Borderlands 3 Halloween event adds Terror
Très effrayant
There's a bit in The Borderlands Show where creative director Paul Sage says he "wants to talk about terror", and for a second it sounds like he's going to launch into a philosophical exploration of fear. The Aristotelian notion of catharsis, perhaps, in which the experience of 'negative' emotion within fiction can cleanse or purify inner emotional trauma. Turns out he actually wants to talk about capital T Terror, a new status effect in the Borderlands 3 Bloody Harvest event that makes your aiming sway loads.
There's also a repeatable new mission with a skello-boss, one new legendary weapon, and loads of cosmetic gubbins.
Look, spooky stuff, here.
You take the quest from Maurice, a friendly fire-breathing lizard who appears on your ship and serves as a liaison for this and all future seasonal content. Once you've killed enough of the new 'haunted' enemies, you can visit a new area where you shoot zombies and then that skeleton chap in the header. It's pretty standard fare, which is in step with Nate's general assessment in his Borderlands 3 review. After playing half of it then bailing out, I concur.
The enemies in the new area have a chance to drop "the Fearmonger, a new Legendary shotgun that packs a supernatural punch". There are also anointed weapons that turn Terror into a buff, and event-specific challenges to complete that unlock assorted spooky skins.
If you're wondering how long this might take you, I kept watching The Borderlands Show and stumbled on this. Honestly, they should know better than to give us ideas.
"Two to three hours for the mission alone", he says, in addition to however long you spend on cosmetic-gathering challenges where you kill certain enemies with certain weapons, or similar. It's worth bearing in mind Sage said that back in September, when they hadn't finished working on it.
They actually start talking about Bloody Harvest 56 minutes in, when Sage manages to sound surprised about introducing "actually real content". Bless. More details can be found in this blog post.
There will be more seasonal events like this, Gearbox say. Five Eridium says we'll be shooting at skagified reindeer come December.
The word terror is partly derived from the Proto-Indo-European *tre- (“to shake”) or *tres- (“to tremble”).