Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Review Roundup: A Magical Continuation Of The Borderlands Name

Forget Hogwarts Legacy, it's wands up for a very different kind of world, as Gearbox Software tries to cast a spell over us all with Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. Since 2009, the Borderlands name has been blasting the competition, but as a long-awaited successor to the Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragons Keep DLC, does Wonderlands still have that magic touch?

Once again, it's over to that pint-sized troublemaker, as Tiny Tina puts her legacy as a demolitions expert to good use in a spin-off all of her own. Putting on her best witch's hat and robes, Tina is the dungeon master who will bend this realm to her will. We've already seen a colourful cast of character classes as you'd expect from any Borderlands entry, but in a post-Elden Ring world, we could be facing fantasy fatigue with Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. 

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Reviews: What Have The Critics Said?

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Across the board, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands sounds like a fun - if predictable - expansion to the Borderlands name that should tide us over until Borderlands 4 finally releases. Here's what everyone's been saying. 

Leon Hurley - Games Radar 4/5: "For the most part the tone is just about right. Both in terms of the humor, and the design, with some great enemies - like the sharks with legs, mushrooms with teeth, goblins, and so on - and a surprisingly beautiful world overall. That Borderlands cel-shaded look has been refined here into something more subtle, combined with some lovely fantasy landscapes, to create a surprisingly beautiful game at times. If you've been grinding yourself to the nub on Elden Ring, or just generally dealing with… this [waves hands at everything], then it's probably just the sort of lighthearted fun you need." 

Jody Macgregor - PC Gamer 70/100: "While other looter-shooters bolt on crafting systems or try to make you care about gear levels and repeatable activities and collecting 15 different kinds of shards (why is it always shards?), Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is simply another game of shooting bad guys with ridiculous guns so you can take even more ridiculous guns off their corpses. And sometimes, in-between that, it delivers a gag about what a mess the average game of D&D is that hits me like a knife in the heart."

Travis Northup - IGN: "Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is a fantastic fantasy take on Borderlands’ tried-and-true looter shooter formula. As spin-offs go, it sticks dangerously close to its past successes which at times felt a bit unoriginal and some of the new stuff it tries, like procedurally generated combat encounters, didn’t pan out terribly well. Luckily, the excellent writing, hilarious performances from an all-star cast, and ridiculous combat continue to shine brightly and make this tabletop-inspired explosion-fest absolutely worth your time."

Darryn Bonthuys - GameSpot 7/10: "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands doesn't reinvent the Borderlands wheel with its shift towards fantasy that bears a chaotic-neutral alignment. Instead, it explores familiar territory that repeats the best and worst of the Borderlands formula and it doesn't venture out of its comfort zone. That makes for a game that is packed with solid first-person shooter action and a competent multiclass system for creating an interesting Fatemaker."

Phil Iwaniuk - PCGamesN: "It’s still shooting at screaming enemies in familiar camps. It’s still watching numbers ping out from their bonces. And it’s very much still about salivating at the shower of colour-coded goodies that disgorge from them as they die. But it’s also a game world I genuinely enjoy spending time in, somewhere between Skyrim and Rick and Morty, somewhere to relax, obsess over stacking class abilities, and catch up with your mates while Tiny Tina cooks up some fresh nonsense for you to explore."

Owen S. Good - Polygon: "By not taking its time or its space too seriously, the game leaves the player free to romp, roam, and plunder it likewise. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands thus breathes new, weird life into a franchise that had become terminally rote, and reminds me why guns-meets-Diablo was the perfect obsession so many years ago."

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By the sounds of it, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands could be well worth a visit if you're craving some of that madcap madness that Borderlands continues to deliver. Then again, critics have pointed out that for all its comparisons to its bigger brother, the latest outing doesn't quite lean into the rest of this series. Apart from a handful of (questionable) cameos, there's a Borderlands-shaped hole in this dungeon delight. Still, it sounds like Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is a great way to pass the time if you're sick of being killed by the Elden Lord.