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Everything's different but nothing's changed: that's the reassuring message Borderlands 2 is sending with Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon's Keep. It's also, rather fittingly, a reminder that Gearbox's cyber-hick shooting party now resembles one of those special long-running TV shows, like Moonlighting or Community, that can contort itself into all sorts of weird shapes without really damaging the essence of what makes it work. You know? Regardless of what Maddie and David got up to - apologies, I'm old - you could count on sexy bickering and lots of shoulderpads. No matter where the Greendale study group head on their next adventure, you can draw strength from the fact that Pierce will say something inappropriate, Britta will get self-righteous, and Abed will bust the fourth wall to pieces. It's entirely possible you haven't seen either of these programs. Doesn't matter: what I'm getting at is that some formulas are so reliable you can fiddle with almost all the peripheral elements, and none of it will cause any problems. Everything's different but nothing's changed.
So in Borderlands' latest DLC campaign, rugged space-truckers sci-fi is swapped out for Tolkienesque fantasy, and you won't so much as skip a beat. The Hyperion robots have become orcs and tree-people, ammo crates are replaced by smashable clay jars, and Handsome Jack's transformed into a Handsome Sorcerer, but you still take on the same sorts of missions, pick through the same procedurally-generated shotguns and SMGs - Dragon's Keep is unprecedentedly generous in this regard - and you're still blasting everything you see and then listening out to catch the next meme-savvy one-liner when the dust settles.
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