Table of contents
Introduction
In this 4th story campaign add-on, you are going to help Tannis with discovering what makes psychos so insane. She thinks it’s this mystical place called Vaulthalla that’s inside every psycho’s mind. Therefore, you are going to travel inside the brain of one of the most badass psychos on Pandora.
Krieg was one of the playable vault hunters in Borderlands 2 and now he’s one of the NPCs you will interact with. You may have discovered some of his Echologs scattered around in Borderlands 3. Here you get a taste of his personality and his relation to Maya.
In the ‘Fantastic Fustercluck’, we are going to explore his mind and meet up with both sides of his character, sane Krieg and Psycho Krieg, and what makes him tick.
DLC4 Preview
Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck is a good DLC. It really delivered great story moments and had me questioning the sanity of the developers.
On one side this DLC is fanservice as you get to interact with some of your beloved characters in the franchise. But then there are those serious moments that cover the inner struggle. Where they address how we perceive things and how things are different from another one’s point of view. This for example is communicated by the 2 versions of Krieg, each having their own interpretation of specific events.
The message of how we fight our inner demons and that we are not alone is really relevant in the world at the moment. Mental health is a serious topic but Gearbox packaged this in an entertaining way. So while you have those serious moments there is also the weird and goofy stuff you like from a Borderlands game.
You won’t encounter Mr. Torgue in this DLC to ‘blow up the ocean’ but you will do something else of that space, which in itself is also a cool easter egg.
Memorable Missions
At the start of DLC4, the devs are immediately playing with your expectations as you enter Krieg’s mind. I would have loved to see more of this opening area as it’s a nice place. After this area, you arrive at the DLC’s main hub. Here you will learn that you will need to obtain several keys to access the secrets of Vaulthalla. Each of these keys is stored away in a specific memory of Krieg. You will need to play through these memories and collect all the keys to unlock Vaulthalla.
Each memory is a mission and has its own theme so you will be visiting very different places each time. But they all have an important (back)story to tell about the character. Along the way, you will be accompanied by a sane version of Krieg and a Psycho version of Krieg. They will help you navigate the world and provide context to various scenarios. Here you will also notice the different points of perspective.
The maps are pretty linear, there aren’t any open areas to explore. Borderlands has always been a game of exploration for me and this DLC doesn’t deliver on that. I think this is done to focus on the story as you unlock the goofy side quest at the end of the mission. Yeah, you have a few encounters with sane Krieg and Psycho Krieg but they are short intermissions that don’t break away from the main theme.
The side missions that you unlock after completing a memory/mission are insane. You will get some wacky stuff thrown at you, and this is why I love Borderlands. I would love to talk about them but this is a spoiler-free review.
So if you follow me on social media (links are listed in the header), I’ll be posting screenshots and some of my thoughts or the next few days.
These side missions do kinda feel like they push you back into the area you just finished, to then discover you have to walk halfway through the map to do that single side mission at that spot you were exploring and wondering what purpose it has.
The delivery of these side missions felt a bit like ‘how can we keep you busy’, however, playing through these missions my mind was “WTF am I playing”.
Vaulthalla
Borderlands is all about the loot and I think Gearbox did a great thing at the end of this DLC to keep you playing. And smart players can even get more out of Vaulthalla. It’s a great way to get loot and keep you optimizing your run. You are able to farm for new legendaries in Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck and you can start doing that now as DLC 4 launches Sept 10, 2020.
Conclusion
Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck is a good DLC and plays into all the emotions. However, I also feel like Gearbox could have done more with it in terms of gameplay.
That said, this DLC was made during COVID Lockdowns and therefore there are probably a lot of things that didn’t make it into the game.
Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck is a bit shorter than the other DLCs but still a very enjoyable experience.
If you are excited to play Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck, you can get the Season Pass or the Individual DLC on Consoles, Steam, or EPIC using these links. If you purchase the content using this link, you also support me and the website. I would really appreciate it if you do that as it helps grow the site. Thanks, and Enjoy!
