The quality of each game in the Borderlands series is subjective, and there are proponents for each instalment. However, the broad consensus is that the series peaked with Borderlands 2, and Gearbox hasn't quite innovated enough on the formula since then to keep each new game feeling fresh.
Gearbox head Randy Pitchford doesn't necessarily agree with this sentiment, however. Pitchford recently polled his X (formerly Twitter) followers on what metrics are more useful for measuring which game is "better" — positive user reviews or play time. The poll ended with 62% in favour of play time.
Pitchford followed this up by revealing that Borderlands 2 has a lower average play time (by 5 minutes) than Borderlands 3 and a smaller percentage of players who have played over an hour (92% versus 87%).
"What is meaningful here is that Borderlands 3 seems to engender a meaningful degree more average playtime than Borderlands 2," Pitchford writes. "Earlier, the folks responding to a poll seemed to believe that actual play time is a better correlation to quality than user reviews."
"So, it suggests Borderlands 3 is "better" than Borderlands 2 by the standard people who responded to my poll favoured," he continues. "Obviously, individual...