Borderlands 3 dropped its new Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck DLC yesterday, allowing fans to dive into the mind of everyone’s favorite psycho. There’s a lot that can be said of the DLC, and as many questions it can finally answer about how Krieg’s split psyche works. However, perhaps the biggest question going into the DLC ends up falling incredibly flat. NOTE: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Borderlands 3‘s Krieg DLC.
Going into the DLC, fans were expecting it to show how Krieg handled Maya’s death. Indeed, ever since Borderlands 2, it’s been clear that the even the psycho part of Krieg has loved the “pretty lady,” but what ensues in the Borderlands 3 DLC might as well ignore her death.
Maya appears in the Krieg DLC as expected, but it is so underplayed that it may as well not have been. Upon reaching the Krieg memory where he first met Maya at the train station, Sane Krieg just says, “We know she’s gone.” Psycho Krieg hasn’t really messed with this memory much or given Maya a distorted view as he did others (something she’ll note in a conversation later). However, she is quickly kidnapped by the locomobius, and both Kriegs encourage the player to hunt her down, which they do. And then kill the train with Maya’s help. And then carry on to the next objective.
At one point, Tannis notes how this memory of Maya seems to have a sense of self-preservation, as if the memory of Maya itself is so ingrained into Krieg that he cannot and will not forget her. It’s a beautiful sentiment, but that’s the most she gets. Maya returns at the end of the DLC, where Sane Krieg and Psycho Krieg effectively become one, and it ends with him spending his time with her. As such, the basic premise of Maya’s death is practically non-existent. It seems to be aiming for some narrative about how memories can carry on a loved one long after their gone, but that is always preceded by grief, by pain, and the most that Krieg really gives about the real Maya’s death is “we know she’s gone.”
This is actually quite strange for a Borderlands 3 DLC. Several of them have managed to pull on heartstrings and make the players associate with the grief the characters feel. In Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep, it’s a re-telling of the events of the base game through a D&D-inspired tabletop, but under that, it tells the story of Tiny Tina’s grief over Roland’s death. The others try to get her to acknowledge it, eventually leading to her breakdown, to her acknowledge of his death and her grief, and to how she internalizes the memory of Roland. The Vault Hunters support her during this, as she tells her story, and the DLC ends with a shot of her with Roland’s statue. It’s painfully beautiful.
Even again, in Borderlands 3‘s Guns, Love, and Tentacles DLC, there is a moment that is simply heart-shattering. At one point, it appears that Deathtrap is dying, and there’s nothing Gaige can do to save him. Her screams, her pleas, and her very words to Deathtrap at this point are so reminiscent of Mordecai’s loss of Bloodwing that it’s almost enough to put the controller down. Luckily, Deathtrap survives, but those moments before are so tense and so painful that it set high expectations for Krieg’s reaction to Maya’s death.
Instead of his psyche breaking even further, instead of psycho Krieg going into an unstoppable rage, and instead of being a journey of healing in the Fantastic Fustercluck, it’s a story of “we know.” Nothing more, nothing less. But Krieg isn’t that far gone based on the surrounding narrative that he can’t understand it, it just underplays Krieg’s knowledge of the event, skipping so many story beats that Maya might as well never died.
Borderlands 3 is out now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.
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