Why Guns, Love, and Tentacles Is Still the Weirdest, Best Part of Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 had a lot of pressure on it. After years of waiting, fans wanted that classic loot-and-shoot dopamine hit, but they also wanted something... different. Enter Guns, Love, and Tentacles: The Marriage of Wainwright & Hammerlock. It’s easily the most distinct piece of DLC Gearbox ever put out. It isn’t just about shooting bandits. It’s a full-on dive into cosmic horror, H.P. Lovecraft tropes, and a surprisingly tender wedding story. Honestly, it’s kind of a miracle it works at all.

You’ve got Gaige back. Remember her? The Mechromancer from BL2 returns as a wedding planner. It’s chaotic. It’s weird. It’s exactly what the franchise needed to break up the monotony of the main campaign’s Calypso Twins storyline.

The Ice Planet of Xylourgos is a Vibe Shift

Most Borderlands maps are dusty. You’ve got your deserts, your urban neon sprawls, and your swampy jungles. Xylourgos is different. It’s a frozen wasteland built around the giant, rotting corpse of a colossal vault monster named Gythian. The scale is unsettling. You aren’t just walking on ground; you’re walking on frozen flesh and calcified ribs.

The atmosphere hits you immediately. It’s moody. Darker than the rest of the game. Gearbox leaned hard into the "Cosmic Horror" aesthetic, but they kept that signature cel-shaded humor so it doesn't feel like a depressing slog. You'll see cultists in fish masks. You’ll fight flying monsters that look like they crawled out of a fever dream.

Basically, it’s the best looking map in the game.

The lighting is specifically tuned to be colder. More blue. More purple. It makes the glow of your legendary loot pop in a way that Pandora just can’t replicate. If you’re tired of the same three color palettes, this DLC is a breath of fresh air. Or, well, frozen air.

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The Story Actually Has Stakes

Look, Borderlands isn't exactly known for its deep emotional resonance. It’s known for poop jokes and explosions. But Guns, Love, and Tentacles manages to make you care about Wainwright Jakobs and Sir Alistair Hammerlock.

They’re getting married.

That’s the core. But then Wainwright gets cursed by an ancient occult artifact. Classic. Now, instead of just planning a ceremony, you’re racing against time to save his soul from being consumed by the influence of Gythian. It’s a personal story. It feels smaller and more intimate than the "save the entire galaxy" stakes of the base game, which actually makes it feel more important.

You meet NPCs like Mancubus Bloodtooth. He runs the Lodge. He talks... in... a... very... specific... way. It’s creepy. He’s one of the best characters Gearbox has written in years because he isn't constantly screaming at you. He’s eerie and polite.

Best Loot to Farm in the DLC

You aren't just here for the romance. You’re here for the gear. This DLC dropped some of the most "meta" weapons that players still use for endgame builds today.

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• The Anarchy: A Tediore shotgun that gets stronger with every kill or manual reload. It’s a direct callback to Gaige’s skill tree in BL2. If you stack it up, you can one-shot almost anything. Just don't accidentally reload early and toss it into a wall.
• The Clairvoyance: A Jakobs assault rifle that hits like a truck. It’s cryo-elemental by default. Since it’s a Jakobs, critical hits ricochet. It’s arguably the best semi-auto rifle in the game.
• The Unseen Threat: A sniper rifle that spawns homing bullets on crit. It makes mobbing with a sniper actually viable.
• The Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge: This is the big one. It’s an artifact you get from Claptrap (of all people) near the end of the story. It provides a massive consecutive hits damage buff. Most high-level builds consider this a "must-have" item.

Level Design and Enemy Variety

The enemies in Guns, Love, and Tentacles aren't just reskinned psychos. You have the Bonded. These are cultists who have mutated under the influence of the dead Vault Monster. They have different mechanics, like the Krich—scuttling insectoid things that are a pain to hit but satisfying to crit.

The level design is more vertical than usual. You’ll find yourself climbing up frozen peaks and through the guts of the monster. It feels less like a series of combat arenas and more like an actual world. Cursehaven, the main town, feels "lived in" in a way that Sanctuary III doesn't. It’s spooky. It’s dripping with atmosphere.

There’s this one mission involving a "Cold Case" that feels like a noir detective story. It's a great example of how the writers used the DLC to experiment with different genres.

Is it Better Than the Other DLCs?

That’s the big question. Most people rank the BL3 DLCs like this:

1. Bounty of Blood (Western theme)
2. Guns, Love, and Tentacles
3. Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck
4. Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot

It’s a tight race between this and Bounty of Blood. While Bounty of Blood has a cooler narrator and a "Seven Samurai" vibe, the Lovecraftian horror and the return of Gaige give this one a special place in the hearts of long-time fans. It feels like a love letter to the weird side of the Borderlands universe.

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It’s also surprisingly long. You’re looking at about 7 to 10 hours of content if you do the side missions. Compared to modern DLC standards, that’s a lot of meat on the bone.

The Weirdness Factor

Let's talk about the tentacles. They are everywhere. They are part of the architecture. They are part of the enemies. They are even part of the wedding cake.

The DLC leans into the "gross-out" factor without being repulsive. It’s more "spooky-ooky" than "Resident Evil." It fits the Borderlands tone perfectly. The humor is a bit more restrained here, too. It’s less about screaming and more about the absurdity of the situation.

Watching Hammerlock, a man of extreme refinement, try to deal with an ancient eldritch curse while maintaining his dignity is genuinely funny. It’s character-driven humor, which is always better than "look at this wacky thing."

How to Get Started

If you’ve never played it, you can start the DLC as soon as you reach Sanctuary III in the main story. Just look for the invitation in Hammerlock’s room.

1. Make sure you are at least level 13. The game scales, but it’s more fun when you have a few skill points to play with.
2. Clear some inventory space. You are going to find a LOT of new world-drop legendaries.
3. Listen to the ECHO logs. The backstory of the researchers who first found Gythian is actually pretty chilling and worth the time.

Honestly, even if you weren't a huge fan of the Borderlands 3 main story, you should give this a shot. It feels like it was made by a different team—one that really understood the specific blend of darkness and levity that makes this series work. It’s a focused, stylish, and rewarding expansion that proves there is still plenty of life (and death, and tentacles) left in the franchise.

Actionable Steps for Players

• Farm the Amach: This named enemy in Cursehaven drops the Unseen Threat. He’s a quick farm and the drop rate is decent.
• Don't skip the Side Quests: Specifically, the one involving the "Talking Fish." It’s one of the funniest moments in the game and yields a unique weapon.
• Check the Lodge: Mancubus has unique dialogue that changes as you progress through the story. It’s easy to miss if you just fast-travel everywhere.
• Equip Cryo: A lot of enemies on Xylourgos are weak to fire (ironically), but having a good Cryo weapon helps slow down the faster Bonded enemies who like to rush you.
• Get the Pearl: Do not sell the Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge. It is one of the best artifacts in the game, and you can only get it once per playthrough unless you trade for it.