Author: Trafficblast

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The increasingly popular reboot-sequel is a hard needle to thread. You have to create a game that hews close enough to the original to make nostalgic fans happy, while modernizing and innovating enough to resonate with new players. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time balances the two effortlessly. It impeccably preserves the vibrant look and feel of the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy, while integrating new ideas and platforming possibilities. And like the original Crash games, the hybrid of Crash’s old and new ideas will test your platforming skills in interesting new ways.

Like its groan-inducing dad-joke of a subtitle says, Crash 4 is about time… travel. When the villains of Crash’s past open an interdimensional portal, Crash and Coco have to collect a set of quantum masks in order to set things right. As with past Crash games, small exchanges in cutscenes between levels do a lot of narrative legwork. It’s not much of a “story” per se, but Crash and his friends’ charm fills in the gaps and makes you care enough to follow along.

Crash 4’s time-traveling story takes you to all sorts of times and places, including dinosaur-infested jungles, futuristic cities full of flying cars, and sunken pirate ships. Every place you go feels lush, full of color and detail, with a painterly quality that’s simply wonderful to run through. My favorite is the Mardi Gras world, where Crash and Spyro balloons float in the background as you hop over neon-colored flames and trumpet valves. Occasionally, you’ll run through an area and the camera will pull back to let you take in the scenery. The environments never failed to impress me with their visual depth.

The best thing I can say about Crash 4 is that it mostly feels like classic Crash. In my mind, Crash’s signature is in the way the camera moves to create different perspectives from area to area, giving each set of jumps a fresh feel. Sometimes you’re moving left to right, while other times you’re running away from the camera or bouncing straight up from box to box. Crash 4’s long levels are chock-full of carefully plotted platforming sequences, which require quick reflexes and the ability to think on your feet. The dynamic design changes things up frequently, making every level feel winding and unpredictable, with every new set of platforms presenting a surprising, exciting new challenge.

It still feels classic, even as it introduces new mechanics. Once you find each of the quantum masks in the campaign, they will start to appear in levels, giving you access to reality-bending powers such as slowing down time and reversing gravity on the fly. Though none of the four powers the masks bestow are wildly original, they are all used to great effect. Slowing down time at the exact right moment to create a clear path of platforms requires just as much thought and reflexes as jumping and spinning, and sequences with each power come with their own lessons to learn and quirks to master.

In addition, each world includes optional levels that allow you to play as some of Crash’s friends, including Tawna, Dingodile, and Dr. Neo Cortex. Each of the alternate characters have their own skill sets–Cortex, for example, cannot spin or double jump, but instead has a gun that turns enemies into platforms and an air dash. Levels built around these skill sets create even more room for variety; you’ll see new situations and need to approach challenging platforming puzzles differently. The downside is that switching from any of these characters to Crash or Coco, or vice versa, can lead to some muscle memory mix-ups and accidental deaths. It’s a momentary annoyance, but one that creates a slightly bitter aftertaste whenever you play one of these levels, especially during the campaign.

And mastery is crucial. From early on, Crash 4 insists on precision. Many platforming sequences demand you land multiple jumps in rapid succession with perfect accuracy and timing. Sometimes, the difficulty is invigorating–an action-packed puzzle for your mind and fingers. Occasionally, though, it feels as if the game expects more of you than it should. There are times when you’ll land on the edge of a platform and fall to your death, only to wonder whether or not you should have been safe. Those frustrations are fleeting, though. More often, the next success is close enough at hand that you’ll want to keep trying.

And merely finishing the campaign barely scratches the surface of the experience. Crash 4 is truly a perfectionist’s delight. Each level offers up gemstones and a character skin depending on how many wumpa fruit you find, how many boxes you break, and how few times you die. Each level also boasts a time trial mode and an “N.Verted” mirror level, which not only makes you replay it mirrored, but also with a creative visual filter that may make it easier or harder. The N.Verted levels are especially interesting as they let you see Crash 4’s vibrant levels in a completely different light.

Even more so than playing the N.Sane Trilogy, which literally remade the original Crash games from my youth, playing Crash 4 felt like getting back in touch with the series. It’s an injection of new ideas into now-classic gameplay that surprises and delights, even as it feels like a homecoming. Truly, games like this are why we come running back to long-dormant franchises with open arms.

Update: Bloodborne appears to no longer be available via PlayStation Plus, and it’s price is once again listed at $20.

PlayStation Plus’s free games for October 2020 are racing game Need for Speed Payback and action-RPG Vampyr. However, seemingly out of nowhere, Bloodborne has also been made free for PS Plus subscribers. It’s unclear if this is a mistake, as Sony did not announce the From Software action game as one of this month’s free offerings. You’ll want to claim this as soon as possible, as it could be an error and fixed shortly.

Bloodborne was PlayStation Plus’s offering all the way back in March 2018 and is included in the PS5’s upcoming Plus Collection, which grants subscribers a library of backwards-compatible PS4 games on the next-gen console.

Bloodborne is remembered as one of the best PS4 games. It received a 9/10 in GameSpot’s Bloodborne review for its agile and brutal combat, phenomenal creature and world design, and interconnected world that “makes every discovery a wonder.”

“The finest treasures are found within the city of Yharnam and the forests, lakes, and purgatories beyond it,” critic Kevin VanOrd wrote. “I finished Bloodborne in less time than I did Dark Souls II, yet I treasure it more in spite of its few missteps. In death there is life, and in blood, there is redemption. More hyperbole, yes, but for a game this theatrical, only hyperbole will do.”

Next month, we see the remake of From Software’s first PlayStation exclusive launch alongside the PS5. Demon’s Souls is being helmed by Bluepoint Games, which is known for its quality remasters and remakes like Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection and Shadow of the Colossus. We recently got our first look at Demon’s Souls gameplay, which showcased zero loading times when warping between zones and the revamped first area.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

As the pioneer of the so-called “looter-shooter” sub-genre, Gearbox Software’s Borderlands is a brash and in-your-face action-RPG series with an infinite supply of guns and a squad of badass, quirky vault hunters to get to know. After a short hiatus between entries, 2019’s Borderlands 3 was an explosive return for the franchise’s bizarre yet enticing nightmare gallery, filled with big guns, fast vehicles, and tons of pop-culture references. However since the release of 2012’s Borderlands 2, the landscape has changed, with the rise of other looter-shooter games like Destiny 2 and Tom Clancy’s The Division. Because of this, Borderlands 3’s non-subtle and more energetic approach to the loot-grind was simultaneously a nostalgic sight and something of a throwback to the early 2010s shooter.

At launch, Borderlands 3 was a solid return for the series, keeping up with the many tenets of collecting loot, nailing fast kills with your character’s expanded suite of abilities, and a plot that sought to tie up many of the franchise’s long-gestating questions. However, it wasn’t without its criticisms. While the story was a lot more sprawling in comparison to previous games, it didn’t quite land many of its more impactful moments, and its endgame content left people wanting after the story’s completion.

But like its direct predecessor, Borderlands 2, the most recent entry in the series was a game in progress and it has evolved in some significant ways over its first year. Since its September 2019 release, Borderlands 3 has seen a suite of changes and revisions that have not only fleshed out its universe but remade the original endgame loop (known as Mayhem mode), upping the thrills and keeping people invested post-campaign. In many ways, this first year of content for Borderlands 3 has gone a long way in further defining the game’s identity, and in turn, the franchise, in the modern era.

In this GameSpot exclusive, we had the chance to talk with President and CEO of Gearbox Software Randy Pitchford along with post-launch creative director Graeme Timmins about Borderlands 3, its first year, and what’s coming next.

“I’m pretty proud of Borderlands 3. We have the data, and we can see how Borderlands 3 did from launch. We’re about 60-70% above Borderlands 2 in terms of active players, which is just astonishing and way beyond what we hoped or expected,” said Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford. “We’re in there playing with the game and modifying it, we try new things, and we’re not afraid to get in there and mix things up a little bit. Some of the things we’ve added in works better than others, but all of our adjustments are made from a wish to try to engage and entertain and try to create joy and happiness for people. We learn something from every step. I love that process. I’m really proud that we’ve got some momentum with that process, and that there are people who are enjoying coming along with us, and other folks that are arriving and showing up. We’ve got some of the things you’re going to see on the horizon would only be possible, that would only be possible because of a culture of that iteration and that loop we have at Gearbox. It gets me pretty excited for what’s to come, frankly.”

From our talks with both Pitchford and Timmins, it seems clear that work needed to be done on the original game to get it to where it needed to be. In GameSpot’s review of the game, associate editor Jordan Ramée gave the game an 8/10 and stated, “Borderlands 3 has a few stumbling blocks when it comes to bosses, but these fights are overshadowed by the game’s rewarding gunplay and over-the-top humor.” Borderlands 3 has and continues to excel at offering engaging shooting gameplay and some endearing characters with personality. So it was especially great to see that the post-launch content focused more on providing content that strengthened the game’s personality and snappy shooting.

The game we have one year later is in much better shape than it was at launch. The standout expansions that bolsters Borderlands 3 are the contents from the first season pass. These include the campaign add-ons Mad Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot, the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Guns, Loves, and Tentacles, the Western-themed Bounty of Blood, and the concluding add-on Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck. While not all of these campaigns hit the mark, they still introduced new stories and worlds to explore, offering some fun jaunts through more unique environments that did a lot to show how creative and imaginative Borderlands’ art-style can get.

These set-piece add-ons were big attractions to check out, but surprisingly they’re not totally what made Borderlands 3 a more enjoyable and worthwhile game in its post-launch life. Following the launch, Gearbox rolled out seasonal events, quality-of-life updates, and the occasional level-cap increases for your chosen vault hunters. The game also saw a set of high-end content aimed at veteran players, such as the two raid-like Takedown missions. Limited-timed events like the recent Revenge of the Cartels also reshaped standard encounters within existing worlds, which incentivized revisits to take down key targets, culminating in a smash-and-grab style raid of a Scarface-esque mansion that housed tons of Eridium, along with new guns and cash to grab. For lapsed players who peaced out after the campaign, these timely events were great ways to dive back in and check out new additions to the game.

As a loot-focused action-RPG, the push to collect new loot and power up your characters is everything, and new updates to Borderlands 3 made that grind less of a hassle and more flexible. Along with changes to anointments–special modifiers for rare weapons–we saw a massive revision to the endgame centerpiece, Mayhem mode. This difficulty modifier was initially intended to be the significant endgame content to keep players going. Still, the first iteration led to repetition, especially with players taking advantage of certain bosses to squeeze out rare drops.

Only a few months after the launch, Gearbox released Mayhem 2.0. This new update revised the loop by rebalancing the difficulty, adding more Mayhem levels, and introducing bizarre combat modifiers that give a variety of buffs or debuffs to characters and enemies alike–all for the promise of better loot. This new update ended up being the turning point for the game, making many of the encounters much more unpredictable and giving you proper control over just how crazy you want your engagements to get. While reflecting on the first year of content, post-launch creative director Graeme Timmins talked about how things went better for the game with Mayhem 2.0.

“When we first launched the base game with Mayhem 1.0, we knew what we were scratching at in terms of making the game more of a fun endgame experience that wasn’t dependent on just farming bosses wholly by itself,” said Timmins. “We realized working through the revisions that some things aren’t necessarily as interesting as we had hoped, so we knew we wanted to revise things after launch. There was just so much more potential to do that since we had more time to execute it. With Mayhem 2.0, we wanted to stay away from just stat changes and do something more fundamental in terms of behaviors that are happening in the world. When it comes to stats, we’ve had to kind of balance and rebalance things for the Borderlands games, but it’s often not very visible to the player. That’s why we went with the new modifiers, like with the lasers, and the death skulls, and whatnot. Those are putting like very actionable changes of behavior in your face that you have to react to. We found that that, for us, was a more interesting way of approaching additional difficulty outside of just relying on stat changes.”

One of Gearbox’s controversial decisions for Borderlands 3 was that the game would not receive new characters post-launch, but rather expand upon the current four vault hunters. To make up for that, each character in the game has a greater level of customization and build options than what previous games offered. Presently, this approach has been well-received by fans, and players are still experimenting with character skill-sets, which are showcased on popular Borderlands YouTube channels. In our talk with Timmins, he confirmed that the game’s post-launch period reaffirmed their choice to stick with the four characters, as having players to replay the game’s lengthy campaign to reach the endgame with new characters wasn’t a worthwhile investment of time.

With the end of the first season pass of content, capped off with the Psycho Krieg DLC, Gearbox announced that more content is still on the way this year in the form of free updates and some premium content. In addition to new skill trees and skills for each character, giving characters like FL4K and Zaine a pet robot and a shoulder cannon respectively, along with more seasonal events, Borderlands 3 will also see another substantial update–this time introducing a totally new gameplay mode.

During our talk with Pitchford and Timmins, they shared some details on the new mode called Arms Race. Set to be revealed later in October, the devs say that Arms Race will be a new standalone mode that brings players to an isolated map, where every gun they pick up will matter throughout the game mode. Pitchford stated that it has elements that players who love Call of Duty and battle royale games might find interesting, but it is “not a battle royale game.” Timmins also elaborated a little to explain what’s to come.

“Our goal with Arms Race is to make the gun game in our game of millions of guns really matter,” said Timmins. “I can talk about that game mode for hours. I’m so excited about it, but we’ll have to wait. I’ll say it’s got its own environment and just leave it at that [for now].”

Currently, Borderlands 3 will be entering its second year of content with the launch of the next wave of events and DLC coming this year. Gearbox has plans to keep Borderlands going for the long term. With the launch of the upcoming PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, Borderlands 3 will also make its ways to next-gen, and players who own the game on either PS4 or Xbox One can upgrade to the next-gen edition free of charge.

According to Pitchford, this free upgrade to next-gen was possible due to the game’s success and its current install base, which is sitting higher than Borderlands 2. In 2021, Gearbox Software plans to expand the cross-play functionality to consoles, with Xbox and PlayStation players joining up for games across platforms. During our interview, Pitchford spoke candidly about his “dream” to expand further than that and have all versions of Borderlands 3 possess cross-play functionality in 2021.

“It’s happening, and it may come sooner on some platforms. We’ll see,” said Pitchford. “What’s interesting is that we’re there, technology-wise. We’ve been there since we launched Borderlands 3 on the Steam platform, which allowed cross-platform play between Steam and Epic. And the Steam and Epic guys hate each other, but we made that happen, and we managed to do that. It’s so fascinating that there’s still emotion in play, and I understand it. A lot of groups have spent a lot of time protecting their silos and building those silos, and we’re not trying to destroy the silos. We’re just trying to take the friction away from real people that find each other and want to have entertainment experiences with each other. They found that they have a shared interest in the game, but just because they happen to have a shared interest in one game on a different platform, they’re forever separated, and there’s a divide between them. I hate that, and it’s been my crusade to try to tear that down, and we’ve done it. We’ve done it, and it’s inevitable. There’s still some work to do, and some things to deal with from a policy point of view, but I think we’re there, and that nut is finally cracked to the point where we’ve been confident enough to say, “Yes. This is done. It’s happening, and you will have it.”

In a brief follow up, I asked Pitchford about cross-play between all versions of the game, and he stated: “We’re not stopping until that’s true. We are confident enough that that will be true to say that it’s coming in 2021. And, good fortune willing, it could happen sooner. We’ll see what happens.”

Borderlands 3 is not only the largest game in the series in terms of content but also the fastest-selling entry in the franchise, proving that there’s still plenty of fans itching to dive into the energetic and high-octane universe of vault hunters. Back in 2009, the original Borderlands was something of an underdog release in a packed fall period, and now it’s a game franchise that’s about to have a major film directed by Eli Roth and starring Cate Blanchett. The future looks bright for the franchise, but many fans are still fixed on what’s to come with the evolving platform of Borderlands 3, and it doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.

For more on Borderlands 3 and what’s to come with next-gen consoles, check back with GameSpot for our full interview with Randy Pitchford.