An idea for how to add "The fall of New Haven" to Borderlands 3

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel BL:TPS Discussion
#1

It’s a known fact that pretty much any large fan of the Borderlands series wants to see and experience the fall of New haven and a lot of people, myself included, were very disapointed when we didn’t get a “fall of New Haven” DLC for TPS. I’ve recently got an idea though, about how to allow us to experience The fall of New Haven, without it being DLC-related. Basically have it as a tutorial area for Borderlands 3.

The idea would be that it would be introduced by having the BL1 vault hunters or Marcus tell the story of The fall of New haven to either some random citizen or children of Sanctuary (assuming Sanctuary will still excist) and it would place us in the bodies of the BL1 vault hunters in New Haven during the attack form Hyperion. It would be very basic, with a length of 30 minutes maxium, and it would teach you the basics about the game (weapons, melee, grenades, action skill, quest markers). You’d face off some simple groups of Hyperion loaders and possibly a random Hyperion worker/soldier here and there and in the end you’d face Wilhelm. Since the BL1 vault hunters were beaten by Wilhelm, gearbox could make the boss fight impossible to beat, just to allow you to experience defeat as well, to have you respawn somewhere a tiny bit away from the (arena?) were you face Wilhelm. There Helena Pierce would tell you to rally the surviving citizen of New Haven and have you escape in a cutscene. Obviously we would need a short moment were we could get to see Handsome Jack again, possibly even being able to witness the “spoon” incident (=D).

After the end cutscene the game would start for real, with an actual intro cutscene like any other Borderlands game. The tutorial would be mandatory for the first playthrough for your first character, but would only be optional for any other playthrough on any other character created from there on, simply having a pop-up square appear, asking you if you want to play the tutorial or not, just like the game asks you what difficulty you want to play on.

What do you think about this idea? If this was posted on a faulty forum thread, don’t be afraid to move it to the correct place.

//Perper

#2

Nope, not even close.

My main objection being that the VHs hired by Jack basically part company before the fall of New Haven, so it wouldn’t make sense to have some of them there at all (Athena & Clappy for sure, but I suspect also Timothy and Aurelia), And I’m not a huge fan of doing the whole "win for side a, lose for side b) approaches to the story element of the game.

#3

I see your point in “win for side a, lose for side b” and that is obviously up up for ones preference. I’d personally think it’d be kind of fun to be on the losing side in the story for once in the video game.

However I never said that Athena, Claptrap and the TPS vault hunters would be there. I said that you would play as one of the original vault hunters from Borderlands 1, a.k.a. Lilith, Roland, Brick and Mordecai.

Also sorry for the misinformation about the player base wanting to see the fall of New Haven. Any Borderlands fan that I’ve seen, talked to or read opinions from on the internet has stated that they want to see the fall of New Haven.

#4

That wouldn’t be quite so bad, HOWEVER…

Playing on the “losing side” for Halo: Reach was, for me at least, fascinating. Pulling off heroics even though you know you’re doomed was actually a great experience. I also liked ODST for much the same reason - the sense of desperation, the claustrophobia of the map, the atmosphere. I just don’t think that would work so well with the humorous streak in the BL franchise. You either go full on pathos or you play the bad guys (TPS-style).

Personally, I would like new story post-sentinel intervention in the Lilith/Athena cut-scene.

#5

Once again I do see your point. However since the fall of New Haven is quite the serious event in the Borderlands-timeline I think the more serious approach would work out well here.

I also want them to continiue on this new story track and close the book of Handsome Jack for good, but as I’ve pictured it, the tutorial would have no impact on the actual story Borderlands 3. It would just work as a flashback to allow us to see the fall of New Haven.

#6

I think “Tales from the Borderlands” actually closed out Jack’s story nicely. There really is nowhere to go from there with that character. It did, however, introduce some new characters and locations that could be used instead, which would also bring folks who didn’t play “Tales” up on the back-story.

#7

The issue I would have with that tutorial, were it mandatory content, is that I wouldn’t want to play through as a BL1 VH, only to have to start from scratch at the beginning of the game. It might make more sense to me if we got to play through at the beginning of a new VHs career, establishing them as personalities who were sucked into the conflict by force.