There’s an argument to be made that 2014’s Tales from the Borderlands is actually the best game in the Borderlands series. Now, hold on. Don’t go typing up your angry comments just yet. Hear us out.

Sometimes you just want a capital V capital G Video Game that’s about running and jumping and shooting and looting and the proper Borderlands games are a safe option to pick up and play on that front. But it’s hard to ignore that the franchise has a somewhat inversely proportional relationship between the tightness of the gameplay and quality of the writing: as the shooting got better, the dialogue got worse and the jokes grew more irritating.

Within their respective genres, taking into account what they set out to do, Tales is probably the most successful game in the series: it’s funny, with an interesting story, likeable characters, and at times it’s genuinely moving. Nobody was as surprised as us about that. A Telltale Borderlands game? Madness! But it worked.

Fast-forward eight years and here we are with New Tales From The Borderlands, less a sequel to the Telltale original and more of an alternate reality version of the same idea. What would have happened in 2014 if instead of partnering with Telltale in their prime to make a more story-focused game in the Borderlands franchise, Gearbox just made it themselves? Well, this is the result. And it’s rubbish.

Taking place after Borderlands 3 but without really requiring any knowledge of any previous…