When the reveal trailer for Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was released, I had no idea I was watching gameplay from the developer of Borderlands. That’s partly because I have the memory of a goldfish, but more fundamentally, it’s because this isn’t just another Borderlands game.
Instead, this is a game that will stand on its own. Sure, it’s inspired by Borderlands 2’s Assault on Dragon Keep DLC, which develops the character of Tiny Tina (voiced by Ashly Burch), and whose namesake is part of the game’s title. But it isn’t just an expansion of Assault on Dragon Keep or another fantasy looter shooter (though it certainly has those elements).
For the studio, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is a fresh start with a fundamental change in gameplay that makes the whole thing unique. That fundamental change is the tabletop, where all the perceived gameplay takes place.
It’s a mighty challenge to not only make the transition between the board game and first-person elements feel seamless, but also to make the tabletop mode just as interesting as the first-person elements. So the team took inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons, but also from classic JRPGs like Final Fantasy and action-adventures like The Legend of Zelda. At one point the team even experimented with a style akin to Heroscape before abandoning it because it didn’t provide the right level of interactivity.