Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands vs Borderlands 3

The Same But Different

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands and Borderlands 3 are both first-person looter shooters made by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games. These games even share the same art style, universe, and characters. While having so much overlap, they both provide different gameplay experiences. In this article, I want to give you an overview of the differences between Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands and Borderlands 3.

Theme

Borderlands started as this Mad Max post-apocalyptic shooter. Over the course of the series, the franchise introduced more colorful and different environments. In the Borderlands DLCs, Gearbox dropped the “serious” narrative theme and went crazy with the franchise. Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep was one of those goofy adventures.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is going to be a high fantasy game in the veins of Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep. You are playing a game within a game and therefore things can get pretty meta. You can once again expect colorful environments and things you could encounter in a Lord of the Rings movie. But of course, Gearbox will give their own twist on the fantasy tropes because you have things like sharks with legs for example.

Selecting Your Character

When you start playing Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands you will be greeted by a character select screen. This isn’t going to be your typical Borderlands character select screen where you have the option to choose between 4 Vault Hunters that each have their own talents and abilities.

In Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, you will be able to customize your own multiclass hero. The character you saw in the reveal trailer isn’t the protagonist you will be playing. Gearbox Software nor 2K Games have given any details about the customization feature just yet. However, the way that they presented this info, it sounds like we will have more options to design our own character.

Choose Your Weapon

The Borderlands franchise is all about the guns. GUNS, GUNS, and more GUNS! With each game, Gearbox tries to outdo themselves, with over a million weapons in Borderlands 3.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands will also have guns but on top of that, there will also be melee weapons. This is something that the community has been requesting for a while. While Borderlands has always been the gun game, the high fantasy setting in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands allows for melee weapons. Therefore, I think we can expect swords, battle axes, maces, and maybe more. I wonder if we will see certain boosts when you are using a melee weapon. For example; will you gain a movement speed boost when you have a sword equipped or a damage reduction when carrying a wizard’s staff. But there is one thing that everyone wants and that’s a copy of Zero’s sword.

Everything you need to know about the weapons in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.

Explosives vs Magic

In Borderlands you throw grenades to deal splash damage against a group of enemies. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands has a different approach as you will have the ability to cast magic spells. While Magic Spells also have the ability to deal damage against groups of enemies, they are treated as mini-skills.

This makes me believe that you are able to do things like locking enemies in place, cast a healing spell, or summon a companion from the afterlife. That way magic spells could really alter your build and playstyle as they can be utilized in ways that have synergy with your skill tree or fill up your weak points. A high DPS skill tree build suffers from survivability, a healing spell could negate that.

Everything you need to know about Magic Spells

Protect Thyself

In Borderlands you have energy shields that protect your health bar. When they break they will recharge after a short cooldown. In Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, you will have armor. It’s currently unknown if this is a simple renaming because don’t fix something that isn’t broken. On the other hand, if the game mechanic is still a rechargeable shield, I think a magic barrier would have been a better rebranding.

But because Gearbox chose the name Armor, I’m expecting a new gameplay mechanic. The Borderlands community has theorized about having an Armor bar instead of a Shield bar on your character to change up the game. Armor would have different strengths and weaknesses. In Borderlands you can also obtain the Rough Rider shield. This is basically a zero capacity shield that provided you with additional health and damage reduction. The fun thing about this shield is that it would always trigger your “if low on shield” skills which could make for interesting builds.

Everything you need to know about Shields/Wards

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands Release

Gearbox Software and 2K Games announced that Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands will launch on March 25, 2022, on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, and PC via the Epic Games Store, the Steam version will release later in 2022.