Borderlands 3 Bloody Harvest Review
Borderlands 3 first seasonal event is here, and it’s a fun little event. I would say that the biggest positive about the Bloody Harvest event is the fact it is free.
The event features a new location “planet” The Heck Hole, a location that you can access after speaking with Maurice on Sanctuary III. Maurice will send you on a short mission that will then give you access to Heck.
The mission revolves around fighting deceased Maliwan soldiers, lots of ghosts and the big bad himself Haunt, the ghostly reimagining of Captain Traunt. The enemies are not the only new features of the Bloody Harvest event. There are also new weapons that incorporate terror to add unique benefits and challenges that unlock Bloody Harvest themed cosmetics.
I think the Bloody Harvest event has amazing design with its enemies. The ghosts offer a nice challenge, it’s nice to see that Gearbox didn’t just repurpose something to make the ghosts.
In addition, Haunt is one of the best bosses I have seen and offers minor raid boss elements. Gearbox did an amazing job introducing a new concept with the shield generators before you are challenged with it in a large scale scenario, with the boss fight against Haunt.
While overall I have been very happy and impressed with the first seasonal event, I do have some issues. First, the seasonal event is very short, I wasn’t, watching the time but I would say that it only took me about a half hour to complete and I am sure that you could do it a lot faster. The length isn’t the only issue with the Bloody Harvest event, I would be fine with the length of it were there really any story. The seasonal events (Headhunter missions) in Borderlands 2 were not much longer than the Bloody Harvest event in Borderlands 3, but it featured a much more interesting story. The Headhunter missions typically had subplots and side missions as well, these elements are obvious lacking in the Bloody Harvest event.
I was disappointed to see that there is not much to the story past that you are trying to help an alien dinosaur try to better understand why ghosts are appearing in the galaxy. There really isn’t much more to the story past these elements, I guess Haunt is causing it and the vault hunters need to kill him in Heck to stop him. Yet, that doesn’t actually stop him or the ghosts throughout the galaxy. I don’t expect much out of a Borderlands story, yet it doesn’t even offer a bad story, it just doesn’t offer one.
If the first seasonal event is any indication of what is to come in the future, I am truly excited to see what comes next. I only hope that the seasonal events and other add-ons only get better from here. Bloody Harvest is a great start but I can already see ways that future seasonal events could be improved slightly. The game is slowed down by the fact that you cannot fast travel to Heck from the map. The only way to get into Heck is to go through the portal in Sanctuary III. The biggest oversight is that if you defeat Haunt and turn in the mission it closes off the portal to Heck. The only way to reactivate the portal is to restart the mission and to kill 25 haunted enemies around the galaxy. It really slows down the gameplay loop, it’s made the idea of replaying the event in an effort to complete all the challenges a little daunting.
In my review for Borderlands 3 I expressed that I was happy with the game overall, I said that the only problem I had with the game was that it featured a weak story and that I thought the boss design was not as interesting as the previous games. Bloody Harvest makes me very optimistic for the future of both the free and paid DLC of the game. While it neglects to fix the problem of having a bad story, as it throws story to the side, it fixes the problems that I have had with most of the boss fights. Bloody Harvest is fun and well designed, it is a welcomed free DLC. I am very thrilled to know that another free DLC is coming in November with the Maliwan Take Down, Borderlands take on a raid. Knowing that we will be getting these free modes, maps and cosmetics in between the paid DLC has me very optimistic about the future of Borderlands 3.
