What awaits the Wannabe-Vault Hunters in the season finale?
It’s been a long journey, but here we are at the season finale of Tales from the Borderlands and what a send-off it is. We last left things where Rhys was given a difficult decision to either let Handsome Jack use him to take over Helios and become the Hyperion President or reject his offer in which case Jack just takes over by himself. I opted to agree with Jack, a decision I began to regret and suffice to say is one that doesn’t pan out. Of course, the way the story has been told is in a “story within a story” method thus far as both Rhys and Fiona are captured by the masked stranger and reciting their journey.
We aren’t on Helios long before we return to Pandora to open the Vault of the Traveller, which results in a rather difficult scene (as do some of the ones before it) as Gortys receives the last piece to summon the Vault and the Guardian inside it, which results in a one-on-one battle between the two…as Gortys becomes gigantic in size. What awaits is a difficult call to make, but then the story comes full circle as the identity of the Masker Stranger is revealed, which I did not see coming. But in retrospect, it does make a lot of sense. I won’t spoil the identity for you, but it’s a good twist.
I’m not sure how much your choices will impact a second season (if there is one) but you do get a chance to get rid of Handsome Jack once and for all by ripping out your cybernetics, including your Echo Eye and given the choice to either crush the eye or keep it, I’m betting that by keeping it we haven’t seen the last of Jack. You also get to kinda get some input in the love storyline between Rhys and Sasha towards the end of the episode, once again not sure if your choices will impact it or not, especially since we don’t know if we’ll even get a second season, but I pray we do.
More or less every storyline is tied up by the end, although it obviously leaves things open in other ways. As a season finale goes, it’s probably Telltale’s best. It’s action-packed, emotional and gut-wrenching at times, but most of all it still maintains the series’ sense of humour throughout. This has been Telltale’s funniest series, but proof that it can also be brutal at the same time. I’d say it was Telltale’s best series actually, because not 1 episode has dropped the level of quality established in the first.
The music has been absolutely fantastic throughout the series and the finale is no different, I have tracked down every Intro song and listen to them frequently, especially Episode 4’s “To The Top”, while the voice-acting has been superb and full of great actors. It’s almost impossible to fault, in fact I don’t think I can.
The Verdict
The Vault of the Traveller is a great close to a truly amazing series, one that I hope continues. I’d hate for this to be the last we see of Rhys and the crew. Hats off to Telltale for never losing focus on a single episode and making it their best series to date.