How to get the ‘Best’ Ending in New Tales from the Borderlands

As with most narrative games that feature branching choices, New Tales from the Borderlands, has a so-called “best” ending. Getting the good ending New Tales means the three main characters — plus murder robot companion L0U13 — survive, going on to create their own consulting firm that uses skateboard scoring to improve the morale of other companies.

To keep everyone alive, you’ll need to end the game with a skateboard score of at least 75%. Your skateboard score depends on successfully completing certain quick-time events and choosing correct dialogue options. Read on for to learn some tips and see our choices during a couple obscure events that we used to increase our team’s skateboard score.

Choose the friendly option most of the time

Image: Gearbox Software/2K Games via Johnny Yu for Polygon

Selecting the friendly option may seem like the obvious thing to do to increase your team chemistry, but this is the Borderlands universe, so you’re forgiven for thinking otherwise. In most cases, yes, go with the nice and friendly dialogue option. If it doesn’t seem like your team chemistry improves, quickly return to the menu and choose a different option.

When making dialogue choices, consider the character’s individual passions. Anu wants to prevent death and heal society. Octavio enjoys tacos, but also wants to create a better image of himself. Fran really wants to get revenge on Susan Coldwell. Keep these in mind as you progress throughout the story, and pick the option that will make the character happier.

Defeat the Devourer and save Juniper

To defeat the Devourer, you’ll need to successfully complete the related quick-time events, which will boost your team’s coordination. Saving Juniper will be a little more difficult because you need to improve your skateboard score before heading into the Vault. L0U13 gave us a score of 6 skateboards out of 10, which seemed to be high enough to save Juniper.

Here are the major dialogue options we chose starting from Chapter 2 of Episode 2:

Anu:

• Either Octavio or Fran’s plan led to us saving Juniper.
• Use the guards to your advantage.

Octavio:

• Convince Anu her efforts can prevent deaths.
• Choose the dialogue option “Do it for us.” to convince Fran to help you.
• Say “Please. I need this.”

Fran:

• Don’t snitch on Octavio

Reject the shard

Image: Gearbox Software/2K Games via Johnny Yu for Polygon

Choosing to reject the shard will lead to more opportunities to increase bonds between character. Successfully complete the quick time events to make the trio work together and defeat Anahatium Susan.

We chose the following dialogue options in Chapter 6 of Episode 5:

• Reject the shard
• [Mouth fart]
• Wish you’d gotten the kill, Fran.
• The Almighty Skateboard.