While Im charitable to the fact that this game has First Draft Syndrome, its impossible to ignore how the ugly Brown Aesthetic of late 2000s video games merged with this austere desert looter shooter to form the most rancid vibes known to man. It is so mind-numbingly bare that it almost feels like a surrealist project, some David Lynch psyop where theres just an uncomfortable amount of dead air.

And in some ways thats interesting, its like Borderlands 1 is a peek into an alternate reality. Its a much more dismal, less successful reality to be clear, and this is something that can only be appreciated retrospectively; its difficult to regard Borderlands as the “starting point” of the series when its such a distant relative to what the series is at this point (and really its estranged relationship with the series is the only worthwhile thing about it worth talking about)