Borderlands: Mister Torgue's Arena of Badassery Review - Jokes And Loot

The crowd screams with a frenzied fervor as you step into the Arena. Together with your three other Vault Hunter compatriots, it’s time to face off against waves of malicious marauders. Welcome to Borderlands: Mister Torgue's Arena of Badassery. Asmodee North America sent us a copy of the game to check out, so read on for our review!

What Is Borderlands: Mister Torgue's Arena of Badassery?

Borderlands: Mister Torgue's Arena of Badassery, aside from having an absolutely ridiculous (in a good way!) title, is a cooperative arena-style dice-chucking board game for 1 to 4 players. Taking place in the Borderlands universe, this game sees players take on multiple scenarios in an interlinking campaign.

When players win or lose a scenario, they’ll be directed to continue the story by moving on to a different scenario depending on the outcome of their match. This continuity of gameplay allows for moments to level up your characters, gear up by spending cash in-between scenarios, and go on bounty hunting side-missions to try to score more (and better) loot.

What Is The Borderlands: Mister Torgue's Arena of Badassery [Re]Action System?

This trademarked system is an inventive way of dealing with action economy in the game. Each character has a set number of [Re]Action tokens on their character card, which correspond to different colored dice. In general, Green tokens/Dice have the best odds of success, Yellow tokens/Dice are moderately good, and Red tokens/Dice can lead to real trouble (as these are only six-sided).

I won’t get too into the weeds with rules, but basically you can choose to spend a token to roll different sided dice in order to meet or beat a target number. If you get hurt and unsuccessfully attempt to defend, the token/dice you used to defend is swapped with a Red (aka BAD) token/dice. If you ever get hit while trying to defend with a Red token/dice, and don’t succeed, your character is taken out.

I think this is a fairly ingenious system, which gives you flexibility to play around with risk and reward in a very satisfying way. I really like that other actions, like movement, are also tied to these different colored tokens. All in all, it’s a unique approach to this kind of hex-based, dice-heavy game.

Does Borderlands: Mister Torgue's Arena of Badassery Feel Like Borderlands?

Oh yeah, big time. Between ridiculous puns, goofy dialogue, weapons that stretch credulity, and that same brand of Borderlands humor you’d expect from the series, this feels like it definitely designed by lovers of the franchise.

One of the biggest ways this shines through for me is the loot. After almost every enemy dies, you can expect to find at least some sort of useful loot on the ground. Whether it’s a small health boost, a new weapon, or just cash to spend later - the constant barrage of gunfire and loot feels very Borderlands to me.

Plus, all your favorite Vault Hunters are here to fend off Mister Torgue’s waves of Psychos, Marauders, and more! In the game, you play as four Vault Hunters no matter how many players you have, meaning this game can be played solo - though in our solo playtesting it was a little tricky to manage all four characters. There's also a leveling up aspect to the game, where you choose one of three paths for your hero and see them grow along that path each game session.

Vault Hunters available to play as include Moze and her Iron Bear, Mordecai and Bloodwing, Amara, and Salvador. This who's who of characters from across the three main titles presents a fun what-if scenario as you face off against Psychos and Badass Psychos, Skags, Marauders, and more.

How Does Borderlands: Mister Torgue's Arena of Badassery Campaign Play?

I won’t spoil the details of the campaign games on display in Borderlands: Mister Torgue's Arena of Badassery, but I will say it all revolves around you slowly getting stronger and stronger before facing off against a truly impressive foe.

What I really like about the campaign is the way the narrative branches from battle to battle. With many of your missions, winning or losing will impact your next subsequent mission. This keeps things feeling very fresh, with a fun (if a bit goofy) narrative winding its way through the campaign.

From blowing up Pyscho spawn points to feeding a raging monster a very interesting diet (Again, spoiling it would ruin the fun but just trust me, this game isn't afraid to get gloriously goofy), the campaign does a good job of keeping things from feeling too same-y.

What Are Our Final Thoughts On Borderlands: Mister Torgue's Arena of Badassery?

This is the kind of campaign adventure game that I would describe as "sturdy." It might not be breaking a ton of new ground, but it's fun to throw dice around, the [Re]Action system is intuitive, and it truly feels like you're enmeshed into the Borderlands world. It's nice that we see Vault Hunters from across the three Borderlands entries, but I think it would have been cool to see more heroes beyond those four. All in all, this is a no-brainer for die-hard fans of the series, and probably a "give it a try" for dungeon-crawling fans (as long as you can handle Borderlands' specific brand of humor).

The copy of Borderlands: Mister Torgue's Arena of Badassery used in this review was provided by Asmodee North America. The author reviewed this game over several solo playthrough's, all photographs are courtesy of the author.