While Borderlands 3 was praised for its core gameplay and post-launch support, it was criticized for other reasons. Not only did the game’s story come under fire for some questionable writing, missed opportunities, and rushed send-offs for beloved characters, but its endgame was also criticized. While Mayhem 2.0 made the higher difficulties of Borderlands 3 much better, a problem remained: a major lack of raid bosses. This is one area that Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands needs to improve upon if it wants to please longtime fans.
Borderlands 3 concluded with only a few proper raid bosses, with two - Wotan The Invincible and Scourge The Invincible - tied to difficult 20 minute missions players had to get through just to fight the boss again. On top of this, Hemovorous The Invincible, which plays like a traditional raid boss, was only available to those that purchased the Director’s Cut DLC. With Borderlands 3’s raid boss count being a massive step down from Borderlands 2’s, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands should aim to feature numerous raid bosses.
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands’ Puzzle Bosses Are a Good Sign
While Gearbox has not provided details on whether traditional raid bosses will be featured in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, it has confirmed that some fights resembling the difficulty of raid bosses will be included. To find these special encounters, players will have to explore the Chaos Chambers thoroughly.
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands’ Chaos Chambers serve as the game’s main source of endgame content, with the dungeons seeing players battle through six rooms of enemies and two boss encounters. However, there will be side objectives to complete within these randomly generated arenas, and players that explore the rooms thoroughly could stumble upon some special puzzles.
If players successfully complete one of these puzzles, the final boss of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands’ Chaos Chamber will be swapped out with one of three powerful hidden bosses. By tying three raid boss-level fights to the Chaos Chambers, the mode instantly sounds more fleshed out since players have another major reason to engage with the endgame content. However, while it is great to know that Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands fans will have content comparable to raid bosses in the spin-off, it would be good to have some traditional raid bosses as well.
Why Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands Should Have Traditional Raid Bosses
While the secret bosses within the Chaos Chambers ensure there is some much-needed variety on repeat runs, it would still be nice to have some raid bosses in the old style as well. Being able to pay Eridium (or whatever Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands’ equivalent ends up being) to access a boss arena provides a great use for the alternate currency while also hyping up the raid boss itself. Further, getting to hop right into a challenging fight right away is plenty of fun, as this speeds up the grinding process and lets players focus on fighting one huge foe whenever they want a challenge.
While enhancing the Chaos Chambers with secret bosses is undoubtedly a good thing, fans could end up a bit disappointed if they have to play through full 20-30 minute Chaos Chambers just to battle a raid boss. With these bosses not guaranteed to be found on every run, either, they could be even more controversial than the Invincible foes that were locked behind Borderlands 3’s Takedowns. Hopefully, Gearbox is able to strike a balance that provides strong endgame threats inside and outside of the Chaos Chambers.
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
