Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel takes the loot-driven shooting that made the series famous and lifts it off Pandora entirely, onto the moon Elpis and the Hyperion space station Helios hanging above it. Set between Borderlands and Borderlands 2, it casts you as one of four new Vault Hunters working for a man named Jack, who has not yet earned the "Handsome" and has not yet become the villain everyone remembers. Low gravity, oxygen management, laser weapons and cryo damage change how every firefight plays out, and the story fills in the most important gap in the Borderlands timeline.
A Moon With Its Own Rules
Elpis has a fraction of Pandora's gravity, and 2K Australia built the whole game around that fact. Jumps become long, slow arcs you can shoot from, and the new Oz kit lets you double-jump, hover and then come down hard with a butt slam that flattens whatever is standing underneath. Outside pressurised zones, the same kit feeds you oxygen, so the map itself becomes a resource to manage.
- Oxygen as a weapon. Your Oz kit burns air to jump and slam, and it is the only thing keeping you alive in the vacuum. Enemies play by the same rules: crack a Lost Legion soldier's mask and watch them suffocate, or drop the pressure in a room and change the odds.
- Lasers and cryo. Laser weapons arrive as a full new gun type, from railguns to beam rifles that never stop firing. Cryo is the new elemental damage, and freezing an enemy solid before shattering them with a melee hit or a slam is one of the most satisfying rhythms the series has produced.
- Lunar vehicles. Catch-a-Ride returns with the Moon Buggy and the Stingray hover-bike, both tuned for the low-gravity terrain. Long jumps across craters and canyons are part of the route, not an accident.
The Rise of Handsome Jack
The framing is Athena, in chains in Sanctuary, telling Lilith and the Crimson Raiders what really happened on Elpis. What follows is Jack's story told from his side. He starts as a Hyperion programmer with ambition and a grudge, and when Colonel Zarpedon's Lost Legion seizes Helios and starts firing on the moon, he hires you to help him take it back. Over the campaign you watch his charm curdle into something colder, and the game never lets you forget that the man you are helping is the one who will later rule Pandora from a space station shaped like the letter H. Familiar faces from both earlier games turn up in roles you may not expect, and the writing keeps the series' habit of undercutting every serious moment with a joke, then landing the serious moment anyway.
Four New Vault Hunters
- Athena the Gladiator
- Her Aspis shield absorbs incoming damage, then gets thrown back at the enemy with everything it soaked up. Athena's skill trees push toward a bleed-and-melee brawler or a tanky front-liner who thrives when surrounded, and she is the most approachable of the four for a first run.
- Wilhelm the Enforcer
- Wilhelm brings two drones, Wolf and Saint, one for offence and one for healing, and his trees gradually turn him into the cyborg that Borderlands 2 players had to fight. Building toward drone uptime and heavy weapons makes him a natural fit for co-op parties that need cover.
- Nisha the Lawbringer
- Showdown snaps her aim onto every target in sight and boosts fire rate and reload speed while it lasts, which makes pistols in particular devastating. Nisha rewards aggressive players who like to move fast and never stop shooting, and her one-liners are some of the sharpest in the script.
- Claptrap the Fragtrap
- Playable Claptrap is the wild card. VaultHunter.EXE examines the situation and picks an action package for you, from a disco funhouse of buffs to a rubber-duck float that helps nobody, and his skill trees deliberately mix good ideas with terrible ones. Chaotic, funny and surprisingly capable in the right hands.
Shoot, Loot, Repeat
Underneath the moon setting this is still Borderlands at its core: procedurally generated guns in absurd numbers, elemental matchups that matter, and a level-up loop that keeps pulling you toward the next chest. The Grinder in Concordia adds a twist, letting you feed three unwanted weapons into a machine that spits out something better, so the junk you would once have sold becomes raw material. Online co-op supports up to four players, with enemies scaling to the party and loot dropping for everyone, and finishing the story unlocks True Vault Hunter Mode for a tougher second pass with rarer drops.
Grab an Oz kit, learn to time your jumps, and go find out how a Hyperion nobody with a good haircut talked his way into owning a planet. The moon is waiting, and Jack has a job for you.
