After years of fans waiting for it, Borderlands 3 finally released last Friday with an explosion of loot, Vault monsters, and tons of Easter Eggs. And while many are enjoying the experience of returning to Pandora and a variety of new planets, there are certainly areas where the game can improve.
Specifically, there are some major performance issues for Borderlands 3 that need fixing and will be the highest priority for developer Gearbox Software. Frame rate dips, lag in menus, and audio loss are high on the list of known issues for Borderlands 3 and will hopefully be fixed as soon as possible.
But outside of the general game fixes, there are other areas where Borderlands 3 could use some improvement. The experience is a vast improvement over what was offered in Borderlands 2 thanks to features like fast travel in the open world and a streamlined quest log, but there are other areas where things could be better.
Loot as Junk
Although it isn’t the only way, one of the best ways to make money in Borderlands 3 is by selling loot. Players collect weapons, shields, and other items that drop from enemies and then they sell them to any of the vending machines in exchange for money. However, the process of selling loot is clunky and can be more time consuming than it needs to be. The fastest way we have found is to go through the loot list and label everything as junk that we want to sell and then visit a vending machine and select the “Sell All Junk” option.
What Borderlands 3 could add, though, is an option to pick up a piece of loot as junk. That way, players would know that they are ready to sell the item back without any extra work. An added bonus would be the ability to loot an item as a favorite, but that is less essential. Because players are going to spend so much time looting and selling items, a “Pick up as Junk” option would be a huge boon.
Dramatic Storage Increase
Any loot-based game is going to have storage problems, but Borderlands 3’s becomes apparent surprisingly early. Obviously, players will need to spend the money on Storage Deck Upgrades to increase their backpack, bank, and lost loot storage, but even at max capacity the bank is surprisingly small.
If Borderlands 3 players want to run multiple classes – like Amara the Siren and FL4K the Beastmaster – then they will end up collecting a lot of loot and running out of space quickly. There are so many variations of loot, from Legendary weapons to Anointed versions of existing weapons, that players will want to hold onto and test out a lot of options. It’s also very early on for Borderlands 3 and it’s not entirely clear what the best character builds are for each class. Unfortunately, because of the limited storage space, players are likely to let some items go that are not perfect.
Vertical Split-Screen
Split-screen may not seem like an important feature in the age of online gaming, but for many Borderlands fans it has been a part of their experience since the very beginning. And while Borderlands 3 does offer split-screen, the experience is currently not ideal. Beyond the problematic stuttering and lag that comes from sharing two games on one screen, Borderlands 3 does not have a vertical split-screen option.
Longstanding fans of Borderlands prefer the vertical split-screen experience of the series because of the setup. Offering a very wide screen is less ideal compared to two boxes on either side of the TV or monitor. For many it makes it hard to get a true view of what they are doing in Borderlands 3.
As mentioned, there are more pressing issues for Borderlands 3 to address before getting to these quality of life changes, but the hope is that these are in Gearbox Software’s plans. It would also be nice to skip cutscenes and for the map to have better navigation but those are smaller changes. Ultimately, Borderlands 3 gets a lot right when it comes to improving on its predecessors, but it could be even better with these tweaks.
Borderlands 3 is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.