Borderlands 2: Capt. Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty Review

There are pirates, Star Wars sand skiffs, quests galore, and more glittering loot than you could ever hope to cram into your inventory. The first Borderlands 2 content add-on, Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty, will give fans hours of yo-ho-hoing enjoyment, but it's missing one critical component that makes the core game such a triumph: Handsome Jack.

I'm not talking about Jack himself, but rather a big, bad boss that serves as a suitable stick that drives the storyline -- and players -- unrelentingly toward the climax. Pirate Bay and its legendary hidden treasure is an ideal setting and a great story spin on the tried-and-true Vault Hunter formula, but without a Handsome Jack, it feels much more like an optional aside rather than the urgent, must-play adventure I was expecting after the Original Borderlands' stellar DLC add-ons.

Feel the Borderlands Vibe

To be clear, Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty is great fun, and an impressive amount of content for the $10 price. I've spent six hours shooting and sand-skiffing my way through Pirate Bay, and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface for what it has to offer. Sticking straight to the core treasure-hunt quest takes roughly four hours to complete, but there are tons of optional side quests and, much like the core Borderlands 2 campaign, once you complete it you unlock a host of new missions to take on.


It's all delivered with the colorful Borderlands vibe. The setting, a coastal region completely drained of water and now a desert, is littered with rusty wrecked ships creaking and groaning to be explored. Its main characters, including Captain Scarlett herself, Shade, the squirrel-poo nutty sole survivor in the former resort town of Oasis, and Herbert, the former Scarlett crewmember who has become a hermit obsessed with his former boss, all have terrific dialog and hilarious bits to share. Shade in particular, with his Hunter S. Thompson look and clinging-to-sanity methods, is a classic character.

Here, Put on This Tricorne Hat

They'll all send you out to explore the formerly undersea expanse on a sand skiff, a Borderlands version of Jabba the Hutt's desert hovercraft. Check that. This isn't a version of the Star Wars sand skiff, it is the Star Wars sand skiff, and I think that's fanboyrific. It's easily the best vehicle in Borderlands 2, chiefly because it eliminates those jarring stops that land vehicles frequently encounter when they hit even the most minor crack in the pavement. Riding the high seas, er, dunes is smooth and fun.


It's also dangerous. Bandits are now sand pirates in Captain Scarlett, and they're all basically tweaked versions of the enemies you've already faced. In many cases, the only differentiating factor is a tricorne hat with a skull and crossbones on it. The lack of real variety in new enemies is disappointing, but these familiar-looking pirates do frequently employ a new tactic: ambushes. While the core campaign focus of long gauntlets filled with a shooting gallery of foes is still here, Gearbox mixes things up a bit by frequently having pirates pop out of shacks, tunnels, and holes right on top of you. The enemies themselves provide the same challenge, but ambushes definitely up the difficulty throughout Pirate Bay.

Same as the Old Boss

Bosses, meanwhile, kept me on my toes with ranged, melee, AOE, and minion attacks, but none of them left me gritting my teeth in frustration. That includes the final confrontation with the mighty Leviathan, a creature capable of causing earthquakes across Pirate Bay, but who I was able to dispatch after dying only once while figuring out what his weak points were. Continuing the trend established in the first two games, I'm sad to say the final battle is a disappointment.


Thankfully, it's not really the final battle. After completing the main quest line, two level 50 challenges are unlocked: Seraph guardians Hyperius the Invincible and Master Gee. Both are tagged with the "impossible" difficulty, and Gearbox recommends you bring a few friends along if you intend to face them. They appear to provide a real endgame challenge for Borderlands 2 veterans, and they offer a new form of currency, Seraph Crystals, that can be used to purchase rare loot.

Sadly, my lowly level 32 Assassin wasn't quite ready for prime time, so I can't yet speak to how tough Hyperius and Master Gee are or the real value of those Seraph Crystals. Still, it makes this Vault Hunter's heart flutter to know Gearbox is giving hardcore fans more to do and more challenges to face, even at the highest level.

Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty gets Borderlands 2's four planned DLC expansions off to a very good start, and it's well worth the asking price. I just hope there's another Handsome Jack on Pandora somewhere, twisting his mustache while plotting his grand DLC entrance.