After being released last September Borderlands has been expanded upon with a plethora of downloadable content. With two additional characters and three campaign continuations Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon’s Keep caps off this mostly epic saga of content. Ending this lengthy series of extras, this final morsel condenses everything that made Borderlands 2 a great game and distils that into a seven hour extravaganza.

Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon’s Keep begins with the original Borderlands crew sitting down for a game of Bunkers and Bad-assess, a more schizophrenic version of Dungeons and Dragons. Acting as one of the games pawns, Tina and the other characters act as ever-present narrators, commenting on Tina’s choices. Playing out inside the teenage psychopaths imagination, the characters are tasked with defeating the “Handsome Magician” and follows a somehow even more fantastical version of the core narrative. While packing enough steam to keep it going, most of the twists are telegraphed fairly early on. This doesn’t stop it from being entertaining however and at times can even become a little meta.

Thankfully the script is razor sharp and has some of the funniest lines in the entire Borderlands 2 catalogue of humour. Bringing back characters alive and dead from the main story and the other DLC, Assault on Dragon’s Keep gives each of them enough time to shine before moving on at a breakneck speed. It also surprisingly includes some of the most touching moments as well, dealing with the themes of death and loss in a world where neither seem to make much impact. It is handled with a soft-touch and doesn’t seem out of place, but the ending will hold no surprises for anyone who was paying attention.

Being part of a fantasy board game works well as a setting. Characters and areas change and warp as the god-like Tina places pieces on the board and changes her mind. What starts of as a walk onto a rainbow filled port quickly becomes a much creepier affair. Characters swap in and out as Brick, Mordecai and Lillith complain to Tina. It keeps the story from being stale and takes the opportunity to subvert expectations at almost every turn. The downside to giving each character so little time is the content outside of the main campaign feels more scatter-shot and less focused; instead trying to keep things fresh by making sure each character gets a line or two. While these lines may be funny, it isn’t as effective as when it chooses to focus on one character like Lilith or Mr Torgue. In all feels like experiencing a real D&D campaign when players don’t want to go the route the DM expects, and it fits naturally into the Borderlands formula.

Prepare To Fight A Metric-Buttload Of Dragons

The quests don’t always carry over the same level of thought as the world however. While the jokes may hit the spot, too many of the missions follow the same pattern; go here, interact with an object, kill the enemies that spawn, return. Few break this mold and it hampers the pacing of the main campaign. This is the trade off from having a far more directed experience thanks to the ever-present narration of Tina and the original vault hunters when following the straight and narrow. Even though some of the additional rewards are worth it, such as guns that fire swords that explode into other swords, going back to complete everything after finishing the main story gives a far more enjoyable experience.

Each of the new enviroments shows a degree of imagination that backs up the off-the-wall sense of humour. An evil forest inhabited by a moody teenage treant, ruins filled with spawn-camping “players” and a mine populated with a Dwarven uprising make up only a few of the highlights on the journey towards the Handsome Magicians tower. This tower dominates the skyline or most areas and lies at the centre of the world Tina has concocted. All of the locales look good, but can become draining due to a lack of visual vibrancy found elsewhere in Borderlands. Each of these areas also takes a handful of fantasy games and movies and takes a good amount of time to mock each and every one of them. Ranging from Game of Thrones to Dark Souls, the humour is aimed squarely at those who know their elves from their hobbits.

No Balrogs, But Plenty Of Orcs

Sadly area boundary issues persist, still present from the last DLC “Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt”. Areas marked on the map may be blocked by invisible walls and dodgy collision detection hinder exploration into areas that should clearly be accessible. While this doesn’t deter from the bulk of enjoyment found by searching every nook and cranny, it can become annoying when taking the road less travelled.

Enemy design is easily the strongest out of all of the DLC packs. Instead of palette-swapping the main campaigns foes, new and interesting monsters are slowly drip-fed into the experience right up until the end. Necromancers will summon legions of skeletons, skeletons will revive themselves until swords are pulled from their backs and gallant knights will soak damage from behind thick armour and shields. No individual enemy stands out as much as the previous pack’s Witch Doctors, but the variety and pacing of which they are introduced more than makes up for it.

Ye Olde Quest Hub

Much like the rest of the menagerie of monsters, the bosses keep things fresh and interesting. The handful of fights appear at regular intervals and generally work as end of area challenges. Some of the fights can drag on as wonder around like glorified bullet-sponge, but the majority act as a compelling challenge that gives something to look forward to. Additional satisfying loot make the fights a joy as well, with Gearbox still somehow able to come up with new weapon ideas and compelling loot tables.

Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon’s Keep is a step above the other Borderland downloadable packs. Giving more content and condensing the Borderlands experience better than any of the previous outings, it is a fitting send off to the game. It fares better from a more focused main quest line, but suffers outside of it from a more scattered approach. Slight technical hitches also mar the experience, but less so than previous efforts. If there is a choice between this pack and any of the others, this is the best choice. Fans which have played them all will get the most out of it, but Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon’s Keep gives more than enough bang for your buck.