YMMV / Tales from the Borderlands

• Accidental Innuendo: In Episode 5, when Jack confronts Fiona and Sasha, depending on dialogue choices Jack can tell Fiona how much he wants to be INSIDE Rhys^note Jack's plan is to shove robotic endoskeletons carrying his consciousness into the human bodies of anyone who dies on Pandora, starting with Rhys. To Jack's credit, he makes no attempt to walk it back when everyone realizes the implications.
• Adorkable: Sasha's childlike enthusiasm over weapons can be quite charming. Additionally, Rhys’ awkward flirting seems to rub off on her in finale if you tell her you missed her, as it’ll end with both of them standing around unsure of what to say next in front of everyone else.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • August is portrayed as a vicious, violent, and vindictive thug in his initial appearance. However, his later appearances show him as still in love with Sasha and willing to forgive her conning him. Is this because he's just that infatuated with her or does he possess Hidden Depths? Is his story the man he killed was robbing him true or made up? He's also very polite and actually kind to his prisoners, compared to Vasquez-but he still works for Vallory, who's also his mother. And in Episode 3, he's already quite grumpy, but he also stops Vallory from killing Fiona and friends, and even refuses to shoot Rhys during the car chase if you don't pull off the QTE in time. By Episode 4, he's an extremely grumpy person, but he's shown to be capable of leadership various times.
  • Jack gets a big one: In Episode 3, when he pleads with Rhys to accept his partnership, he mentions that he knows that people hate him. In Borderlands 2, Jack was the most hated man on Pandora, but he seemed completely unaware that nobody loved him, even his own private army, and insisted that he was the hero. Could he have been hiding the tiny shard of the less openly sociopathic and slightly more restrained person that he used to be at the start of the Pre-Sequel all this time? Or is he just trying to butter up the guy who is Jack's only hope of gaining back his life and power, and knows faking a Heel–Face Turn is the best way to do it? Likewise, are Jack's dickish actions towards the others just him indulging in his customary warped sense of humor... or a cunning and targeted attempt to isolate Rhys from the others, and thus make him more dependent on Jack?
  • To what extent is the Handsome Jack featured in this game the same man as the one in Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!? Is he the same person reborn through Hyperion tech, or just an advanced AI programmed to believe it is Jack and mimic his behavior? The story and characters generally regard him as the former, but the science behind his return would indicate the latter. However, cut dialogue has him state that the last thing he remembers before waking up in Rhys's system was Nakayama testing something on him, suggesting the intent is that he's a digital copy of the same mind, diverging at the point Nakayama took the copy (this also accounts for Jack's behaviour being more like it was towards the beginning of Borderlands 2 and not knowing what happened to himself, he was made long before any of the events of Borderlands 2 happened).
  • Yvette also has this in spades regarding her Heel–Face Revolving Door behavior. First she starts out as a friend and ally. Then in episode 4 she callously doesn't care about the apparent deaths of his former colleagues, explains to Vasquez!Rhys how she betrayed him, purposefully denied supplies to them and does all that in a smug, bitchy manner... yet the game provides several opportunities for her to be forgiven. One side claims her betrayal and her explanation for it was the same as the much less vilified Vaughn's (which ignores the fact that Yvette actually betrayed Rhys for money while in the safety of her office while Vaughn planned to do so for survival while he was in mortal danger during a death derby) while her condemners point at her gleefulness and that, depending on choices, she can betray Rhys one last time by taking the last escape pod if freed from prison. In the end it is questionable whether she is just a Corrupt Corporate Executive gleefully manipulating Rhys or just another victim of the circumstances and Hyperion's corporate culture.
  • Tying into Yvette, there’s also Vaughn. Just how serious was he when he accepted Vasquez’s deal? No matter what you do, you find out that he took him up on the offer. He never actually betrays Rhys later on, which could mean that no matter what, Vaughn was telling the truth when he says he only took the deal to get Vasquez off their backs, which would tie into his usual Undying Loyalty. However, it’s not impossible that Vaughn may have taken the deal seriously if you’ve been consistently bad to him as Rhys. Ultimately though, even if he considered it, Vaughn’s later interactions likely mean that no matter what was going on throughout his head before, he’s truly loyal to Rhys and the group by the end.
• Ass Pull: If you let Felix live in episode 1 and then try to recruit him in episode 5, he will reveal that the money that was destroyed in episode 1 was fake, and he hid 9 million dollars of the real money in the dresser (taking one million for himself). The thing is, this is literally impossible. First Felix would have had to hacked the case open, hide the money, and seal the fake money in the case all while Fiona was unconscious. And even if he could do all that in the short amount of time he had, he'll die if Fiona doesn't warn him about the bomb, which means that he had to have opened and resealed the case without setting off the bomb and while also not knowing there was a bomb.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: It's an interactive story set in the universe of Borderlands. Not only that but the plot is a direct continuation of the series, meaning going into Tales without having played the two First-Person Shooters that came prior would make the understanding of the plot confusing. On one hand, those who only cared about the series for its gameplay wouldn't find any here and those interested in story-driven games were alienated by the Continuity Lockout. The game still managed to find a fanbase and received good reviews but is still considered a commercial disapointment.
• Awesome Ego:
  • While they can also be self deprecating, both Rhys and Fiona can also have their share of self loving moments, which are backed up by both Taking a Level in Badass throughout the story.
  • As always, Handsome Jack is hopelessly in love with himself, but even as an AI, he gets several opportunities to show off how much of a threat he really is.
  • Subverted with Vasquez who talks the talk, but outside of a few moments of competency, very much can’t walk the walk. However, he can end up looking pretty badass as “Rhysquez”.
• Awesome Music: Being Borderlands, are you surprised that the series has some great licensed music?
  • "Busy Earnin'" by Jungle in the first episode's intro sequence, right up until it suddenly stops as Rhys runs over a skag.
  • What better Real Song Theme Tune for Bossanova than this?
  • The main theme of Episode 2.
  • The music that plays over the final scenes of Episode 2, 'The Galatarium', is suspenseful, somber and perfectly fitting as the situation for the protagonists gets more and more dire while also emphasizing just how impressive the inside of the Gortys Project facility is. It's almost like something out of Mass Effect.
  • "High Noon", which first plays in Episode 1 when Rhys, Vaughn, and Loader Bot are fighting Rudiger's gang, and then partially shows up in later episodes' combat sequences.
  • The theme for episode three, "Pieces of the People We Love" by the Rapture, perfectly captures the more easy going and care free nature of the opening, especially compared to every other episode of the season.
  • The theme for Episode 4 is the sky-high, dramatic "To the Top" by Twin Shadow, which plays over the team taking off on their ship to Hyperion.
  • ''Retrograde'' by James Blake, which plays as Fiona and Rhys evacuate Helios in Episode 5.
  • "Bandit Slaughter" from Borderlands 2 making a reappearance during the Vault Guardian fight.
  • ''My Silver Lining'' by First Aid Kit makes for the perfect ending song for Episode 5. It captures the feeling of the game perfectly as the credits roll.
  • The dramatic orchestral version of the main theme added with the release of Episode 5 is pure awesome.
• Base-Breaking Character: Handsome Jack's presence in the game is one for several people. Some fans were glad to have him back, enjoyed his interactions with the characters, and hope that his vague "death" in this game means he can appear in future games in the Borderlands franchise. Others have tired of his character and are hoping that his "death" means he is Killed Off for Real.
• Broken Base:
  • Rhys' scenes with Sasha in Episode 3. Many people feel that they are forced or wish Rhys could have chosen to go with another character and others are fine with the scenes themselves or the fact you get the option to downplay the romance aspect. And then there's the shippers, who, although peaceful, are on the brink of a forum-wide war at the moment.
  • Scooter getting killed off divided up the Borderlands fanbase, with one side believing that, despite how sad it was, Scooter went out like a badass, while the other side thinks that killing Scooter, one of the most beloved characters in the franchise, was unnecessarily cruel. Some have even speculated/accused Gearbox of signing off on this so they could replace Scooter with Janey Springs as the "mechanic" of the series.
  • Another one has recently shown up when it was revealed that Anthony Burch, lead writer of Borderlands 2 (and disliked by a number of people for many reasons, mostly on the topic of his writing being Reference Overdosed with memes and some ham-fisted political ideals) wrote two scenes in episode 4: talking to Scooter, and infiltrating Hyperion disguised as Vasquez. The real issue comes with the second scene, in which you can choose to greet two Hyperion (male) guards with "Hey, ladies. Whatcha been doin'? Talkin' about boys?" While this seems to be keeping in character with the fact that you're pretending to be Vasquez, the two guards respond with some comments about misogyny, and stating that actually, one of the guards in question has a brother who is marrying his boyfriend. The ostensible point of the scene isn't what they say so much as it is that their responses throw Rhys as off-balance as possible; that said, a good number of people dislike the scene for feeling preachy, while another camp thinks it's funny and not worth getting worked up over. The captain's deadpan response to said wedding comment can also be interpreted in that he doesn't really want to go to the wedding.
  • On Tumblr, the debate if Fiona is Caucasian or a woman of color has sparked some very nasty debates and fighting in the tags.
• Cargo Ship: If you chose Fiona over Jack at the end of the second episode, a certain choice makes Fiona and her hat a little... shippy.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Finally blowing Helios out of the sky and killing Handsome Jack in episode 5 can be this. Although both can be considered subversions. The former due to Jack shaming Rhys for killing who knows how many people, and while the game does make it clear just how awful of a place Helios is, it also shows that the resident douchebags aboard can be redeemed, and most of them didn’t actually do anything to Rhys. Thankfully the episode shows later on that many of them wound up surviving, which helps to lessen Rhys’ guilt. As for the latter, while Jack remains a thoroughly horrible individual to the very end, his demise goes all around the spectrum of Alas, Poor Villain, ending with him posing little threat and being reduced to begging on his knees to no avail. Doesn’t help that Rhys has to go through enormous physical pain to defeat him. Noticeably, the player is given the chance to show remorse and sadness over these moments.
  • Given what an absolute dick he is, repeatedly getting to screw over and tell off Vasquez can be incredibly enjoyable.
  • If you’ve been trying to play Rhys and Fiona as a Nice Guy and Nice Girl respectively, then playing as Rhysquez can be this, as it gives you the opportunity to completely justify behaving as a total asshole in order to keep your cover, ultimately offering a great change of pace.
  • The death of Vallory subverts this. After all the crap she puts you through, you’d think that it would be this played straight. However, despite a brief moment where Fiona gets to give her a smackdown, it’s cut short by the more immediate threat of The Traveler. Valery makes it clear that she won’t fight Fiona due to the danger of this vault monster, and is shortly killed by it. While getting Valery out of the way is ultimately a good thing, the current circumstances are anything but, and it doesn’t help that her far more sympathetic son August is forced to see his mom get killed, which completely crushes his spirit.
  • The defeat of The Traveler can definitely be considered this. Despite The Traveler only making a proper appearance near the end of the story, and therefore having little time to form any kind of rivalry with the protagonists, there’s several factors in play that really drive home just how good it feels defeating this vault monster. First, there’s the fact that doing so simultaneously helps both Gortys and Loader Bot reuniting these two friends and helping the former gain the courage to defeat the monster that previously terrorized her. Then there’s matter of getting the crew back together, with them all being able to work through and prior issues to save the day. There’s also bringing in your previous allies, including famous vault hunters, allowing you to show just how badass you’ve become in front of them. Several of these allies also offer additional examples, with Athena and Janey telling you about their upcoming wedding, Cassius getting the hope of a new job working for Rhys, August getting the chance to avenge his fallen mother, and Felix getting to work things out with Fiona, as well as giving her an enormous sum of money, which can allow you to see Claptrap for the first time in the game. Ultimately, the whole climax has been praised as an epic conclusion to the series.
• Continuity Lockout: Downplayed. The game is fairly accessible to people new to the Borderlands franchise, although Tales does expect the player to know some of the plot points of the main series.
• Crack Pairing: Rhack (Rhys x Jack) is very interesting in this regard. On the Telltale forums, it's considered a crack pairing. But on Tumblr and Archive of our Own, Rhack is certainly the most popular ship in those parts of the fandom.
• Cry for the Devil:
  • Handsome Jack is a total bastard, but there are several scenes that are devoted to showing his sympathetic side. And if those don’t make you feel for him, then it’s likely that his death scene likely will. He reveals his world view to Rhys while expressing regret at how he alienated everyone he knows including his daughter, and tries to impart some advice on his former host. Then this is Subverted when he tries to murder Rhys one last time, to the point where he’s so determined to get rid of him that he’ll kill himself in doing so. However, after the failed attempt, his sympathy starts to ramp up again once Rhys gains the upper hand, and Jack’s demeanor completely changes to that of a mortified victim unbearably afraid of death, pathetically begging for mercy. And neither of Rhys’ options are kind, either destroying Jack’s case, seemingly removing him from existence, or keeping him in there as a prison of nothingness. In the end, Jack is still an utter monster who’s unrepentant in his actions, but this experience is so incredibly awful for him that it’s hard not to feel at least something for him throughout it, to the point where the player can offer a genuine apology to him over it.
  • Finch and Kroger are clearly remorseless scumbags, but in the final episode the player might possibly wind up feeling bad for the latter. Kroger tries one last time to kill Fiona and Rhys, but unlike his earlier attempts to do so, this time it’s not about a bounty, following Valery’s orders, a matter of survival, or just him being a petty bastard. Instead it’s out of revenge for Fiona’s killing of Finch, and before he can actually do anything he’s strangled to death by The Stranger. Yes, Finch and Kroger completely deserved their deaths, but after Kroger loses his friend, he goes through all this effort to avenge him only to get immediately killed in front of his targets.
  • Hugo Vasquez is quite possibly the biggest douchebag in the game, acting like an all round dick to everybody and going through many acts of petty villainy ranging from minor to major. However, as utterly hateful as he is, you might wind up feeling something for him in the scene where you learn that years ago he was a victim of Handsome Jack, revealing that Jack would go out of his way to punch Vasquez whenever he saw him, an action that he actually views as being a heartwarming relationship. Despite Hugo thinking they had something special, Jack doesn’t even remember him at first, and only begins to recall their dynamic when he remembers how he would torture Vasquez over bald head while he was getting hair extensions. When Jack pushes for the player to bring this up, if Rhys does so, Vasquez briefly loses all of his bravado and looks like a deer in the headlights. While any sympathy for him in this moment is greatly undercut by his cruel treatment of Rhys where he both assaults him, tries to emotionally manipulate Rhys with Blatant Lies, and threatens to brutally kill him, it’s still by far the most human and emotionally vulnerable that Vasquez ever appears throughout the story.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Loader Bot is built out of pure awesome, with a personality tightly bolted with humour and likeability.
  • August is liked for being incredibly moral for a Pandoran mobster and being a lot more sympathetic compared to Vasquez.
  • Gortys for being essentially what Hyperion Claptraps were supposed to be: happy and friendly robots. Being extremely adorable and cuddly helps, too. It also helps that her voice sounds like Clementine.
  • Bossanova. With a unique design and an awesome theme, many were disappointed that he was killed in the 1st episode.
  • Vasquez earned his fair share of fans for being a hysterical Jerkass that players Love to Hate and repeatedly foil. Helping matters in episode 4 is when you get to play as “Rhysquez”.
• Evil Is Cool: Handsome Jack
• Fandom Rivalry: The fandom of Tales from the Borderlands has a slight rivalry with fandom of the Telltale Game of Thrones series, which was produced simultaneously. Since Game of Thrones is being funded by HBO, new episodes for the former were produced faster and marketed more heavily, with most episodes given at least a week between the trailer dropping and the episode being released, while episodes of Tales don't receive nearly as much fanfare (Episode 3 of Tales only got its trailer mere hours before it released, unlike any Telltale episode so far) and are barely acknowledged by Telltale after release until the next episode is on the horizon. Fans are understandably interpreting this as Telltale's marketing team just not giving a damn about Tales, coupled with the frankly huge gaps between the first, second and third episodes. However, almost as if to make up for this, it should be noted that the final episode of Tales from the Borderlands was released before the final episode of Telltale's Game of Thrones (the latter has not yet been released at the time of this writing, while all 5 episodes of Tales from the Borderlands are now out).
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • After the sudden closure of Telltale Games and the revelations about its toxic work environment, writers for the series have admitted that Rhys was something of an Author Avatar, representing their own struggles under an increasingly abusive and incompetent employer.
  • The satellite Scooter wishes to launch in order to advertise his business to the rest of the galaxy ends up being launched in memory of his sacrifice.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • A lot of people, especially many Borderlands veterans, are insisting that somehow Scooter survived the explosion in episode 4.
  • Additionally, many think that Handsome Jack has the potential to return. Noticeably you have the chance to destroy or keep his AI case. Doing the former option could mean that he’d be unable to come back, but the mere existence of the latter option shows at least one potential door for a future role in the plot.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Downplayed with Troy Baker’s performance as he had already proven himself as an excellent actor in terms of both drama and comedy. However, in addition to a great overall performance, many were highly impressed by his In-Universe impressions throughout. His brief line imitating Nolan North had a few players believing North himself did the line. Then in the potential scene where Handsome Jack hijacks Rhys’ body, he completely nails Dameon Clarke’s vocal mannerisms while still keeping his own voice. Then in episode 4, his take on Patrick Warburton strikes the perfect balance between being convincing but also realistic in character struggling to keep it up. Reportedly, the original take he did was so spot on that he had to tone it down in another take to get what they were looking for. And even then, much like with North, a few players actually though it was the real deal doing the lines.
  • In previous games, the loader bots didn’t exactly offer Raison Varner much to work with. But thanks to one of them having such a central role here, Varner gets to show what he can do, managing to get countless laughs and even some truly emotionally resonant moments despite delivering all of his lines with a flat, robotic voice.
  • As always, Dameon Clarke completely throws himself into the role of Handsome Jack, with the results being just as spectacular as ever. It helps that Jack’s role in this one offer another perspective to play into that wasn’t present in his previous outings. Truly impressive is his final scene, where Clarke expertly switches through different feelings in seconds, with the final product being one helluva possible sendoff
  • Chris Hardwick isn’t without his detractors, but he earned his share of fans for his work as Vaughn, perfectly fitting in with more seasoned voice actors being wonderfully charming and hilarious throughout.
  • Patrick Warburton impresses with his work as "Rhysquez", where he manages to capture Troy Baker's performance rather well in the moments that Rhy's Vasquez persona starts to break down.
• Ho Yay:
  • Rhys and Jack. The former idolizes the latter and the latter can get pretty buddy-buddy with the former, and there's a moment where Jack immediately corrects himself after telling Rhys that "I'm inside you".
  • Rhys and Vaughn. The two are undeniably Heterosexual Life-Partners, and though you can downplay it by sticking to Rhys's more egocentric and flippant dialogue options, they're generally very open with each other and frequently on each other's minds. Scrapped dialogue turns this up to eleven.
  • Vaughn draws some interesting comments from both Vasquez and Jack after showing his weirdly ripped bare torso in Episode 2.
  • August seems very interested in whether Rhys jerks off with his flesh or robot hand, even dropping his grumpiness for a few seconds.
  • It's not explained exactly what the relationship between Kroger and Finch is, but when they are launching off into space Finch reaches to hold Kroger's hand which he reciprocates, and later Kroger spends an indeterminate amount of time hunting down Rhys and Fiona because he believes they killed Finch.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Gayperion for Rhys and Vaughn.
• It Was His Sled: Handsome Jack returns as an AI copy of himself. To be fair, Telltalle did little to hide Jack’s role in the game, with him appearing in the very first teaser.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Rhys is shipped with Fiona, Sasha, Vaughn, Jack, Vasquez, and even other Borderlands characters that have never interacted with Rhys like Timothy.
• Love to Hate: Vasquez and Jack are both irredeemable bastards against our beloved protagonists, but they're just so hilarious to watch because of the over the top acting enforced by their respective performers.
• Magnificent Bitch: Vallory is the "Queenpin", an affable, cheery mistress of crime on Pandora who functions as a major player in the hunt for the Vault of the Traveler. When her son August loses millions in cash while trying to buy a Vault Key, Vallory steps in and traps the entire group who swindled him, mincing threats with signs of respect towards the leader, Fiona, while gleaming as much information about the Vault of the Traveler from her as possible. When the Vault Hunter Athena saves the group, Vallory hires Brick and Mordecai to take her out of the picture, then interrogates and forces Fiona and Rhys to work with August in infiltrating Helios and opening the Vault. Lacking in the typical psychopathy or absurd levels of greed showcased by most on Pandora, Vallory actually sacrifices the Vault treasure to work with Fiona in banishing the "Traveler" monster once the Vault is open, showcasing how resourceful and reasonable Vallory is in a cast of scumbags and self-serving cowards.
• Memetic Badass: Loader Bot has gained a lot of praise from Borderlands fans due to being a far superior model compared to other bots from the games.
• Moe: Gortys, so very much.
• Narm Charm:
  • An intentional example with the famous finger gun fight. As hilariously ridiculous as the scenario is, Rhys getting to act like a badass One-Man Army is still pretty cool, even if all the shooting he’s doing is pretend.
  • Choosing to bring a Non-Action Guy like Cassius for the final mission may be questionable, but it’s still awesome to see the old man hold his own alongside more seasoned badasses.
  • Yes, Zer0’s voice in episode 5 is a distracting and odd change, but despite this, you still get to see Zer0 acting just as cool as he always does.
  • Playing as “Rhysquez” is this. As ridiculously comical as Vasquez was, you get a surprising number of moments where you get to act badass disguised as him.
  • A few have criticized how much the Rhys and Sasha romance is pushed on players, but if you play into it, the pairing comes across as genuinely sweet and the Ship Tease is completely buyable.
• Nausea Fuel: The climatic scene in Episode 5 where Rhys kills Handsome Jack by ripping out his ECHO eye and cybernetic implants. The player is treated to several disturbing scenes of Rhys mutilating himself. The worst part is that you have to play through all of it.
• No Yay:
  • Many fans hate seeing Rhys and Jack shipped together, given the latter is a horrific monster who can be quite abusive to the former and no matter how good Rhys is to him, he’ll attempt to murder him anyway.
  • Some people don’t like Rhys and Fiona shipping since you make the decisions for both of them, so the idea of any romance would be like the players dating themselves.
• Older than You Think: A few players saying that the game was trying to force Rhys with Sasha in episode 3. However, in episode 2, depending on a dialogue choice when you’re playing as Fiona, Rhys can accidentally reveal his attraction to Sasha, which he then hastily covers up. While a much less noticeable moment compared to their later interactions, it shows that regardless of player choice, Rhys was attracted to Sasha before their scenes became more explicitly romantic.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • After being absent for the entire series, Claptrap can show up for the final mission, being his usual hilarious self, as well as dropping quite a bit of foul language.
  • Brick and Mordecai only appear during one sequence in episode 3, but the fact that you not only get to see their previously offscreen fight against Athena, but actively participate in it makes it incredibly memorable.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • Shippers have created Rhyiona (Rhys/Fiona) and Rhysha (Rhys/Sasha).
  • For Rhys and Jack, Rhack.
  • Faugust for Fiona/August.
  • Rhysquez for Rhys and Vasquez
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Shade has gone from being the least popular character in Borderlands' message boards (though not overly hated either) to someone people love for his absolute psychosis (and the ability to punch him in the face).
  • Judging by the large percentage of people who saved her Yvette may be this for some. It helps that her Heel–Face Turn appears to genuinely stick as she plays a role of assistance to Vaughn in the final battle.
• Salvaged Story:
  • For anyone upset at Vaughn falling Out of Focus during episodes 3 and especially 4, you’ll be happy to see he very much regains his prominence no matter what choices you made in episode 5.
  • A very minor example, but if you preferred Rhys and Fiona as a couple and didn’t want to ship him with Sasha, then episode five has a moment where you can have Rhys express interest in the former instead of the latter. With that being said, it's just one small moment that won’t be available based on certain prior decisions if you’ve expressed interest in Sasha, and it’s much less explicit than all the prior options for Rhys to express interest in Sasha. So while Rhys and Fiona’s shippers did have a bone thrown their way, it was nowhere near as big as the one thrown to Rhys and Sasha's shippers. It becomes even more Downplayed in Borderlands 3, as no matter what happens in this game, Rhys is heavily implied to have been together with Sasha before that story’s events.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Over on the Telltale Community forums, there are two definite sides constantly butting heads over Rhys/Fiona and Rhys/Sasha. This escalated into a rather nasty feud despite attempts to intervene, and although some fans are friendly with each other about it, most of the others have declared the other shippers to be "cultists" or "peasants." And it escalated right after Rhys's interactions with Sasha in Episode 3, with one side cheering and the other side fuming.
  • Since episode 5, the fires have gone down slightly, as players are able to express interest in either Sasha (directly) or Fiona (indirectly). Only slightly, though.
  • Rhack shippers have received flack from fans of several different ships.
• Shocking Moments: The final Episode, "Vault of the Traveler", features a borderline mecha fight against The Traveler, possibly the biggest Vault Guardian in the series so far.
• Signature Scene: The finger gun fight in Episode 4. Its the closest scene in this game to resemble the main games in some way.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • When Rudiger puts on his helmet in the first episode, it appears to only go halfway down his face. Fiona's hat also sometimes clips through her hair.
  • The scene in episode 4 where Rhys peels Vasquez's face off a psycho's mask has two of these. First, the psycho's head is clearly clipping through the chair he's sitting in, and second, Rhys' hand is a couple inches away from the face while he peels it off, making it appear as if he is peeling it via telekinesis.
  • When Sasha picks up The Desolator, it stays on the ground. When she drops it again (onto itself), she again has it in her hand in the next scene... where she is picking up an identical gun in the loot pile from The Traveler without the contents of her hand changing. Not helping is all of the other party members picking things up by flailing their arms around loot piles that do not always change when their "pick up" animation is used.
• Take That, Scrappy!: While reminiscing about the events of Elpis, when remembering Pickle, Jack states that he never bothered to find out what happened to him but wishes he's dead (though the Claptastic Voyage DLC of the Pre-Sequel shows that Pickle survived).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: A Downplayed example with Vaughn in that he’s still one of the largest roles in the game. When the story starts, he’s a major presence, equal to Sasha in terms of importance. But come about midway through, he starts to fall Out of Focus. He’s present throughout a good amount of episode 3, but depending on an earlier choice, a lot of this screentime could be him in a comatose state, which gets its fair share of good jokes, but means he’ll have less dialogue and development. And regardless of whether he fell into this ordeal or not, he’s less connected to the action of the episode, at one point hanging back while both protagonists are off working, and disappearing during the climax. Then his role is further decreased in the next episode. Depending on a prior decision, Vaughn can either appear for a bit before making an early exit with no further appearances, or make no physical appearance at all, and only get a brief vocal cameo. There’s a reason for all this, as Chris Hardwick had a more active schedule compared to the other main cast members, which meant that it was difficult to keep Vaughn as involved in the plot as the other main characters, causing his role to be decreased. All things considered though, the issue was worked around fairly well, with episode 4 being the only episode where his part is really all that small, and by the finale, his screentime and plot importance are restored, allowing him to end the game with as much prominence as the other main supporting players.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Zer0's new voice in Episode 5 was not well received at all, with many upset how it sounded far too high-pitched. It was changed back for his next appearance in 3.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • After his betrayal in episode 1, the game twice tries to reveal Felix actually had the best of intentions. However, to set up his deal with Athena, Felix would have had to have known about Vallory for quite some time before the con, which means he not only did choose not to warn the girls about the dangerous mobster before the con goes down, but he also didn't tell them after they got away from August. He only actually warned them them after he was safe with one million dollars. Making it worse is that he fails to mention in his goodbye message that he even hired Athena to protect them and as a result, Athena is almost too late to save them from Vallory. And to top it all off, he also doesn't say in his message nor does he leave any other clue as to where the actual money is. Felix's actions make him come across as, at best, an idiot who didn't think his plan though, at worst, a cowardly Jerkass who puts his own safety before that of his adopted daughters'.
  • The Stranger can be this once his identity is revealed depending on a choice you made back in episode one. More specifically, since he is actually Loader Bot, his behavior toward Rhys can come off as unjustified and assholeish if you had Rhys tell him to escape instead of self-destructing. Loader Bot decks Rhys in the face with butt of a rife, lets Fiona punch Rhys in the neck, and is generally very hostile to Rhys. Assuming you had him escape, Rhys does nothing to earn Loader Bot's ire (Loader Bot doesn't even get mad if Rhys voluntarily gives Jack control of Helios), and yet Loader Bot treats Rhys way worse than Fiona despite once having referenced him as his "righteous father".
• The Woobie:
  • Rhys. Demoted to Senior Vice Janitor, nothing goes right for him, nearly murdered several times, frequently betrayed...
  • And Vaughn, for many of the same reasons.
  • The Stranger turns out to be this trope. He asked Rhys and Fiona to vow to keep Gortys safe, only for them to seemingly break that promise.
  • August. He may be a crook and a Pandoran bandit and son of a crime lord but it gets hard not to feel bad about him as the story goes on and things get progressively worse. First he gets played like a tool by Sasha and Fiona, then his mother finds out about his little scheme, and on Episode 5 he can genuinely stand up against Finch and Kroger to save Sasha (and Fiona), getting shot in the guts for his trouble. To complete the shitfest his life became, due to his gut wound, he can't do anything to save the life of his mother who is abruptly killed trying to stop the Traveler, while he feebly shouts at her to stop, unable to run and save her.
  • In the finale Gortys becomes this, when she's given her second upgrade and summons the Traveler, and is forced to fight it despite having no idea how to fight. In an effort to save her friends, she begs Fiona to use Vallory's discarded rocket launcher to take out her core and destroy it (and by extension, herself). Later, when she's rebuilt and Rhys has to motivate her into fighting, she just says she wants them to destroy her again because she doesn't want anyone hurt. Rhys even outright states that she is scared. You just want to give her a hug, despite her now being taller than most buildings.