Take a sprinkle of that patented Borderland’s insanity, pepper in some evolved FPS gunplay and looting, and add a healthy dose of lovable boisterousness spewed from the mouth of a misunderstood and bombastic young narrator. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is an exciting spinoff on the Borderlands franchise, expanding upon an idea first forged back in 2013 with Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep, a DLC chapter for the largely enjoyed Borderlands 2.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands maintains the gunplay and looting found in the Borderlands games, with the same sense of irreverent humour and eye-catching cell-shaded art style the series is known for. What’s different is the context surrounding this shooter. Rather than the wastelands of an alien planet and a group of treasure-hunters seeking fortune, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is a fantasy campaign told by Tina herself. It’s an adventure where the wondrous often outshines the logical, as friendships are forged through the rolling of dice and the conquering of encounters. With a new identity and an impressive fresh coat of paint, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands proves to be a more than worthy advancement over the somewhat underwhelming Borderlands 3.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands sets the scene (quite literally) in its opening moments. You’re a new player joining a Dungeons and Dragons group (known in-universe as Bunkers and Badasses), with Tiny Tina voiced by Ashley Burch as the Dungeon Master and Captain Valentine voiced by Andy Samberg and the robot Frette voiced by Wanda Sykes as your fellow players. You’re referred to fondly as ‘Newbie’ by the others, with a brand new campaign being crafted by Tiny Tina ready for you to enjoy. An in-depth and inclusive character creator lets you make your avatar and it’s here where we first see the advantage of honing into the DnD premise.

The game then plays out in a fairly typical Borderlands fashion. Played in the first-person, you’ll mow down foes with an eclectic array of randomised weaponry that colourfully bursts out of your foe’s corpse like highly destructive confetti. Each weapon will have different firing modes you can toggle between, often changing a semi-automatic weapon into a fully-automatic weapon or a single-shot weapon into a 3-burst shot weapon. The real fun comes from the firing patterns of said guns, whether it be an SMG that fires a line of ice bullets that travel in a wave and freeze enemies on impact, or whether it’s a rocket launcher that shoots rockets into the ground before they zoom through the earth and detonate under a foe’s feet. Pair that chaotic yet still very controlled gunplay with the addition of magical spells set on a cooldown and you have a really enjoyable and diverse attack pattern that keeps gameplay fresh and exciting until the very end.

Spells in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands somewhat replace grenades from the Borderlands games, with different spells performing like different grenade mods. A simple spell may shoot a magic missile at an enemy, whereas a more elaborate one may open up a portal in the sky and drop a meteor down on your enemies, which then, in turn, breaks off into smaller meteors for a secondary set of explosions. Spells contextually fit perfectly into the fantasy world that’s been created, and their use during combat is buttery smooth and oh-so-satisfying. Spells will automatically hone in or lock on to your enemies and can be cast mid-shot, meaning there’s no break to the gunplay. It’s just seamless and effortless. Not all spells are created equally, however, and it was always a bit disappointing to get a spell that’s statistically superior but nowhere near as fun. A rather minor complaint in the grand scheme of things. Melee combat feels like it got an equally sizable upgrade over Borderlands 3 as well, with different weapon drops giving different stats, and a rather generous gap-closer meaning you can take your swing from a bigger distance.

Different classes are made available to the player with the first chosen during character creation and a secondary class made available during the campaign. A class skill gives yet another option during combat with one particularly powerful tornado-based skill becoming fundamental to my personal play. Moving your way through your classes’ skill trees and strategically stacking passives with item stats means you can build toward some really powerful combinations. Weaving your class skills with spells and gunplay puts the combat leagues ahead of any Borderlands game, and it just feels better and better the longer you play.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands never truly goes open-world, relying on more of a branching pathway approach. The gameplay will also thematically swap between first-person shooting and a tabletop-esque overworld where you’ll move your player token across a miniaturised yet detailed gameboard. It’s an interesting choice and one that works for the narrative concept that’s being outlined. I don’t know if it will resonate with all gamers, some may prefer not to have that constant reminder of the DnD game that’s being played, but as a novel idea that keeps this game separate from the Borderlands franchise, it fully worked for me. Not to mention the world itself is just so good looking, especially when you’re in the first-person perspective. The signature Borderlands style is still here, but the lighting, the colour, and the vibrancy and beauty of the world is on full display. It really is a breathtaking art style, with such clarity built into the aesthetics. Running like a dream, at least on my PC, there’s no doubt that Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is a fabulous example of both function and form.

Multiplayer runs via an always-online service known as SHiFT. I didn’t like how fundamental SHiFT appears to be in order to play this game. I also didn’t like how the only time the game would lag was when I got a notification saying I had either disconnected or reconnected to the SHiFT server. In a game able to be played solo, I had really hoped this would not be as core and unavoidable as it is. With full cross-play available at launch apparently available because of SHiFT, I’m almost ready to forgive the problems I had. Cross-play with this level of accessibility is just so userfriendly and worthy of celebration. But at least in this instance, it came at a fairly troublesome cost.

I ran into some other niggly issues on the PC as well. Small UI glitches would display things incorrectly, such as showing my minions were dead when they most certainly were not, or showing an item as unsellable when it wasn’t. Scrolling through a menu with the mouse’s scroll wheel was unbearably slow, and I’d often sell the wrong item to a vending machine because the mouse cursor wasn’t aligning properly with the selected piece of gear. These were frequent annoyances, but ultimately small oversights when compared to how lovingly polished the rest of the game felt.

I don’t think the game’s narrative will blow people away, nor does it need to. But at the very least you get a heartening insight into Tina as a character and it’s hard not to sympathise with what is a misunderstood and ultimately innocent young woman. Combine those lovable characters with a metanarrative that’s constantly aware of itself and doing cool things within the context of its tabletop storytelling and you get a really compelling and at times smart adventure that takes you from one crazy world to the next. Add to this the fact that the game’s side quests are just as engaging and unique as its main quests and you start to realise just how much of a gem Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands actually is. It’s a game that goes above and beyond its history to make something creative and appealing. And even after you roll credits 25+ hours into the experience, there’s still a Roguelike endgame mode that’s surprisingly fun.