Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands: A Worthy Installment to the Borderlands Franchise

One of my most enjoyable summers growing up involved A LOT of Borderlands co-op. Working through an entire campaign in the same room with your friends was a ton of fun and really helped solidify the Borderlands franchise as a favorite for me. And now we have Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands to add to the growing list of wonderful Gearbox games.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands features the same core gameplay that you’ve come to know and love from the Borderlands games. You have your loop of fighting hordes of enemies, running towards the shiny beams of light in the sky representative of your loot, and checking your inventory to see what you picked up. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It’s a system that clearly works! Gearbox capitalizes on the desire to farm bosses and get gear, whether it’s the best or the most ridiculous. Pair it with a bunch of pop culture nods and top it with a dollop of humor, and you have a recipe for success.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands takes the post-apocalyptic space setting and exchanges it for a tabletop RPG campaign spun right out of Tiny Tina’s mind! She’s the Gamemaster, running you (a Newbie) through an adventure to thwart Will Arnett’s Dragon Lord.

What’s New in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands

There are plenty of changes to help Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands stand out amongst its Borderlands cousins. First of all, you have a dedicated melee weapon. This might be a massive greatsword, a spiky morningstar, or even a demonic lute. It instantly gives you the feel of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign right there.

In addition to your normal class abilities, you also get a spell slot to unleash some devastating arcane goodness on your enemies. You are likely already familiar with the corrosive, lightning, fire, and frost damages, but now you can also add DARK MAGIC to the list. The Graveborn players swear it’s not a phase.

And what adventurer would be complete without a ring slot? Rings grant all sorts of bonuses to things like Melee Damage, Spell Damage, Cooldowns, and more. They don’t unlock right away, so you might find a bunch of rings on the ground that you’ll be stashing for a few levels. Same goes for Amulets!

Couple all of this sweet gear with the ability to completely customize your character’s look, and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands truly feels like you’re creating your own DnD character. Had they stuck with the out-of-the-box character choices, the feeling just wouldn’t be the same.

As far as collectibles are concerned, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands introduces Golden Dice! You find these gleaming d20s around the world, rolling them to get some loot. The higher you roll, the better your loot! Collecting these dice also impacts your loot as a whole, so you’ll want to find them early to help ensure your loot gets better and better.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands Classes

Just like the Borderlands games, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands allows players to choose a starting class. Each comes with their own abilities and strengths, so you can choose one that fits best with your playstyle:

• Clawbringer – This is your paladin-adjacent class, specializing in Fire and Lightning damage. They use their Wyvern Companion to ensure that no enemy goes unpunished.
• Brr–Zerker – If you like getting right up in the enemy’s face, then the Brr-Zerker is the raging barbarian class you’ve been waiting for. They use Frost damage to help their melee strikes deal the most possible pain.
• Graveborn – You know that Dark Magic I mentioned earlier? Graveborn have a Demi-Lich floating skull Companion, and they sacrifice portions of their health, converting it to magical damage and effects.
• Spellshot – The wizard is in the building! With a Spellshot, you focus on spellcasting, including picking up a second spell slot if you so desire. Polymorph is their bread and butter.
• Spore Warden – Rangers and druids will find a home with the Spore Warden. They also have a Companion in the form of a Mushroom, and they fire arrows from distance.
• Stabbomancer – Rogues rejoice! If you played as Zero in a previous Borderlands game, this might be the stabby class for you. Stabbomancer features critical-hit builds that burst down your enemies from full health to nothing at all.

I appreciate how multiple classes get Companions, because that’s one of my favorite things about past Borderlands Classes like Zane and Mordecai’s Bloodwing. There are also spells that summon a Hydra Companion, meaning that you could have three Companions alongside you at any given time.

Wait, is my math right? It is! Because in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands you can also choose a second class! Multiclassing is such a huge part of popular tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder. So, you can pair a Graveborn with a Clawbringer to create a character fueled by light and Dark Magic simultaneously.

This opens up the potential for theory-crafting to a whole separate level for lovers of Borderlands. Between having two abilities per class to choose from, the melee weapon, guns, spells, class armor, jewelry, and the multiclassing, you can build your character in a bazillion ways. Plus, you can always respec if you don’t like what you’re working with!

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is Wonder-Full

It’s great to have a new Borderlands title in the form of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Although some have described the campaign as being too short, there is plenty of DLC on the way to expand Tiny Tina’s world. After all, it’s her world and we’re just living in it.