#where’s the complete action figure line of ALL the Vault hunters not just Lilith Krieg and Zer0? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stillwinterair · 5 years

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The first time I played Borderlands was launch month of the first game. My friend rented it, probably from Hollywood Video but I'm honestly not sure if the timeline on that lines up, and I went over to his house one day and I picked up his brother's file and we just fucked around in the Arid Badlands. We got a Runner and chose the yellow skin for it, because the yellow skin was called "Fuego" and every time we hit the boost we'd yell "FUEGOOOOOOOOO!"

And then I went home, and he didn't really play it again, and he returned it and I forgot about it and that was that.

And then Mass Effect 3 came out. I don't think I've ever been that excited for a game, before or since. I'd been playing Mass Effect since December 2007 and it was such a huge part of my life; it had carried me through so much depression and awful life events and I was so ready to see how the story would end. So I played it. And, god, I hated it. It wasn't just the ending, it was just stripped completely of RPG elements and exploration and all the things I loved about the series. The action cover shooter stuff that I didn't like in ME2 took the stage, everything else fell to the background, and so many story arcs I was invested in just fell away. So needless to say, I needed something else to grab onto; my life was a disaster, my saving grace was awful, and I needed some new experience to help carry me out of it.

So I remembered Borderlands. I watched some reviews online and thought, "y'know what, fuck it," and went out to GameStop and grabbed the Game of the Year edition (or complete edition, or whatever they were calling it at the time) for the 360. And it fucking swallowed me whole. I fell hard, and I fell fast. I fell in love with Lilith, and with Tannis, and with this weird scifi universe that only got weirder with DLC.

I decided to play the expansions in release order, but Moxxi's Underdome came second in that order, and I had nobody to tell me that it didn't have a plot at all, so I just figured I needed help. So I went back to that same friend I played with originally, hyped it up again, and went with him to GameStop to get a copy of the game. I went through it with him from start to finish, through Zombie Island, and onto Moxxi's Underdome.

We didn't finish the Underdome, because we were getting absolutely crushed in one of the last rounds, and only THEN did I decide to look up whether or not it was necessary. It wasn't, so we moved on. We played Secret Armory and Robolution together, and I loved both of them. But especially Secret Armory. That one hit all the right notes, and at least to me, really showed the potential for the Borderlands universe.

I finished the game with just about every Vault Hunter. I may not have finished with Brick, if only because that friend mained Brick, so I felt like I already knew the character. But he was Brick, and I was Lilith, and that was my Borderlands experience.

I pre-ordered the Ultimate Loot Chest edition of Borderlands 2. That same friend and I went to the midnight release together, went back to our respective homes, booted it up, and played the beginning of the game together.

I put so. Many. Hours. Into this game. Axton was my main at first, because after playing Roland, I came to love the idea of having a turret, but hated how underwhelming it was. Axton's scratched that itch tenfold. My friend was Salvador, and then that duo became the core of my Borderlands 2 experience.

Gaige released, though, and she quickly became my main. Then Krieg, but I never quite got into him. I loved his gameplay, but other games came out and then I never quite got back to that playthrough.

But through all of Borderlands 2's campaign missions and DLC, I was waiting for Athena from the Secret Armory of General Knoxx to show up. And she never did. And I was sad. But then they announced The Pre-Sequel, with Athena front and center, and it rocked my fucking world.

Athena became what I always wanted Zer0 to be: a really, really good DPS melee class that was fun to play. I loved her, and I loved that game, and I was so happy to see the world expanding beyond Pandora. But still, I wanted something more. I wanted something narrative focused, and the comics weren't scratching the itch, and the one or two tie in novels were apparently awful, so I never bothered reading them.

But they announced Tales from the Borderlands, and all bets were off. I was immediately fucking boiling over with excitement. And god that game delivered. Every episode was clever and well-written and kept me on the edge of my seat. And it expanded the world even further, so far beyond what we'd seen.

And I think that's sort of what this post is about. I love Borderlands; it's been in my life a long time, but it only came into my life when I really needed it. And I see it with all of this potential for a wider universe that was, for so long, unexplored. But these days, the future looks bright, and huge, and full of faces, new and old. Telltale is gone now, but Tales was proof of concept that the franchise can exist both as a shooter looter, and as other things, and I hope they capitalize on that.

But mostly, god, I'm excited for Borderlands 3. This emphasis on story and character they've been showing looks incredible. Sanctuary III looks like a home in the same way Mass Effect's Normandy was, full of friends to visit and worlds to navigate toward. We're finally seeing new corners of the universe that have only been hinted at in the past. The characters are, visually, so much more interesting and expressive than ever, and the new style and depth of animation is going to fucking skyrocket Borderlands into levels of story telling we've never seen before. They went out of their way to give every planet its own unique enemy and creature populations, and they have a whole department for bosses, which has always been an underutilized feature of these games.

But the story. God, the story. I can't wait to see where it goes, how wide it expands, who we meet and who we lose. I'm glad they're doubling down on role-playing and immersion elements, like giving your character quarters on the ship.

BL3 is so full of positive change, and the franchise has a brighter future than ever. I mean, BL2 spawned two spin-off games, one in the same engine, and the other a fucking narrative adventure game. I imagine we'll see much more out of Borderlands 3. Telltale is gone, but games like Life is Strange proved that the Telltale formula can be done elsewhere, and since Gearbox owns the characters, not Telltale, they could do anything with them, even a continuation of that story, presented similarly.

I dunno. Future's bright and I'm excited! Borderlands means so much to me. I've lived in the shoes of Lilith, Axton, Gaige, and Athena for so long, and I cannot WAIT to pick up Amara. It's funny how you can spend so long playing every single character, but you always have one that just... feels like home. Feels like you.

I've spent so long imagining New Haven, T-Bone Junction, and Sanctuary as homes, and picturing what the Vault Hunters all do during downtime. That creative side of my brain starts to salivate whenever I even see Sanctuary III.

All of this really does just mean the world to me and god I needed to get all these thoughts out. It's 1:20 in the morning and I'm exhausted as hell so I'm sorry if none of this makes any sense. I'm just so excited for Borderlands 3.

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