Walks like Telltale, talks like Telltale, quacks like Gearbox Anu and Octavio start with a very strained relationship.Īt its core, New Tales From the Borderlands is about three characters - the Atlas scientist Anu, her hustler brother Octavio, and frogurt shop owner Fran - who are all down on their luck. Unfortunately, the game somewhat forgets about the drama, especially in the last two episodes of the five-episode adventure, and relies too heavily on jokes that are mistimed, random, or too repetitive. Here, Gearbox attempts to do much the same, mixing comedy with a character drama that’s mainly about a strained relationship between two siblings. In the standard Borderlands games, humor is used as an accent, a way to break up intense gunplay and serious scenes about sacrifice and loss. In hindsight, though, they probably should have brought in more writers.ĭiagnosing what exactly goes wrong with New Tales From the Borderlands is tough, but it generally stems from inexperience. So the developer went ahead and attempted to go at it alone, smartly bringing a few Telltale devs on board to help make a game that is largely out of its comfort zone. Gearbox had the idea for a sequel to the game after completing Borderlands 3, but at the time Telltale had already folded. As the name suggests, New Tales From the Borderlands is meant to be a follow-up to the critically successful Tales From the Borderlands from Telltale.

In an interview at PAX this year with Shacknews, Gearbox Software admitted it had far more experience with shooters than with narrative-based adventure games.

Download stories from the borderlands