Gearbox’s Borderlands games have really suffered from the lack of a great villain. Borderlands 1’s Commandant Steele barely feels like a footnote; Borderlands 3’s Calypso Twins were largely grating, and Borderlands 4’s Timekeeper was largely forgettable. The outlier, then, is Borderlands 2 with the character of Handsome Jack, which just so happens to be one of the greatest villains in video game history.
Borderlands 2 is an often-great game in many regards. It’s loot itemisation is more satisfying than most looter-shooters, including its successors; it’s gunplay is a little aged but still fantastic, and it’s less annoying than some of the other games in Gearbox’s long-running franchise. There’s also a hefty dose of nostalgia attached—Borderlands 1 was successful, but everyone played Borderlands 2.
When it comes to its primary antagonist, however, Handsome Jack is not just an outlier in Gearbox’s own series, but in the ARPG genre as a whole. Loot-based games typically don’t have well-written villains. Diablo 2, for example, is one of the best loot games ever made, but its primary antagonists are simply fun to fight and well designed, not fully fleshed-out characters in their own right.
Handsome Jack is a villain that transforms as you play. As you start the game, the smug villain has already attempted to kill you off, blowing up your train and leaving you for dead in a frozen tundra. As you shoot your way to Sanctuary, the game’s hub world, Jack hacks into your ECHO and taunts you, constantly, at every turn.
Jack’s villainy is largely based around the fact that he can call you up at any time. He’s a character that can push your buttons, but is just funny enough to make you want more. Jack is charismatic, he is enjoyable, and Dameon Clarke’s suave performance is infectious. As you progress through the game, at certain points Jack will even offer you side quests to perform such as checking on his Grandmother’s house or asking you to jump off a cliff for a reward. (If you decide not to jump off a cliff, you’ll be mocked and ridiculed.)
The most important part that makes Handsome Jack an all-time great villain is that he is unabashedly evil. Borderlands has, in some cases, tried to make Jack seem more reasonable in additional stories, but the reality is that the Borderlands 2 villain is a maniacal, genocidal psychopath.
Spoilers from here on out: Jack’s plan is to awaken The Warrior and control it to wipe out the population of Pandora and build a utopia on its bones. Even worse, the only way to do this is to enslave his only daughter and use her as a living battery to charge the Vault Key and control the beast. You’ll also find audio logs from the past that show Jack was just as psychopathic before he became the head of the Hyperion Corporation, abusing his daughter from an early age whenever she cursed, so much so that she still apologises for it in her private communications to you.
A great villain such as Jack creates a mini dichotomy for the player. As Jack continues to kill off your friends, insult you, and dispatch enemy-after-enemy to dispatch you, you want your vengeance. However, you also want to hear more from him. While Borderlands 2 has a great collection of characters, none are as entertaining as Jack, but at some point Jack needs to go.
Borderlands 2 does have a great turning point that turns Handsome Jack from the fun villain to the world-destroyer that must be dealt with. As you kill his daughter Angel at her request, the fun is largely stripped from Jack and there’s a venom in his voice that isn’t present even as you get closer to ruining his plans. Destroying his statues is something he can deal with, taking out a flying fortress is fine. Throughout your adventure, there is no point where Jack actually believes you are a threat—his ego is so large that your actions are always something he can sweep under the rug. Jack, in his own mind, is a villain too powerful to lose.
In some ways, he’s right. Even after he’s been killed and defeated, the ghost of Handsome Jack is still inescapable for Borderlands as a franchise. Since Bordelrands 2, Jack has appeared in some form in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Tales From the Borderlands, and Borderlands 3’s DLC. There are even easter eggs within Borderlands 4, and it wouldn’t surprise me if a future DLC found a way to bring him back once again.
Just like how history has its own villains that cannot be escaped or forgotten decades, centuries, or millennia after they’ve fallen, Borderlands has Handsome Jack. How could a new villain ever hold a candle to him?
