I started this game with a couple of mates in co-operative mode back at the start of 2013. They got bored, I shelved it, and eventually went back on my own at the end of 2016 and tried to beat the story solo. I then got bored playing alone, shelved it again, and eventually went back for a third time at the start of 2020 to finally beat the story.
I quickly realised that this wasn't just going to be a simple clean-up journey though, and there are a number of reasons as to why this game has been shelved multiple times. Initially, after beating the story, it was realising the grind behind a certain trophy within the main list that requires the player to complete the first level of every non-specific, in-game challenge. Within this, you have find and kill Jimmy J3NKN5, a Jet Loader who spawns randomly in certain boxes. After hours of reloading checkpoints and opening these boxes to find nothing, I quit again. However, having realised this game is now officially 10 years old in my collection, and as a hardened trophy hunter who knows exactly all about the perils that come with territory, you just sometimes have to face the music. We're back in Borderlands 2 for what I'm vowing is going to be the final time.
To support these complications, we're starting with the array of DLC content attached to Borderlands 2. This does come with it's own logical thought process though, as the main list contains a trophy for reaching level 50, and I currently sit at level 38 at the time of writing, so rather than play New Game+, it makes sense to go through the fresh content and attempt to unlock these trophies simultaneously. It's about the only thing that has made sense thus far.
This DLC pack takes you into Oasis, a town over-run by Pirates attempting to track and find Captain Blade's Lost Treasure of the Sands. Captain Scarlett, leader of the pirates, enlists your help to assist her in finding 4 compass pieces which will combine to reveal the exact location of the treasure at the promise of splitting the reward. It's a fairly basic plot, and there aren't really any major gameplay changes here - It's mostly more of the same with a bunch of new quests, some new environments and a handful of new enemies to fight against. It also comes with an equally basic trophy list to accompany it, with just 3 trophies added within.
Completion of the new main questline, containing a total of 9 quests, awards 1 of the 3 trophies on offer here. The level of the enemies is scaled to around level 30, which meant large portions of these quests left me completely untroubled coming into this at level 38. Enemies would die in a couple of hits, it was easy to absorb large amounts of damage from bigger groups and none of the loot was any better than what I was already carrying. This made the content feel like a simple matter of just mere progression.
There are just 2 other trophies to go after here, and 1 of these, awarded for discovering all named locations in Oasis and the surrounding areas, actually unlocked very prematurely, way before I'd discovered all areas anyway. However, the final outstanding trophy wasn't as straight forward;
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| Completionist - Completed all Pirate's Booty side missions. |
These, for the most part, fit in line with the same characteristics of the main quests, with the simple requirement to just play through them and tick them off at a very leisurely pace with little resistance. However, every now and again, Borderlands loves throwing in a massive curveball, with a challenge so demanding, it suddenly requires you to rethink your approach and work out the best way to deal with it.
Of these 23 side quests required to unlock this trophy, there is a quest called "Hyperius the Invincible", which is offered to you by Shade towards the end of the content package. Hyperius the Invincible was ultimately too tough for me to defeat at the time I wanted to defeat him.
The DLC had lured me into a false sense of security. All these easy quests treated as standard procedure ultimately led to a boss I simply wasn't powerful enough to beat in that exact moment. My stubbornness shone through as I attempted to beat him multiple times, knowing in reality I probably couldn't with my current weapons. I also needed to level up and acquire more health points, as I was dying too quickly regardless. I eventually ran out of money refilling on ammo for the next attempt, and was ultimately forced to move on as a consequence.
My only option from here was to begin the next bit of DLC content, which was Torque's Campaign of Carnage, in order to further level up and take advantage of earning Torque Tokens - A currency exclusive to this DLC - which would allow me to buy stronger weapons that can only be purchased with this unique currency, to then go back and finally defeat Hyperius.
Once I'd acquired a couple of stronger Torque Guns through grinding activities allowing me to earn enough tokens to buy them, I returned to beat Hyperius fairly comfortably. It was just frustrating to suddenly hit a brick wall seemingly out of nowhere, where the challenge forced me to have to come back to complete it at a later date. If it wasn't for this sole quest, this would be a very straight forward package to complete, and it still is for 95% of the way.
You may be in a better position to fight Hyperius than I was, depending on individual circumstances, but I just happened to not be in that place at that time. I probably spent too much time attempting to beat him, and should have been smarter by moving on much sooner, but that's my own fault.
32 total quests, most of which are very straight-forward to complete, should take no longer than 6-8 hours, providing you don't run into the same struggles I did. Many wasted attempts notched up a couple of hours for me unnecessarily, so I spent a little longer than the estimate on this, but if you've already progressed well within the main game, you should be well over the level 30 threshold this DLC is set to, and this mostly becomes a checklist exercise. Just make sure you come back to Hyperius if you need to.
