What was the point in reaching the Vault in Borderlands?

Question

Warning: this contains spoilers, I don't consider necessary to add markdown to cover them because the tags should be sufficient for you to not read if you don't want to be spoiled in the ending of the game.

I finished the main campaign in Borderlands (DLCs pending yet, but I don't think my answer is there), I reached the Vault, was expecting riches that'd blow my mind, and all I got was one big monster.

Perhaps I missed it in some dialog, but what was the point in opening it for that? Was the plan of the woman that guides you throughout the game for you to kill that monster?

She even says that the vault cannot be opened again for 200 years, will the monster re-spawn then and has to be killed again?

Was the monster protecting something? If it was, why not entering the vault after killing it?

I really liked the game but was disappointed by the ending (or most likely didn't get it).

Answer

It is true that the Borderlands ending is one of the most disappointing endings that a game ever had. Quoting Paul Helquist, senior designer:

I think what's great about where we did leave the player is that we have pretty much infinite options of where we want to go next[...]
[...]The ending of the game, for better or worse, didn't paint us into any corners.

So what I presume is that they will dig deeper into the story around the Vault in Borderlands 2 (released somewhere between 04-2012 and 03-2013).

To give you a little bit satisfaction from the ending, consider this explanation I found on the web a while ago, that made the ending slightly more acceptable:

The world is named Pandora, implying that something can be opening from it, this being the Vault. The legend of pandora's box detailed that the greatest evils of mankind were locked away in it, and someone was foolish enough to open it. Once the evil was released only one slither of goodness was left within, and that was hope. So think of the Destroyer as evil in a physical form, sealed away in Pandora's box so to speak, and the character you are playing is the one final hope for the planet.

I do hope that the ending in Borderlands 2 will be a better one than its prequel's.

Check more discussion of this question.

loading..