Borderlands Board Game Review: Mr. Torgue and His Harsh Arena

Borderlands is a cult phenomenon in the gaming world that players can’t afford to miss. So it was only a matter of time before a board game was created that would take us into this universe. Current Borderlands news: Mr. Torgue and his arena of brutality will take you nowhere but to the famous arena. The following paragraphs of this review will tell you whether it’s worth it.

Number of players: 1-4

Playing time: 60 minutes

Price: 3199 CZK (Alsa)

Age: 14+

Borderlands: Mr. Torgue and his arena of cruelty will open up twelve scenarios for you.

Fans of the legendary cooperative looter shooter are waiting for Borderlands: Mr. Torgue and his arena of cruelty at home. From the very beginning, they have the opportunity to choose one of the characters. The menu includes the famous Salvador, the thief Mordecai, the shooter Moza and the siren Amara. As in video games, here you have the opportunity to form your hero. However, instead of three trees, you always need to choose one, but it is not necessary to install it permanently, as it can be replaced by another.

Once you have looked around and prepared the individual heroes, there is nothing stopping you from playing. However, before playing, it should be noted that this game is based on the idea of ​​​​a four-player game, so if you do not have friends, you have no choice but to take more than one hero, which is not so unusual, since other similar projects, including Zombicide, are the same. The same goes for the idea that you are not told the whole story through randomly selected scenarios, but instead are offered a full campaign consisting of twelve parts, firmly connected to the backstory of the story, with which even if you lose, you can continue, which actually seems very interesting to me But let’s move on to the gameplay itself.

Once you have your heroes and map layout ready, there is nothing stopping you from joining the fight. The game is played in rounds, with the hunters always playing first. You activate one of them, after which you can move, attack enemies, change weapons, use an item, change equipment, or collect loot tokens. You determine how far the characters will move with tokens of three colors. You then also use them during an attack, with the token determining your range. Once a person chooses a target for an action, they determine the target value they must roll on a die of a certain color, then roll it and add their hero’s stats to the value. After that, the effect associated with the action is evaluated and triggered.

When you hit an enemy, they are wounded or even killed depending on their hit points. The action can also be performed against multiple targets. In this case, one defense roll for each target is evaluated separately. When you manage to destroy an enemy, they drop a loot token. These come in several forms here. Traditionally, we have items that heal lost hit points, give the character the ammunition needed to shoot, allow them to change their equipment, or perhaps improve abilities in the chosen development tree. There are many options that can drop.

There’s plenty of what we’re going to talk about in Borderlands: Mr. Torgue and his arena of brutality and gear, because the entire series is about gear. Each hunter has space for two weapons, a shield, a grenade, and two attachments. The range of gear is incredibly varied, so it’s very cheap to equip, and there’s nothing stopping you from trading in your existing gear for new parts that you can find, for example, in vending machines, which are always available at the end of a mission. But before you get to the end, you usually have to fall or complete some kind of task, which, of course, a bunch of enemies are trying to prevent you from doing.

Enemies are activated here when the heroes are played. Their progress is then recorded in a report card, which can contain some of the seven orders. The main target of enemies is always the hunter “endowed” with light. When they are within range, they will attack him. But if he is beyond it, the next target is the hunter with the most red tokens. In addition to attacking, enemies can move, spend the hunter’s ammo, draw an event card, perform a special action, or be placed on the battlefield according to clearly defined scenario rules. The palette of enemies is varied and there are not even bosses among them. If they accidentally manage to send you to the ground, you have the opportunity, like in a video game, to exchange their life for yours.

The round always ends after the enemies have finished the game. Borderlands: Mr. Torgue and his arena of cruelty allow you to make a cleanse roll, which you make with a four-sided die. This roll can destroy any uncollected loot tokens or remove various negative status tokens from characters. Hunters will also respawn, for which you pay a certain amount of credits, and then evaluate whether there was a victory or defeat. When the game continues, you will completely exhaust the report card, at which point the action tokens are reset and the next round begins.

Borderlands: Mr. Torgue’s gameplay and his arena of cruelty will be no stranger to Zombicide.

Action Borderlands: Mr. Torgue and His Arena of Cruelty is a great adaptation of the popular looter shooter series. Together with a group of heroes, you go to meet a bunch of angry enemies who, like you, are taking part in a brutal test. Individual characters are well-developed, equipment gives you different options for dealing with problems, and the set of arena elements allows you to create your own scenarios that you build on those you go through in the main campaign. Personally, I could have imagined a more diverse palette of heroes, but this is primarily my problem, not the game’s.

Borderlands: Mr. Torgue and His Arena of Cruelty is an action-packed experience that will take several evenings to complete, and will require you to take and give a lot of pain. If you like games that are very similar to Zombicide and you also like Borderlands, I probably wouldn’t be afraid of this game, despite the higher price.

For providing a copy of Borderlands: Mr. Torgue and His Arena of Cruelty thanks to the Czech distributor Blackfire.