Tiny Tina returns to Borderlands in her own game. Following the events of Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep. Tina has invited some friends to play a game of Bunkers & Badasses. Naturally, with all things related to Tina chaos ensues as her role of Dungeon Master creates a world of random nonsense you’d come to expect from the character.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is a 2022 spinoff of Borderlands, it is developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games. It is currently available on PC and consoles.

Editor’s Note: A Playstation review copy for Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was provided by 2K Games in support of this review. Mild spoilers for Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands’ story as well as the Borderlands source material may be present within this review. 

Tiny Tina is the dungeon master in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands continues the story sometime after Assault on Dragon’s Keep and Borderlands 2. Leading the way for a game of Bunkers and Badasses is little agent of chaos Tiny Tina who plays the dungeon master. Along with Frette, Valentine, and the player character known playfully as “The Newbie” she sets them off on an adventure to defeat the Dragon Lord a powerful entity who wants to rule Wonderlands.

Tiny Tina features a robust voice cast.

THE GOOD: Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands starts off with our heroes facing the Dragon Lord. Upon his defeat the game resets and they attempt to stop a skeleton gang from reviving him. Despite beating the skeletons they succeed in reviving the Dragon Lord and the group is forced to chase him and attempt to defeat him again. They head to the village of Brighthoof which is over run by skeletons and save it by defeating the skeletons. Queen Butt Stallion tells them to fund the Sword of Souls to repair Brighthoof from the damage caused by the attack. After repairing the village the Newbie is knighted by Queen Butt Stallion for their efforts.

Before it’s official the Dragon Lord appears and takes the Sword of Souls decapitating Queen Butt Stallion with. As he leaves he takes the Queen’s head with him to his base. Newbie and their group must then find a boat to cross the ocean to the Dragon Lord’s bade Fear-amid where he plans to destroy all of Wonderlands. After getting their boat blessed by a bard the spell is botched and destroys the ocean forcing the Newbie & the others to cross on foot. The Dragon Lord secretly communicates with the Newbie revealing he has become sentient and aware that they’re playing a game. He also reveals his true plan to usurp Tiny Tina’s rule as dungeon master of the game, mainly due to her lack of stability to rule. Dragon Lord also tells Newbie that he was once Tina’s player character and he became a villain after Tina improperly used the Sword of Souls and swearing vengeance against her. Newbie and the others defeat the Dragon Lord and are goaded into using the Sword of Souls improperly again.

They instead use the sword to revive Queen Butt Stallion and refuse to kill Dragon Lord. Newbie, Valentine, Frette commend Tina for how much fun the game was and choose to continue playing. Newbie is knighted officially by Queen Butt Stallion as Dragon Lord is sentenced to 200 years in prison. Dragon Lord also unlocks the Chaos Chamber for the player as a reward.

Weapons a plenty in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.

If you’ve been wanting to crave your Borderlands itch since the release of Borderlands 3 then good news! Tiny Tina is basically everything you’d hope for a Borderlands title sans some key main characters of course as it is a spinoff. Or rather a direct sequel to the Borderlands 2 DLC spinoff Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep. Like I said most of what you’d come to expect and love is there in ‘Wonderlands’ when the humor works it’s spot on. The gunplay is really strong so much so that you’ll spend way more time taking effort into figuring out which ones you want or even need to use rather than playing the actual game. While I’m not really too into the franchise as a whole I’ve seen say ‘Wonderlands’ has the best FPS gameplay in the entire series and honestly I’d believe it.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands wants you to think it’s a tabletop game disguised as a shooter and it’s pretty good at it. Though it does often feel like it doesn’t lean nearly as much on the parody as it should have. That being said I do wonder if the devs had leaned any deeper we may have been playing an entirely different game for better or worse. The character creator acts as a bit of an RPG system where you pick classes and skills that become more powerful as you level up & progress throughout the game. There’s a total of six character classes: Brr-Zerker, Spellshot, Clawbringer, Spore Warden, Graveborn, and Stabbomancer. Despite the odd mix of serious and comical names these classes play pivotal roles in the build of your character. In short Brr-Zerker is close combat and melee based, Spellshot is elemental magic based, Clawbringer is hammer based and you get a wyvern companion, Spore Warden gives you a mushroom like companion for poison damage, Graveborn is kind of like necromancy and you get a Demi-Lich companion, and finally Stabbomancer is more stealth based. Keep in mind you can’t change this once the game starts so be absolutely sure about the class you choose.

As far as the story goes it’s surprisingly well written when you consider the chaotic atmosphere that a character like Tiny brings. Again, not really too into the series, but I know a lot of people were pretty disappointed with the story for Borderlands 3 and a lot of the characters, and yes Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands has it’s own annoyances but not to a level where I felt it killed the game too much or effected my enjoyment in any major way. Tiny and Dragon Lord’s relation to one another was a neat and creative twist that I don’t think many will see coming and it’s moments like that which gives Tiny Tina a refreshing build for it’s story compared to other Borderlands titles.

Tiny Tina’s gunplay is a surprisingly well designed time.

THE BAD: Tiny Tina features some of the expected jokes and humor that you’d hope for in a Borderlands title. This naturally means that the humor won’t be for everyone including long term fans who never appreciated it. It’s made worse by the fact that there’s an influx of repeated dialogue through the game and there’s times when the characters just never shut up.  Tiny Tina also wants you to believe that in spirit it’s a tabletop game even going so far as having a world map that mimics one, but that’s about as far as the imitation really goes which is a tad disappointing. DLC is also a bit barren if you bother to stick around for it. The bosses and dungeons feel like they were busy work just for the sake of killing time rather than adding any major levels of extra enjoyment.

Tiny Tina’s humor won’t be for everyone especially on repeat.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is a fun FPS title that other developers should to for inspiration rather than the latest Call of Duty or Battlefield. It’s full of creativity and whimsy along with a shockingly (mostly) good story with some good character development for at least it’s leads in Dragon Lord & Tiny Tina. The repeated jokes and dialogue can get a bit tiresome at times and the parodying of the tabletop genre doesn’t really go as far as it needs to. DLC is unfortunately a bit of a mess right now as well. However, if you’re looking for a good shooter with a little something extra and way more pros than cons then you should definitely add Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands to your list for future backlog.