Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Borderlands in fantasy sauce | Tried

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

Among the countless words that can be associated with Borderlands, the one that fits most perfectly is most likely madness. It is undeniable, in fact, how the famous Gearbox saga has always been characterized by a style above the lines, made up of situations as hilarious as they are strange and, above all, characters that are nothing short of unforgettable. Standard that Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, a stand-alone spin off of Borderlands out on PS4, PS5, Xbox and PC on March 25th, wants to repeat if not even surpass, based on an idea even crazier than those we are used to the series with Claptrap.



Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Wonderlands will catapult us into a fantasy universe inspired by tabletop games where, in addition to ogres, wyverns, goblins and singing company, there will also be the vast arsenal that Borderlands has accustomed us to. A mixture as strange as it is intriguing, which we were lucky enough to try in recent days in a rich trial version.

We tested the game on the following PC:

GPU: Zotac RTX 3070 Twin Edge OC MOBO: Asus ROG STRIX Z370-F RAM: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16GB DDR4 3200MHz CPU: Intel i5 8600k 3.6 GHZ SSD: Sabrent SSD 2TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M. 2 2280 Keyboard: ASUS ROG STRIX Scope TKL Deluxe Cherry MX Red Mouse: Razer DeathAdder V2 Mini Headphones: Logitech G930 Monitor: Samsung C27HG 70 Quad HD 144Hz HDR

Lair of the goblins

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This first handful of hours in the company of Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, we tell you right away, has left us excellent sensations, giving us, as scheduled, a level gameplay accompanied by a lot of over the top situations, crazy opponents and rampant madness to glue everything. In short, exactly what we expected from a Borderlands spin-off in a fantasy key.

Weapons and targets

The link with the original series is therefore quite evident and can be found in much more than one Wonderlands feature. As for gunplay in particular, the feeling is in fact that of being in your hands a very close relative of Borderlands 3 and, given the great quality of the latter in this regard, which is definitely not a bad thing. Between more or less conventional firearms, more medieval offense tools such as magical crossbows and much more, the arsenal available to players, for what little we have seen, seems to be traditional or extremely vast and capable to marry to numerous styles of play.

Such a vast armamentarium, however, would make little sense if not worthily accompanied by vast hosts of different enemies, capable of putting it to the test. It is precisely in this respect that Tiny Tina's Wonderlands particularly struck us, given that only in our trip of a couple of hours to Mount Craw we had to deal with a more than decent bestiary to be related to a single setting. Skeletons that haunt crypts, live in them perched on the rocks, goblins everywhere and, of course, also some particularly inspired creations: if a good morning starts in the morning, Wonderlands would seem to be from this point of view extremely varied, a sort of locus amoenus for any self-respecting crypt hunter.

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Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

Between skills, spells and classes

As we anticipated a few months ago in our preview, in terms of gameplay Tiny Tina's Wonderlands will have a particular focus on what are spells and spells. Preliminary impressions that were confirmed on our trip to Mount Craw, with such Hexes appearing to be abilities on steroids and, of course, themed with the game's setting. So here are lightnings, fireballs and a whole series of other spells characterized by the various stylistic features of literature and fantasy-themed table games.

In Tiny Tina's Wonderlands we will have two different slots, one dedicated to the powerful action skills, which take longer to recharge but are sometimes also able to turn the tide of some particularly complex battle, and spells, less disruptive but still effective and whose use is linked to a decidedly lower cooldown. Also in this case the parallels and references with the parent series are numerous and evident, with Wonderlands which, however, seems to want to push more on the accelerator in this regard.

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If in the full version of Tiny Tina's Wonderlands that will arrive next month will be 6 different jobs in which we can try our hand, in this first approach we have been able to touch only two: the Graveborn and the Stabbomancer. The former is a kind of acolyte able to sacrifice part of their life to obtain temporary boosts, while the Stabbomancer is a class based on critical damage and capable of summoning a huge rotating blade with which to claim victims.



Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Two different character classes, suitable for different types of game and which convinced us both in our test. If the Stabbomancer seems to be perfect for all those who love to build damage-based builds, the Graveborn could intrigue those who love to intersperse moments of great adrenaline while using the action skill with other more reasoned ones. Going too far would be wrong in any case, both because we have not yet had the opportunity to try the two-thirds of the classes that will be present in Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, and because these first impressions could also be partially distorted by longer game sessions. What remains, however, is that the path taken in this respect seems to be the right one.

The lack of well-defined characters with their own background should not, however, scare us as far as the narrative quality of the work is concerned. Although even in this case everything is to be evaluated over the long distance, Gearbox Software has in fact implemented a hybrid narrative, made up of both what happens on the screen and the voiceovers of Tiny Tina and the other players. Wonderlands is in fact set in no less than a board game whose game master is the dangerous and irresistible girl we learned about in the Borderlands 2 DLC of the same name. A symbiosis that, at least in the adventures in Mount Craw, works great, without that a tiny ounce of the stock's insane potential is lost. A necessary comment in this sense, which unfortunately will disappoint more than some, is the lack of dubbing in Italian, mitigated only in part by the English one which, to be honest, seems to be in great shape.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands: summing up

To sum up a bit while waiting for March 25th, this first approach with Tiny Tina's Wonderlands has finally convinced us. Of course, we have not noticed who knows what substantial differences compared to the Borderlands, but it is also true that we have not been able to try out several new features such as the character editor and the sections on the game board. For the rest, this particular excursus into Tiny Tina's imagination seems to have all the cards on the table to prove to be of great value. In short, this Borderlands in fantasy sauce seems truly irresistible.

Did this preview make you particularly want Tiny Tina's Wonderlands? Book the awaited title now and get ready to embark on a crazy adventure on March 25th!