Episode 4 of TellTale Games’ Tales From The Borderlands series was probably my favorite so far. There was action, intrigue, humorous dialog and plenty of story choices to keep you busy. Keeping with my usual theme of not giving too much away but still discussing my choices through the episode, let’s jump into it:

Starting with Fiona’s choices, there is a point in the episode where the rag-tag group is heading up to the Hyperion Space Station, which most fans of the Borderlands franchise should already know orbits Pandora’s moon of Elpis. Scooter has joined the crew and it comes to a point where he has to play hero and sacrifice himself (don’t worry, I think he’ll end up being fine). There was a short scene prior to that where he explained that he was going to launch a satellite advertisement while they were on their way, but you had convinced him to wait until the return trip. After his sacrifice, you are given a choice of several things to display on the satellite image, and I chose to honor him as “the best mechanic.” This was a fluff choice and as such it just seems that I picked one of the less popular options.

Later, while on Hyperion’s station, Fiona has to play the part of a tour guide in Handsome Jack’s VIP office tour. This is where he ruled the corporation before his untimely death in Borderlands 2, and has since been turned into yet another way for Hyperion to make money off the backs of dead people. There is a group of douchebag tourists who give you a hard time while wining the tour guide thing, and eventually when coming to Jack’s actual office room, you notice a force field barring entry. Most tour guides warned the tourists of this fact. I did not. I’m in the minority there.

Finally, while trying to escape from this VIP area, you are confronted by a guard and have to make the choice of escape plans. It was unclear what the effects of each choice would make, as there was only the images of a mural of Jack and of Butt Stallion, but no real way of knowing what would happen dependent on your choice. I went with Butt Stallion, because earlier I had talked about how it “poops guns” and thought I might make use of those, but instead Fiona shoots at the horse, and it started to bleed! Not sure if Butt Stallion will be ok, but Fiona is whisked away to the prison level at this point. I was with the majority on this choice.

On to Rhys, there is a scene where Fiona is questioning if you are 100% in going through with the plan to go back to the Hyperion station, and Jack has been talking to you in his holographic form that only you can see. He warns against telling your companions about his presence, and since I’ve been keeping that a secret throughout the previous episodes, I continued to lie. Turns out Jack told Rhys where the next Gortys piece would be, because Jack had it in his office. I told the others, but since Rhys couldn’t possibly know that, it took being quick on my feet to lie and say the information was hidden in my database. Rhys is part machine after all. I was with the majority here.

Later, while disguised as Vasquez (I’ll leave that part spoiler free for you to discover) Rhys is confronted by Yvette who seems to have double crossed him and Vaughn. There’s a point where she starts to call security, and I used Dumpy (the little flying robot from previous episodes) to shock the shit out of her. No security calls today, not for you. It seems mostly every other player to this point took another route, but fuck people who backstab their friends.

Near the end of the episode, Rhys finally makes it into Jack’s office and gets the next Gortys piece. Knowing what is at stake here, Jack starts to weigh on Rhys. He thinks Rhys has what it takes to rule Hyperion. He wants to stay with Rhys and rule the company together. As much as I like Jack, and as much as I’ve used his help to this point and wanted him to be on my side, I just couldn’t bring myself to be a part of that scummy corporation, so I rejected his offer. He wasn’t happy, but I’ll leave that bit spoiler free as well. I was with the majority of players here too, but I wonder if they went about things the same way I did?

I encourage those of you who have played these TellTale games to let me know your choices so we can compare notes! It’s interesting to see how much or how little the overall story changes with these facets. That’s all for now. There’s only one more episode of this series left, along with only one more of GoT, so we’re nearing the end of this round of adventures.

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Another Crystal run, and this ended up being the furthest I’ve gone in a Daily since I started doing this, for lack of a better term, daily.

#talesfromtheborderlands #telltalegames #narrative