by Mariah Beachboard, GGR contributor

A note about the word “psycho”:

The word “psycho” is sometimes used as a label for anyone acting outside society’s parameters. In Borderlands (BL), “psycho” is a class of character that runs around killing people. I want to make very clear that people in real life who have mental illness should never, ever be called “psycho.” This article is not making light of mental illness, nor attempting to continue the stigma associated with seeking mental help. In fact, the writing of this particular game is extremely relevant to the fact we all have a need to deal with the trauma in our lives and always work on improving our own mental health.

Every now and then we find a piece of art - movies, comics, games, whatever - that gives us a language for something we have experienced but never been able to put into words. And the naming of trauma can do a lot to unlock the grip it has on us. I believe this game does that.

*Psychoscape: entry point into Krieg’s Brain.*

BORDERLANDS BACKGROUND

The franchise has four full games (BL, BL2, Prequel, & BL3), and a ton of extra games in the form of downloadable content (DLCs). If you’ve never played the game before, it has a distinct visual style with its bolded outlines. The main idea through the games is there are vaults with magnificent treasure and a frightening beast hidden throughout the universe. The first one to be found was on Pandora. You are a vault hunter, seeking treasure and unlocking the mysteries of the universe before the really bad guys get there first. The way is fraught with peril, madness, and wacky characters.

The story lines are pretty decent, and occasionally they grip your heart with no warning. Sometimes it’s a permanent jolt to the storyline. Characters don’t come always back (RIP Roland), and broken people don’t always get fixed. Like Krieg.

If you want to look up more info about the franchise, this is a good place to start: https://borderlands.fandom.com/wiki/

CONTENT WARNING: This article contains spoilers, and references to torture, mental illness, and grief.

STORY

The story begins with the scientist Tannis inserting you into the mind of the playable character from BL2: Krieg, the psycho who fights on the side of good. Tannis wants you to find out what is in Vaulthalla: the locked vault in Krieg’s mind. She thinks if she knows what’s inside the deepest, darkest part of his brain, then she can figure out why there are so many darn psychos on the planet Pandora. (Maybe it’s because people opened a vault on a planet called Pandora.) Krieg agrees to open up his mind, as long as Tannis promises to extract his sane self from his body, thus freeing him from Psycho Krieg.

The reason Krieg is a lunatic who speaks in gross metaphors is a mad scientist named Benedict captured him and routinely subjected him to nasty medical experiments at a Hyperion facility. To survive, his mind split into Sane Krieg and Psycho Krieg. Everyone else who was subjected to Benedict’s experiments simply lost their minds. There was nothing “sane” left in them.

The interchange between the Psycho Krieg and Sane Krieg is endearing. Psycho Krieg spouts off his weird, gory metaphors, which Sane Krieg can usually interpret for you. Here’s a sampling:

Glister bulbs = string lights

Poop drink = toilet wine

Stain his similarity with gusto = vandalize a portrait

Comes to spit thorns = gives a speech

Withered in the vein = forgotten

There’s even a running dialogue of Sane Krieg trying to teach Psycho Krieg how to make jokes. He says, “You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to explain the concept of a punchline to someone with violent tendencies.”

*Sane Krieg (blue) and Psycho Krieg (red) in the Castle Crimson’s meaty landscape.*

In the outside world (outside of Krieg’s brain), normal words don’t come out. Krieg’s sanity is trapped behind the Psycho Krieg’s vocal utterings. Understandably, Krieg doesn’t really have any friends or family. That is, until he meets his fellow vault hunters Mordecai, Brick, Maya, and Lilith (to name a few).

The main quest of the DLC is to find the important visual aspects of Krieg’s character, and assemble it onto a statue that represents the key to Vaulthalla. In the land of Castle Crimson, you search for Krieg’s favored weapon: the buzz-axe. You also discover a warped representation of Mordecai, Brick, and Lilith. Psycho Krieg has had the full run of Krieg’s mind (while Sane Krieg hid in a small space) and has distorted the memories of these friends. (This is relatable. So many of us in the real world can confess to fixating on embarrassing memories with friends, and forget when our friends showed us love.)

*Evil Mordecai, meet Nice Mordecai. Evil Brick meet nice Brick.*

Sane Krieg remembers for Psycho Krieg that those friends truly cared and liked them. The memories are corrected, and we move on.

In Sapphire’s Run, you find the gauntlet. And Maya. Krieg loves Maya, because she could actually hear his sane voice in real life. Since her death, he has deeply missed her. Despite the chaos of the mind-scape, Psycho Krieg has kept Maya’s memory safe and sacred. She’s not twisted at all like the rest of their friends, but she is captured by an “angry anthropomorphic brain train” called the Locomöbius. You have to free Maya who leads you to the gauntlet.

The final piece of the statue is Krieg’s mask, which is found in Benediction of Pain. This is where you follow the “cheese holes” of Krieg’s mind and walk through the traumatic memories of imprisonment and torture at the hands of Dr. Benedict. You also discover that Krieg is able to hold on to his morals, which makes him different from all the other patients Dr. Benedict tortured, and thus different from all the psychos on Pandora.

*If you get nauseous at the sight of needles, this game may not be for you.*

Once the statue is assembled, the way to Vaulthalla is opened, where you fight the boss: Psychoreaver.

All this time, Psycho Krieg has kept the vault locked to protect Sane Krieg from being taken over by the rage, which is represented by the Psychoreaver. This is how Krieg is still fighting for the innocent, and why there was something left in him for Maya to love. Out of gratitude and loyalty, Sane Krieg decides to remain in his body with Psycho Krieg. Together, they take turns recreating a beautiful mindscape in which they can start to co-exist in partnership.

The story ends with poignant words and visuals. From the blank mindscape canvas, we see a home appear, with Maya in the doorway. Sane Krieg and Psycho Krieg walk towards her, and suddenly join to become the Krieg we see in the main game.

We hear this dialogue over the cinematic:

Sane Krieg: We all lose things: our pasts, our friends, our minds. But we can keep going, keep fixing ourselves when we break. We may never be perfect…

Maya: That’s enough for now. Come on in. Tell me about your day.

Sane Krieg: …But we get close enough.

SOUND

The BL franchise has some of the best vocal talent in the industry. Jason Douglas carries the full burden of Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck very well. However, I’ve never been a fan of Martha Harms’ voice acting for Maya. The nonchalant acting choice often has a lack of energy. This really stands out in the limited character interaction of the Psycho Krieg DLC.

The sound design is consistent with the franchise, though the music is occasionally unpleasant. While thematically appropriate, I had to turn the music way down. The story hints at this issue when the Kriegs ask you to help them redecorate the memory of their cell in the Hyperion facility. You have to find the memory of the day the captors played ska to try to torment the prisoners. Apparently, Krieg loves ska. So, if you complete the side mission Remodel Behavior, you get to hear something other than the creepy soundtrack. At least for a little while.

GAMEPLAY

One of my favorite things about BL writing is the different responses each of the playable characters has to the NPC prompts. I’m such a BL geek, that I’ll play through the game multiple times just so I can use the different characters and hear their responses.

Moze is one of my favorites to play, mostly because of the potty mouth and gritty vocals. She’s a gunner who pilots a huge mech which she lovingly nicknamed “Iron Bear.” When you see Sane Krieg repeatedly trying to blow himself up, you try to stop him (side mission Blast Requests). This is a piece of the dialogue when you play as Moze.

Sane Krieg: Blowing up is all I know.

Moze: You need to find that one safe place. Find your Iron Bear.

It tugged my sappy little heart. She has a more…energetic…response when you defeat the Psychoreaver, but I’ll let you experience that for yourself.

Now, in order to beat this DLC, I had to use caffeine boosters from the mini-game in Tannis’ lab AND lower the game difficulty. And since you’re in somebody’s brain, the maps are wonky. It makes for challenging gameplay, with unpredictable paths to navigate. Also, the Signal to Noise side missions from Tannis were so frustrating that I gave up on them. Trying to shoot orbs within a tight time limit simply wasn’t fun.

If the game engine wasn’t so smooth, Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck would be super frustrating. But Gearbox makes it work, and I really enjoyed it.

Except for the Signal to Noise mission. Tannis can stuff it.

TIMING WITH CURRENT EVENTS

*Out of the Psychoscape and into Sanity’s Sanctum.*

I don’t believe the writers knew the entire world would be permanently traumatized by COVID when they wrote PsychoKrieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck. After all, this DLC was announced in August of 2020, and it takes a long while to develop a really good game like BL, and its DLCs. But with or without foreknowledge of their customers’ future plight, they delivered a super-relevant game. You see, we’re all going to have to deal with the demons of 2020 for a very long time. But maybe we can take a hint from Krieg’s words at the end of the game:

“…something tells me that thing is gonna keep coming back. I guess we never truly defeat our demons, do we? We have to keep fighting them. They may not get weaker, but we do get stronger.”

*From the end credits. “Special Thanks to…Frontline Pandemic Healthcare Workers. We are grateful to you!”*

Video Games

What to Play: Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck (Borderlands 3 DLC)