Borderlands Legendary Collection (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.0.2 Update + All DLCs

Borderlands Legendary Collection is an action role-playing first-person looter shooter video game franchise set in a space Western science fantasy setting, created and produced by Gearbox Software and published by 2K for multiple platforms. The series consists of six games, each with multiple downloadable content packs: Borderlands (2009), and Borderlands 2 (2012).

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (2014) by 2K Australia, and Borderlands 3 (2019). Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands (2022) is a spinoff based on Borderlands 2’s Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep DLC. Tales from the Borderlands (2014–2015) is a spin-off episodic graphic adventure game by Telltale Games and is followed up by New Tales from the Borderlands (2022) developed in-house by Gearbox Software.

The series has received critical acclaim and commercial success for its loot-driven multiplayer co-op gameplay and its sense of humor. As of November 2022, more than 77 million copies of Borderlands games had been shipped, with 26 million from Borderlands 2. An additional five million copies of Borderlands 3 were sold within five days of release, bringing the total series’ net revenues to over US$1 billion. This makes it one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time. A film adaptation of the series is in development by Lionsgate.

GAMEPLAY

The Borderlands games are first-person loot shooters, set in an open world, with some role-playing game (RPG) elements (Tales from the Borderlands, however, is an episodic adventure game). The concept came from Matthew Armstrong’s idea to combine the mechanics of first-person shooters like Doom with role-playing games with randomized loot such as Diablo. After developing the mechanics of this shooter-RPG hybrid, Gearbox established the idea of players seeking Vaults on the planet Pandora, comparing the discovery of new loot to opening a Pandora’s box.

Players select one of the available characters, representing Vault Hunters that have traveled to the planet Pandora to try to seek its fabled Vault. Each Vault Hunter has a different skill tree and one or more unique abilities. Players then work on completing quests and exploring Pandora while dealing with the violent Pandora wildlife, crazed scavengers that have been stranded on the planet, and various military groups that attempt to stop them. Completing quests and defeating foes earns in-game money and experience, which is used for expanding the player’s skill tree. If the player loses their health or falls into bottomless chasms, they respawn at the most recent checkpoint and lose some of their money. The games are divided into several maps, and once players have reached a waypoint station on the map, they can teleport to any other previously visited map. Otherwise, players must reach certain points on the edges of the map to move into a different area. Some maps allow the player to spawn an armed vehicle to help traverse large maps or to deal with more powerful enemies.

A core feature of Borderlands is the loot system, which generates a variety of guns (such as pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers), shield generators, grenade modifications, and class modifications. This equipment is randomly dropped by foes, found in containers around Pandora, or obtained as rewards for completing quests. The statistics of the equipment, such as the amount of damage and accuracy for a gun and special elemental attacks, are procedurally generated and use a loot color-coding system similar to games like World of Warcraft to indicate rarity, ranging from white (most common), to purple and orange (most rare and powerful). The first Borderlands is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records to have over 17 million different possible guns that could be generated, while the latter games expand further on this. Other facets of the game use a similar procedural system: foes may have unique attributes and more powerful variants, such as creatures that can spit corrosive acid or flame, or scavengers with higher amounts of health and armor. Weapons and other equipment can be sold and bought at various vending machines scattered about the maps; nearly all vending machines include a rare piece of loot that is only available for a limited amount of in-game time, after which the machine’s inventory is rotated for a new set of equipment. Borderlands 2, 3, and The Pre-Sequel! include the use of “SHIFT codes”, which the player can obtain through social media or other promotions, and give players “golden keys” that can be used once to obtain an item of exceptional quality appropriate for the player’s level; this feature was also added to the remaster of Borderlands.

As the player levels, the loot drops will become more powerful; at the same time, the enemies that the player faces on the map will increase in level as well. All three games feature a New Game Plus-type replay mode, where they can start with the same character at the same level they completed the game with, and continue to level up the character through the replay up to a fixed level, making the game more difficult. All three games support cooperative play for up to four people; the difficulty of the enemies as well as the quality of the loot drops scales with the number of players.

In Borderlands 2 and the Pre-Sequel, a “Badass Rank” system was added. By completing certain challenges, such as killing several enemies with a specific weapon type, the player would be awarded Badass points; for every 100 points, they can then redeem these for one of several small buffs to the player’s attributes such as gun damage or shield capacity. Selecting the same buff repeatedly on redemption while using a given character would provide less beneficial rewards. However, these Badass buffs are shared by all characters that the player has so that if the player starts a new character, they will retain all the existing buffs, and new buffs when the points are redeemed will be more beneficial; the “Badass Rank” system has been replaced in Borderlands 3 by the “guardian” system.

All the games in the series use a comic book-like rendering approach, frequently mistaken as a cel-shaded technique. Instead, the games use fully realized hand-drawn textures and within the game engine, add noticeable outlines to create the appearance of a comic book setting.

PLOT

The games in Borderlands primarily take place on the planet Pandora. Pandora is believed to be rich with mineral wealth leading several interstellar megacorporations to send colony ships there to capitalize on it, but once they arrive, they find little of value outside of undecipherable alien artifacts from a long-extinct race known as the Eridians, and numerous native lifeforms make it too dangerous to colonize. Many of the corporations abandon the planet, leaving behind their workforce, former prisoners coerced into employment, who take over much of the planet as bandits and raiders. However, a study of the alien artifacts leads to the discovery of mythical Eridian Vaults filled with untold treasure and wealth, which are guarded by extremely powerful and ancient monsters. Corporations and military forces return to the planet, along with several Vault Hunters who seek to find the Vaults themselves. The settings are expanded to include the moon of Pandora in Borderlands: The Pre-sequel, and other planets in Borderlands 3 where further Eridian Vaults have been found.

Shortly after the Dahl corporation leaves the planet Pandora at the start of Borderlands, four Vault Hunters arrive to seek out the Vault – Roland, Lilith, Mordecai, and Brick. They are guided by a mysterious entity, the Guardian Angel, that lives within the planet’s communication EchoNet system, to collect pieces of the Vault Key, but warned that the Vault can only be accessed every 200 years, and that time is soon approaching, urging them onward. They eventually complete the Key, but immediately come into conflict with the Atlas corporation coming back to claim Pandora and the Vault. The Vault Hunters fight Atlas back and locate the Vault, but upon opening, it releases a giant monster, named the “Destroyer”. They fight off the monster and push it back into the Vault, which then closes, leaving Pandora safe.

In the Pre-Sequel, Jack, a low-level programmer for Hyperion, discovers another Vault on Pandora’s moon, Elpis, and hires six more Vault Hunters – Wilhelm, Athena, Claptrap, Nisha, Timothy, and Aurelia – to seek it in the wake of the First Vault’s closure. With the Vault Hunters’ help, Jack can seize control of Helios, the Hyperion space station in orbit between Pandora and Elpis, and uses its resources to secure the Vault with the help of the Hunters. Inside, there is only a strange artifact in the shape of the Vault symbol, but when Jack touches it, he experiences visions of the imminent release of the “Warrior”. Jack starts to go mad with power, and Lilith punches the artifact into his face, disfiguring him forever. Jack assumes his mask, becoming Handsome Jack, and takes over Hyperion as he swears vengeance on the Vault Hunters.