When discussing Borderlands downloadable content, it’s easiest to think of each instalment as an entry in the original Star Wars saga. The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned is like A New Hope, an interesting promise of things to come that draws on tropes and themes from other works. Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot feels a lot like The Empire Strikes Back -- things go wrong all the time, and the experience ends on a particularly down note. In keeping with this analogy, I’m pleased to say that Gearbox Software’s latest Borderlands DLC, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, is very much akin to Return of the Jedi. Just as Darth Vader finally stepped back onto the light side of the force, Secret Armory makes up for the last DLC add-on by returning to form.

Secret Armory takes place after the story of the original Borderlands, and players will have access to its content after completing the final story mission of the main game. The DLC introduces players to T-Bone Junction, a town located high above a desert that was once a massive ocean, now a wasteland filled with unexploded depth charges and roving bandits. From here, players will receive quests that will lead them through a handful of new areas that all look confusingly similar, eventually arriving at the Crimson Lance armory for a showdown with the titular General Knoxx.

These new areas are all connected by long, arduous stretches of suspended highway, and quest objectives will send players back and forth across them numerous times. These sometimes-painful trips considerably lengthen the time spent with the DLC, ultimately serving as unnecessary padding given how full the add-on feels. In response to complaints about the last DLC, Gearbox has stuffed Secret Armory with quite a hefty amount of content, coming in at almost double the size of Zombie Island. Even without taking travel time into consideration, there are a fair number of new quests to undertake.

While the variety of quests is a little broader than previous instalments, a healthy portion of the content is typical Borderlands fare: Kill this, pick up this, go here and collect this. In fact, “more of the same” seems to be the overarching philosophy behind Secret Armory. At a base level, Secret Armory doesn’t really make any great strides towards fixing the flaws of the core experience, even though it offers a raised level cap and new vehicle and enemy types. Players will still contend with many of the same glitches and AI problems that plagued the main game. There’s a greater emphasis put on story and character development -- even Underdome Riot’s Mad Moxxi gets some screen time -- but ultimately, Secret Armory is more of the same first person shooter you played last October.

Thankfully, that’s exactly what fans have been demanding, and Secret Armory delivers. As flawed as Borderlands was, there are few co-op experiences that can match the thrill of blasting through the wasteland with a party of friends in search of increasingly ridiculous ordnance. It may not win any awards for originality, but Secret Armory retains the highly-addictive qualities that made Borderlands an unexpected hit without ruining what made the core game so enjoyable. This is one case where “more of the same” is a welcome compliment, and a deserving one at that.