I gotta come clean — my Borderlands experience over the last two instalments has been entirely, kinda woefully, alone. 

It’s just easier to play through the campaigns as a single-player game. You get to enjoy the sights and sounds of Pandora without having to wait for other players to catch up. You get to take your time with inventory arranging. You get first (and only) dibs on every gun, shield and grenade. You get to appreciate the hilarious writing that went into the game because you don’t need to rush NPC dialogue. 

Perhaps the biggest reason why solo was the way to go? No IRL gaming buddies to adventure with. But that’s something to ponder on privately for another day. 

Gearbox probably knows that there’s a significant chunk of Borderlands fans that are lone wolves despite playing a game franchise that constantly shrieks about how it should be played in co-op mode. It’s more fun! It’s more badass! You get hella better loot! 

And to a large extent, yes, that is true — at least according to some people I know who’ve clocked in hundreds of hours in Borderlands 2 alone. Me, I’d rather shoot Psycho bandits in the face and kick open loot chests on my own. 

In the upcoming Borderlands 3, there’s a character that’s perfect for solitary badasses who’d like to go rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ and huntin’ without other players. It’s none other than the gender-neutral killer robot FL4K, sorcerer supreme of beastly companions that’d happily tear off the limbs of your foes. 

I mean sure, you won’t be entirely alone having pet companions by your side, but it does make for some great company and greater slaughter potential. The robotic Beastmaster’s skill tree is entirely unique and utilises Borderlands 3’s new customisation system to the fullest. Really, the options are wildly diverse for each character, but more so for FL4K players, who’ll be able to unlock three pets — a Spiderant, Skag, or Jabber — to follow you around. 

While the character trailer makes it look like those three will be around with you at all times, it’s not really like that in-game (that would be pretty awesome though). You only get to choose one beast to help you out passively and actively.

After going hands-on with the character for a few hours, my current favourite’s the Spiderant Centurion (complete with prosthetic drill arm), the starting pet in FL4K’s Hunter branch that will spit acid at enemies and constantly regenerates your health. Invest points in the skill tree enough and you’ll get the Spiderant to start doling out incendiary damage to nearby baddies or even have it burrow underground and burst back up near them to deal corrosive damage. 

Alternatively, there’s a Skag companion (with a doggie backpack!) that offers increased gun damage and fire rate, while a gun-toting Jabber sidekick grants more health and movement speed. Pets will attack bad guys on their own without needing your input, so there’ll be plenty of opportunities for distraction while you set up a clean, critical shot to their heads.

And that’s just the pet. FL4K has its own abilities to equip, like summoning a Rakk swarm out, turning invisible temporarily, or even teleporting the pet to a certain location to radiate bursts of damage-dealing gamma. Like the bazillion of guns that Borderlands offers, the upcoming instalment will see a wealth of skill and augment combinations to be mixed up to suit your play style. Personally, I’m hitting the sniper-focused Hunter tree for the rewards from scoring critical hits, but I’ll go with the invisibility-cloaking action skill from the Stalker tree to get into better aiming position before firing off guaranteed critical shots. 

Having a companion by your side does take some getting used to though, especially since you’ve killed hundreds of their Skag or Spiderant brethren in the past two major instalments. In an enclosed level I played through — the interior of a spaceship wreckage — my co-op partner and I found ourselves often shooting the Spiderant companion amidst the flurry of similarly-sized insectoid foes. My pet’s skittering footfalls were a subconscious source of anxiety too, especially since I’ve been hardwired from Borderlands 2 to know what an enemy Spiderant sounds like creeping up from behind. 

Then there’s my least favourite part of playing with someone else — the need to revive them when they’re down for the count. FL4K’s companions don’t get downed too often to be annoying, but it’s enough to mess with the flow of combat, especially if you’re a careful, long-ranged fighter like me. But overall, the dependency between bot and beast works just fine for solo Vault Hunters. And hey, they've added a contextual command to pet them if they’ve been good bloodthirsty boys. 

Borderlands 3 is out on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on Sep 13, 2019.

ilyas@asiaone.com 

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