Even though it might look like a simple Borderlands 3 re-skin at face value, there are almost too many reasons why we should all play Tiny Tina's Wonderlands at launch day. Today, we'd like to go over them, as we feel that the game may have been overshadowed by some of 2022's previous releases by now.

Set and primed to hit the stores on March 25th, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is - sure enough - Tiny Tina's Borderlands, but fantasy. Make no mistake, this is a game about looting and shooting and rooting through garbage to do some more looting in the end. It doesn't change what Borderlands is all about.

What it does change, however, is a player's approach to the Borderlands game fantasy. It's going to become clear enough what this means in due time, but the important bit is this: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is going to be the most free-form Borderlands game yet.

Pre-order Tiny Tina's Wonderlands and get the exclusive Golden Hero Armor Pack: last chance!

Top 6 Reasons Why You Should Play Tiny Tina's Wonderlands!

#6: Character Creation & Customization

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For the first time in a Borderlands game, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands lets players make their own characters from scratch. It's hard to overstate how cool this is, especially now that clothing and armor customization will be available as well. No more premade Vault Hunters stuck with their own premade skill trees, no. This time, you can make the monstrosity you always knew you wanted to make, but never could.

According to Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Creative Director, Matt Cox, the implemented character creator is an incredibly powerful tool. "You can go full Monster Factory," explained Cox. Elves, goblins, orcs, bat-creatures, and other options are readily available, and players can even disengage symmetry sliders and offset whatever they like. Horrendous, but awesome!

#5: Multiclass Specializations

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So, you know how in Titan Quest and Grim Dawn, there's an option to multi-spec your character into two disparate combatant classes? As it turns out, Wonderlands lets you do precisely just that. So far, Gearbox has confirmed no less than six distinctive character classes, and players will be able to freely mix and match between them:

The names are mostly self-explanatory, and it may be worth pointing out that the Season Pass will include additional classes as post-launch content, too. Something that Borderlands 3 never added, and was widely criticized for. A Clawbringer Sporewarden will, therefore, have the option of wielding hammers as melee weapons and bows as ranged armaments, as well as to summon AoE abilities as support options for their various pets.

#4: It All Feels Surprisingly Fresh

There was a lot to love about Borderlands 3, make no mistake. The most important success that Gearbox had with that particular game was that they finally managed to nail down the gameplay. Without the faintest sliver of a doubt, Borderlands 3 is the most fun Borderlands game there is, and the good news is that the good parts are all making the transition to Wonderlands, too.

So, while the gunplay and the loot functionality will be mostly identical, yet reskinned for the purposes of Wonderlands' fantasy aesthetic, most everything else is changing. Players will, for example, travel the overworld not in first-person with vehicles, but with chibi-like miniatures of their characters, running over a simplified overworld map. This opens up the world for randomized encounters and open-ended gameplay more than ever before, and randomized world-gen could finally play a role in Borderlands as well.

#3: Easily The Craziest Version of Borderlands Yet

Since Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is a game within a game, Gearbox could really go all-out with it. The game's bestiary of monsters is bigger and more varied than ever before. On top of that, tech-based abilities are supplanted or even outright replaced by literal spellcasting. Grenades? Explosive potions and bomb spells. Drones? Flying drakes and other assorted spells. Automatic rifles? Rapid-fire crossbows!

Granted, both rifles and crossbows are making an appearance in the game. The guns are not absent from Wonderlands, you see, and we feel that this is the one thing that Gearbox is smart not to have done away with. Besides, it's not like Tiny Tina's Wonderlands will call upon suspension of disbelief...

#2: Incredible New Weapons & Entertaining Design-Work

And speaking of weapons, boy do they look sleek this time around. As we said before, the majority of Wonderlands' considerable list of weapons will be sourced from Borderlands 3, but a number of changes are being made to make them more appropriate for the given setting. Most weapon manufacturers are, for example, being replaced with inspired equivalents. To that end, a Dahl auto-rifle may now roll with a crossbow-style X-bow repeater in lieu of a barrel compensator or a front grip.

Grenade launchers, too, are now lobbing either magical projectiles or fantasy-style bombs. In the case of rolling a magical projectile launcher, then, the player may reload it by sprinkling some salt over the open crystal container located on top of the tube breach. No, really, you read that right.

Add a wide variety of melee weapons such as swords, maces, and staves to the mix, and you've got a veritable blast just waiting to go off.

#1: It's the Fantasy Borderlands That Fans Deserve

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Finally, a subset of Borderlands fans has been clamoring for a fantasy-themed Borderlands game ever since Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep came out. It just so happens that Wonderlands is a direct continuation of that! But, whereas Dragon Keep was just a reskin of Borderlands 2, Wonderlands is an all-out conversion. One that looks sensible and just weird and ridiculous enough to work well.

It feels funny to talk about spells, swords, and crossbows in the context of Borderlands, yet here we are. Gearbox has done everything it could to make this game the one to remember. While there's no telling if it, too, will go the way of the dodo in just a few years, we're hard-pressed not to play this game. Fingers crossed that it's every bit as good as its preview version was!

Closing Thoughts

So, do you agree with our list of reasons to play Tiny Tina's Wonderlands? All the major previews describe this particular rendition of the franchise as "Borderlands in Skyrim," or some variant thereof, and we can't help but agree with this assessment.

Gearbox certainly seems to know what it's about with this project. Whereas Borderlands 3, in the end, may have leaned too much towards its pair of annoying villains and a story that's effectively impossible to ignore, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is more interested in bite-sized storytelling that shouldn't annoy too much.

Granted, this is just based on a few hours' worth of the game's preview build. We'll need to see how it all pans out in the end, naturally. If you'd like to learn more about the game's technical side of things, we've got you covered:

If you'd like to snag the special pre-order cosmetics, you still have a few days before the game is out. Note that this content may not be available after March 25th, so don't dawdle.

Pre-order Tiny Tina's Wonderlands and get the exclusive Golden Hero Armor Pack: last chance!

Even though it might look like a simple Borderlands 3 re-skin at face value, there are almost too many reasons why we should all play Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands at launch day. Today, we’d like to go over them, as we feel that the game may have been overshadowed by some of 2022’s previous releases by now. […]