Finding a wedding venue at the best of times can be a bit of a nightmare, but when you’re trying to do so at short notice, you might have to settle for somewhere a little… unusual. The planet Xylourgos that Hammerlock and Wainwright picked for tying the knot in Borderlands 3’s second story DLC – Guns, Love, and Tentacles: The Marriage of Wainwright & Hammerlock – might have some rather impressive scenery, but something’s not quite right…
Having received your invitation, it’s a bit of a surprise to find that the landing location feel like it’s the middle of nowhere. Oh, and then you almost immediately get attacked by alien dogs. Still, nothing that a seasoned Vault Hunter such as yourself can’t handle.
Trudging toward any sign of civilisation, it’s when someone crash lands off in the distance that things get interesting, and you race ahead to find Gaige the Mechromancer, a vault hunter you might remember for Borderlands 2, fighting off bandits around her downed ship. She’s the wedding planner, of all people.
When you do finally make it to The Lodge, things definitely feel a bit off. The barman Mancubus’ bizarre line delivery is right out of a spooky film, while you get to work filling the hotel bar with balloons, and his ominous warnings over the denizens of the adjacent town of Cursehaven prove to be particularly prescient. I mean, you would be a bit odd if you lived in a town built in the shadow of a dead gigantic tentacle monster.
Look, let’s not beat around the bush here. Guns, Love and Tentacles is a Borderlands tinged ode to all things Lovecraft (well, the not-so-reprehensible things about his work, anyway). Wandering to meet Wainwright in town you have the opportunity to talk to the locals. One denies the existence of the giant dead tentacle monster, another huffs “Good day to you… I said, good day!” At you before stomping off, and there’s audio logs about the truly indescribable cosmic horror that someone just witnessed.
This isn’t a deep social commentary on Lovecraft’s thinking, but then it’s not trying to be. It’s poking fun at so many of the tropes that have sprung up in video games and the media over the last decade, ever since Cthulu started threatening to become almost as common a theme as zombies. It helps that Wainwright is just so nervous about the wedding that he’s practically oblivious to whatever it is that’s actually going on, even as you meet and battle the first bosses in the expansion, Eleanor and Vincent. Such lovely names, for such devious people!
Through it all, the action of Borderlands 3 is as refined as you could want from a looter shooter, just as in the main game. It’s smooth, you’ll come to this with a bunch of great weapons to switch between, and once you’re nicely levelled and pulling out your character’s special, you can cut through enemies with relative ease.
With plenty more fodder for the series’ typically brash and on-the-nose sense of humour that’s sure to tickle some funny… tentacles along the way, Guns, Love, and Tentacles is going to give fans of the game exactly what they want: more Borderlands 3!
