Friday, 11 June 2021 15:35

Why Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Should Be in Third-Person Instead of First

Written by Andrea Trama
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Tiny Tina's Wonderlands seems to be the wind of change for the Borderlands series, but it should be bold enough to shift player perspective.

Borderlands games have always been traditionally played in first-person, with gamers controlling one of the Vault Hunter classes in the looter shooter. However, with Tiny Tina's Wonderlands now coming and seeming like an improved follow-up to Borderlands 2's Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, things should change. Since Tiny Tina's Wonderlands will allow for some degree of character customization, this is clearly a big step forward from the typical Borderlands game.

Players never really had much freedom in customizing their Vault Hunters in any mainline Borderlands game, apart from heads, skins, and a few color palettes to pick from. On the other hand, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is embracing major RPG elements from classic tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons, which would make it desirable to have the opportunity of playing the game in third-person instead. Gamers usually like seeing their characters while playing, especially if they made it and designed it to look the way they want.

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This is precisely one of the reasons why characters created in Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, which supposedly will benefit from both a physical appearance customization and class selection, should be fully visible to players. Spending time on changing the way a character looks and what it does can suddenly be a less enjoyable experience if players can never see all that, apart from things like a menu or cutscenes. This should warrant a switch in perspective, quite literally, that makes Tiny Tina's Wonderlands the first Gearbox Software game within the Borderlands universe that doesn't play out in first-person.

There are other games out there that feature a character creation process that is not too dissimilar from what could be in Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, and they sometimes offer players the option of switching perspectives as they like. One big example is Skyrim, which can be played both in first-person and third-person freely, and it works great for the heavy RPG aspects of the game. Players don't simply customize their character in terms of race and physical appearance in Skyrim, but rather they can also change the appearance of their weapons and armor pieces.

The same holds true for many other games, one of which is Destiny 2. Players are not exactly able to switch from first to third-person as they please, but using swords or some world weapons changes perspective, or even using emotes. Another way for players to see their characters in Destiny 2 is to go to the Tower, the social hub, and then there is an in-game option for characters to be seen without their helmets on in social areas. This too is a commonly requested feature in RPGs that don't have it, like the recently released Biomutant.

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Tiny Tina's Wonderlands does already shake the very foundations of the Borderlands series by adding the option for players to cast spells, which is of course fitting for the fantasy setting of a tabletop game. This means that the game is a bold one at that, and Gearbox may use that same boldness to make this new spin-off a title that can be played in third-person.

However, whether Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is the wind of change for the Borderlands series remains to be seen, but the story of Borderlands 3 does leave room to believe that RPG elements might grow stronger in time. The Eridians are mentioned many times, and there is a lot of talk about Sirens and sources of acausal power in the game. All of this may or may not be pointing at a different take on the classic FPS perspective, shifting more to a hero-based sort of playstyle rather than controlling a predetermined Vault Hunter, regardless if it is Tiny Tina's Wonderlands or the next Borderlands title.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is set for release in 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

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