert to $89.99 after listing.
The Borderlands series' shift membership program, the Vault Insider Program, is now open, and players can register for free in the game of the previous Game of the Borderlands series and receive generous rewards.