Borderlands 3 fans agree that Maliwan’s guns suck.
What happened, Maliwan? You used to be one of the best gun manufacturers of the Borderlands series? In Borderlands 1, the Volcano sniper rifle was one of the best. And the Defiler revolver? C’est magnifique! Then in Borderlands 2, you had the Hellfire, the Norfleet, the Florentine, basically all of the Moxxi weapons, and even any regular old pistol still had splash damage and a great damage-over-time effect. You were the best.
And now? Nothing. Just a bunch of gimmicky legendary guns and useless regular ones.
It all seems to be related to the new charge mechanic added in Borderlands 3. Borderlands loves adding new mechanics with every new generation, starting with Borderlands 2. Tediore got the fun “throw your gun away instead of reloading” mechanic, while Hyperion got that strange reverse-recoil mechanic that had people up in arms until they figure out how to use it.
Maliwan had always been about futuristic-looking weapons that dealt a ton of elemental damage, and Borderlands 2 just basically dialed that up to 11. The guns were solid, did fantastic elemental damage, and sometimes had neat added effects. That’s all you could ever want.
But then Borderlands 3 came along and ruined it with “charging.” Nobody wants to charge their guns! They want instant, on-demand damage. Having to wait to charge up your weapon just kills your DPS and makes you want to use any other manufacturer’s gun that also just happens to have an elemental effect tacked on.
It’s gotten so bad that Borderlands 3 players over on Reddit have taken to creating funny memes of Maliwan’s decline. One is quite simply a tombstone with Maliwan’s name on it. A tragic fall for a once-great capitalist empire.
But there is hope. Gearbox said they’re reviewing all feedback they receive, and with a few tweaks, it’s possible to get Maliwan back on their feet. Certainly this will involve some adjustment to the charge mechanic (or possibly even its complete removal), but patches exist to address game concerns that were not apparent during testing. There’s still time to fix Maliwan.
