Developer: TellTale Games |
Publisher: TellTale Games
Players: 1 Player Game |
Genre: Adventure

Release Date: Late Summer 2014

The world of Borderlands is expanding with Tales from the Borderlands from TellTale Games.  Just because you see the title Borderlands, don’t expect a First Person Shooter.  This is very much an adventure game built on the same engine that other great TellTale franchises were built on like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us.

It may seem odd for a character based studio basing its next game on a First Person Shooter. But Gearbox has created a rich story with lots of great characters and a backstory. In Tales from the Borderlands, they are going to chip away at the typical First Person Shooter gameplay and showcase the story of the world.  

The story in Tales from the Borderlands centers around two characters: Rhys and Fiora. Rhys is who the demo we saw focusses on. He is a character with great ambitions. Working for the Hyperion Corporation, Rhys has seen the rise and fall of Handsome Jack and he hopes to takes his position now that Handsome Jack is no more. 

As our story begins, the narrator from the Borderlands series introduces the story. This makes the game feel like an authentic Borderlands experience. Rhys appears in the office of the newly placed head of Hyperion Hugo Vasquez. Vasquez is a total jerk and is completely full of himself, and his new position, despite only having it for 20 minutes. During this meeting, Vasquez gets a call and Rhys can hack his computer to see what is on his screen. It is there, and with the phone call, you learn that there is a Vault Key for sale.

Your friend Vaughn comes into the office and this gives you a perfect reason to leave the presence of Hugo Vasquez. You also run into your other friend Yvette. After hacking the new bosses computer, Rhys knows that the deal for the vault key is going down on Pandora and it is for one million dollars. So they scheme to make the purchase for themselves.

Fast forward, the player and Vaughn are on Pandora in Hugo Vasquez’s car. Vaughn has one million bucks attached to his wrist via a briefcase with the only weapon at your disposal being a stun baton that you have no idea how it works.

You stop to see if you can get some directions to where you need to go and there are some green boxes. Just like in Borderlands, these have loot in them. The player finds some cash to take that you can use to bribe others in the game during certain dialogue sequences. Of course, bribing doesn’t quite work out and bandits appear and begin firing. Rhys and Vaughn are clueless when it comes to combat so they contact Yvette to see about a Hyperion Loader bot to be sent down. The player gets to outfit the robot with a primary and secondary weapon and then the fun begins!

Players can target enemies on the screen and fire at them and also use arrows and button presses to attack and counter attack the bandits. After the fight, players end up meeting a guy name August, and his girlfriend, who have the key. The demo comes to a close as we find out Rhys has exaggerated the ending of his story and Fiora was there watching all along. How did she get there and why do Rhys and Fiora dislike each other? These are but a few questions that will be answered in Tales from the Borderlands.

One thing I noticed about the game engine of Tales from the Borderlands is there were absolutely no framerate drops or stuttering. The game ran beautifully and is easily the best looking Telltale game I have ever seen. It also appears to be the least buggiest.

The story will takes place over 5 episodes and TellTale is promising to get episodes out monthly. Tales from the Borderlands is one of the best looking and most enjoyable games we have seen at E3 2014 and it definitely looks like a title to keep your eyes on when it releases towards the end of Summer.

By Kaleb Rutherford – 06/11/14

Screenshots for Tales from the Borderlands First Look