Once upon a time, in simpler 2013, 2K released a DLC pack for Borderlands 2. Titled Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep, this expansion pack is creatively designed as a game within a game, with Vault Hunters sitting down to enjoy tabletop role-playing sessions and a stylistic transition from sci-fi to fantasy. Dragon Keep is excellent, framing Borderlands reference humor without relying on memes and pop culture gimmicks – instead, the meta-jokes surrounding the nature of tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons rule this one realm, while the story unfolding behind the DM screen tilts in the other direction, culminating in a very touching story of how Bunkers & Badasses (the game’s cosmic twist in D&D) act as pint-sized DMs, Tiny Tina’s coping mechanism.
Dragon Keep is the fourth and best DLC for Borderlands 2, and while the others are somewhere between good and good, it’s really good. Like the previous pack, it offers a pretty sprawling mini-campaign, tons of side quests, tons of new gear, core raid bosses, and more… 15-20 hours of new stuff, or if you’re Running it, more on multiple characters and farm stuff like raid bosses and arenas. Fans loved it and wanted more, so fast forward to 2022 and they got their wish with the release of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands – a full game based on the same brilliant concept. With its predecessor, Dragon Keep, a shining example of the series’ generally good track record when it comes to DLC, Wonderlands has high hopes for honoring its legacy with some great additions of its own. Those hopes were dashed yesterday.
Coiled Captors, the first DLC pack for Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, arrived yesterday for about the same price as the previous chunky Borderlands expansion, but frankly the lack of content to support that cost is embarrassing. The “adventure” starts with Dreamveil Overlook, which is a really cool haunted amusement park, but even that won’t earn Coiled Captors any points, since it’s only part of the update – players can visit if they own the DLC, though it’s very Less If you don’t, it’s not just a small central area with a neat theme but ultimately meaningless. At the center of the area is the aforementioned monster, a slot machine built out of sheer disappointment, ready to snatch souls (a new currency added in the DLC) in exchange for the usually pathetic rewards.
How do you earn souls, you ask? Well, after visiting this quaint little area, you’ll head to a magic mirror. This is the first of four – each season pass content drop will obviously stick to that formula, each with a new mirror – and will take you to a new place where you’ll find What it means is a real lack of original ideas or content. The entire story of Coiled Captors is condensed into a short cutscene that plays when you load up, followed by what can only be described as a worse version of the Chamber of Chaos – a multi-round arena fight with the same enemies you kill Countless times before going into battle, there are puny goals and exciting bonus challenges like breaking barrels. At the end of this colorful ten-minute yawn, you’ll meet Chums, the only boss in this mode, and he’s just a big version of the shark enemy you shoot until he dies and then you get something. No mechanics, no fun moves, not even a lot of payouts…there’s some nice new gear up for grabs, but Wheel of Fortune’s prizes are completely random, and chasing the Chaos Chamber’s target loot is a better use your time. That’s it. That’s DLC. Obviously, that’s what ten bucks brings you right now. Honestly, it’s disgusting.
But wait, things will get worse. Coiled Captors actually has four increasingly challenging tiers, each with a new version of Chums. In a truly incredible move, Gearbox has ordered that these extra tiers should be turned off after the weekly reset, which means in addition to chasing down some new loot (most of which appear to be stealth items like accessories, or is a re-skin of your existing gear, naturally), that 15-minute run is all you pay, and then you have to wait a week to be bored to tears again. Interestingly, players found that instead of waiting a month to get it, you could simply go offline to make all tiers available and quickly get the achievement for defeating Chad Chums.
Of course, these areas, challenges, and bosses are added to the pool of potential things that can appear in a Chaos Chamber run, which adds even more variety to them, but that’s not the real deal.It’s roughly the same extra functionality as some of the previous expansion packs – you know, except for things like an actual activity – We’ve seen much cheaper packs and even free seasonal modes offer the game more than Coiled Captors can, so for those who believe Borderlands has a long history in DLC (not you, no Homeland 3 season pass 2..) and dropped $30 on the season pass. The forthcoming new class in the fourth pack is a silver lining, but at the front line is this serious mixture of tepid challenge modes that are definitely worse than what the base game already has, and three others like it Same. can not wait anymore.
The extent to which the potential is wasted here cannot be overstated. D&D is a game with limitless story potential, and games based on it should offer the same opportunity to spark limitless creativity. Wonderland splurges on it with aplomb here, so much so that its subject matter even disappears entirely. Without the new dialogue from Tina and the rest of the all-star cast, the illusion of game-for-game is gone, and the rote memorization of dull encounters doesn’t even fly over a table full of seasoned characters— – Players. It’s honed to hone in on, and its quarter-hour of content should stretch to a longer run time just because you want to replay it. I can tell you now that desire does not exist. You’ll probably end up laughing at how bad it is – the slot machine takes a long time to spin once at a time (you even have to queue for your turn to use it in multiplayer) and often spit out garbage. In fact, the shark’s It’s no joke that the enemy (pictured above) is inexplicably called the “missing name,” making it feel like more than a hilarious bug — but the brutal 0.67/5 TA user rating is money. It’s so bad that the title update that enables it is actually better than the DLC itself.
This unfortunate excuse for an expansion is doubly irritating, as it doesn’t even decently fix the major issues in the game since its release. Mission tracking and achievements are still a mess (even the two new ones – the one that beat Chum didn’t show up until my third kill), co-op is still a lagging, often unplayable disaster, and you still encounter Several fixes have been made, but various issues remain. As a big Borderlands fan, I’m not happy to be the bearer of bad news like this, but hey, at least I’m not the bearer of bad DLC, just a frustrated gambler who was tricked by it. Do you need my advice? Waiting for a sale…other stuff you want to play, never, ever, once Consider buying this poor thing.
