So ladies and gentlemen, here we have it, Borderlands 2’s swan song. Gearbox is finally drawing the curtain down on their brilliant shooter come RPF come loot-em-up epic. The games has been incredibly well supported, with four new story DLC’s including this one, two new characters and numerous other updates to keep our looting hearts content, but all good things must come to an end, and as long as Gearbox spend their time from now on developing the inevitable Borderlands 3, then fair is fair.

Before we get into the review proper, a small warning. Gearbox assume you have completed the game previously with this DLC, both in terms of the story, which revolves around a major plot point in the main campaign, and also in terms of what you will come up against. The minimum level for the enemies is 31, so you better have a beefed up character, and the game throws a crazy amount of enemies at you at once, assuming you are a veteran to the planet of Pandora. Whilst I will do my best to avoid spoilers, there may be minor ones so read on at your own risk.

Thankfully, the game is going out with a bang and although every bit of DLC has been unique and great in its own way, Gearbox has arguably saved their best for last. This new story takes place in a fantasy world, as our heroes are chilling on a bit of downtime by having a games of Bunkers and Badasses, Pandora’s version of Dungeons and Dragons. Tiny Tina is the dungeon master, which is as awesome as it sounds and creates so of the most comical moments in the entire game. The brilliance of this is that it gives the developers, and Tiny Tina, the ability to change things on the fly. For instance, in the first scene you arrive at a beautiful island, only for one of the characters to point out that this does not look very intimidating, so she changes it into a dark place filled with skeletons and golems. Each of the characters playing the game are all Dungeons and Dragons stereotypes; Lilith is the one that takes everything way too seriously, Mordecai is the one who doesn’t really want to play but has been roped into it and Brick is the one who ruins it for all the others.

Other characters also pop up throughout the campaign, with the return of Mister Torgue, Ellie and, of course, Handsome Jack, who takes up the antagonist role once again as the ‘Handsome Sorcerer’. Despite the fantasy setting, the campaign has the most serious undertones of any of the DLC episodes so far, as Tiny Tina struggles to come to terms with the death of one of her friends from the main campaign. This creates an interesting paradox between Tina as a crazy dungeon master and Tina as a vulnerable girl trying to grow up and make the most of life of Pandora.

The episode takes you new locations and has you facing new enemies such as skeletons, sorcerers, orcs and dwarves amongst others. There is a nod to virtually every fantasy game or movies somewhere in there with multiple references to Skyrim, Dark Souls, Lord of the Rings, Monty Python to name just a few. The actions moves along at a brisk pace, and you rarely get as much of a chance to relax as you did in the other DLC’s. This is in large part to the absence of vehicles, meaning the areas you visit are much more claustrophobic and densely packed with enemies. As I mentioned at the top of the review, Gearbox assumes you know what you are doing by this point, and they are not afraid to throw everything but the kitchen sink at you to see how well you fare. I played with a fully geared out level 61 Assassin, and I was still facing enemies that could down me in just a couple of hits. This DLC is not for the faint hearted, I will say that much.

Mercifully, the game rewards you for your persistence with some of the most unique loot we have seen so far. As with all the DLC’s there are the usual array of new Seraph and unique weapons, and for the first time in any of Borderlands 2 episodes there are new legendary items to get our hands on, two new grenade mods and a new assault rifle. As for the unique items my personal favourite are the swordsplosions which, you guessed it, fires exploding swords and the grog nozzle, which has a chance to get you drunk when you fire it. As for the seraphs, there is a new shield that deflects bullets, an SMG which does both slag and shock damage simultaeneously and an assault rifle that fires homing missles. With regards to the legendaries, I’ll let you discover those yourself, wouldn’t want to spoil all the surprises now would I? My only gripes with the new items are the fact that many of them are grenade mods, which is a tad disappointing and the fact that most of the new items are not particularly powerful. Having spent a significant amount of time tinkering with the new items, none of them were particularly useful at actually dispatching foes and there aren’t really any items that rival the best from the main campaign. They sure are fun to use though, so that kind of makes up for the lack of damage.

Ultimately, Assault on Dragon’s Keep is a great, fitting conclusion to the Borderlands 2 adventure. It manages to be silly and serious, unique yet familiar and challenging but fair. It is a perfect reason to jump back into the world of Pandora one more time and anyone who loves looting and shooting has no reason not to grab a slice of this delicious dessert to go alongside the brilliant main course.

Tiny Tina’s Assualt on Dragon’s Keep is available now as part of the season pass or 800ms on Xbox 360 and £9.99 on PSN or Steam. You can check out the launch trailer below.

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