Borderlands 4 Review

When you think of the looter shooter genre of video games, your mind will likely gravitate right towards Borderlands. The first game was released over 16 years ago, back in 2009, and has been met with a lot of success. It has had its ups and downs, especially with some of the spinoff content, like the movie that bombed and its latest iteration of the Tales from the Borderlands series, but for the most part, the main series has been pretty solid. It has been six years since the last main installment, which left a lot to be desired, especially with the story aspect. So, how does Borderlands 4 hold up? Does it blow you away like Torgue, or does it crash and burn?

Grounded Approach

Borderlands 4 takes place on the world of Kairos, a planet under the control of someone named the Timekeeper, whose sole purpose is to just keep things in order. You only see small glimpses of this character throughout the story, but his presence is ever-looming, since he is able to essentially hack into the chips that have been placed in just about everyone’s necks. With this, he can take control over their body at any point, pretty much having most of the populous under his rule, with some exceptions, of course. The general premise of the story is to get various groups of people together to put an end to the Timekeeper, and finally escape from the prison that has become Kairos, and it tells that well enough, although the story aspect doesn’t take much in the way of crazy turns, like with previous entries. It is a bit lacking in some areas, as the main story takes itself very seriously.

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You’ll choose one of four new Vault Hunters for this installment.

Things are definitely more grounded than they were in Borderlands 3, a game that was universally panned for its social media influencer villains. That’s not to say that the fourth entry isn’t without its usual humor, as the side missions definitely offer a lot of that. For example, there is an early side mission that focuses on a guy that’s a little too into the mating habits of Threshers. Claptrap is still in this game and it might look like he’d play a part in the main story, but he’s not that important, love him or hate him. The characters seem fine, especially some of the new ones, and you’ll get a few cameos from ones in previous titles. However, no one really stands out too much, especially compared to the zaniness of previous entries. That might be a good thing, though, depending on how you felt about that kind of wackiness. They just mostly kind of fall flat, overall. After you’re done playing this game, you’re not going to reminisce about any of the characters in Borderlands 4.

Borderlands has always had that cartoony look to it, with the older games having some cel-shading and it still has a bit of that feel with this entry. The game looks pretty good, as the art style they used lends well to the world and there is a lot of detail in the world. The characters look great whenever you go to choose one, but the game being in first person means you really won’t get to see them much during regular gameplay. Of course, there are a lot of reports about the game running pretty badly across the board, either with a lot of stuttering and slowdown, to even outright crashing very often. We’ve played on PlayStation 5 and while there were a few hiccups around the board, it’s been an otherwise fairly smooth experience from this reviewer. Despite our positive experience with the game, it’s hard to ignore all of the complaints, though.

Dress to Impress

Despite not being able to see your characters in normal gameplay, you still have the option to customize their appearances, like with older Borderlands games. You’ll unlock a variety of cosmetic choices as you play through the game, either as rewards from missions or for completing challenges, and you can go through and change your appearance as often as you like. One of the bigger changes that Borderlands 4 brings to the table is the way your rewards are given to you. Instead of just getting the reward from NPCs, you are given a “chest” of sorts that you can open anytime you want. So, you can actually wait to obtain your rewards from doing missions and challenges, instead of having it clutter your inventory right away, like it was in the past.

It’s a bit common, though, to forget that you have these available to you, unless you do things right away. One of the biggest shortcomings with Borderlands 4 is the user interface, especially the inventory system. Gone is the sort of stylish interface from the previous games, instead just using a basic one like you see in so many other games. It can be a little challenging cycling through all of the gear you have, which is a lot because of the type of game it is, so it’s tough to compare weapons with one another sometimes. That’s not mentioning all of the little bugs that come along with the UI here, like the “new” icon not going away, or when you sort your gear by something and it doesn’t save your preferences.

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The UI, especially the inventory system, leaves a lot to be desired.

One good thing, though, is the map, as it’s more flat in this game, compared to Borderlands 3, where it was 3D (the UI related one). As far as getting around in the game, Gearbox included a few new options of traversal. You come equipped with a grapple hook from the very beginning, giving exploration more verticality. You also have a dash you can use while in the air, in all of the directions, although it can sometimes be a little finicky, since it shares the same button with the ground pound. So, you could be trying to dash out of the way of an enemy’s attack, for example, but mistakenly do the ground pound maneuver. One of the biggest improvements, especially in regards to traveling, is that you will be able to summon a vehicle at pretty much any time. So, instead of having to go to a Catch-A-Ride station, you just press a button and poof, you’re not on your vehicle. These vehicles have weapons on them, but you will pretty much just use them as a means of traveling.

Whole Wide World

Borderlands 4 has opted out of its separate zones from previous titles and adopted the open world model for this one. There are still some of those smaller zones featured here, but the majority of the action will take place on Kairos’ open world map. The game lends itself well to the open world, with there being a lot of activities and collectibles to find. There are things like Safehouses and Order Silos, which when completed, will function as fast travel points. Doing all of these activities and collectibles will reward you with SDU Tokens, which can be used to increase the number of bullets you fire, as well as your inventory/bank space.

Outside of that, though, once you have everything you want, there is really no incentive to do them, as most of the rewards are just cosmetic. Completionists will do everything, though, so people like that will still be happy that there are a lot of things to do. It could have been a little nice to get some nice weapons or gear out of completing all of the challenges, for example, like a guaranteed legendary. You mostly just get some general lore on the game’s world, like from the ECHO Logs, or a small shower of general weapons/gear with some of the other activities.

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Being able to summon your own vehicle at any time really helps with exploring the open world.

The majority of things will be marked on the map whenever you get close to them, which makes things easier in finding them, although getting to them can be another problem within itself. You have a little buddy always flying around with you, called ECHO-4, who acts like a guide whenever you want to go somewhere. You can put a pin in the map, and then press a button to have ECHO-4 guide you to that spot with a trail. While it might be a bit nitpicky, there is a slight cooldown to using this function and sometimes, the trail starts fading away before you can redo it. Plus, there are also some areas where the guideline is hard to see, since they use white for custom markers and an orange/gold color for missions. Lastly, because of how the game is more vertical than before, it can be a little annoying trying to figure out how to get to some areas. This is especially true with some of the collectibles, and even some of the activities, like the Safehouses, which usually require you to find a Datapad first before unlocking the proper fast travel spot.

Blast from the Past

Of course, the main draw of Borderlands is the run-and-gun gameplay, which has been pretty much the same since the first incarnation. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it, right? At the beginning of the game, you pick one of four characters, then go through various missions, shooting enemies and looting guns, as well as other gear. All gear comes in different rarities, ranging from white (the basic) to legendary (rarest and can be extremely powerful). You can have these items drop off of enemies, and you can even find some loot chests that contain them. The majority of the gear in Borderlands 4 will have various buffs on them, like more damage with critical hits or you might get a boost when using a specific gun manufacturer. If you’ve never played one of these games, then there is a lot of customizing you can do with gear and your characters.

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The combat in Borderlands 4 will be very similar to the previous entries.

Speaking of your characters, each one of them will have three different skill trees, each one based around an Action Skill. Gearbox has certainly learned their lesson over the years, since you unlock the Action Skill as soon as you gain your first level. Each of the three main skill trees is split into three separate branches towards the bottom, so there is even more customization there. It goes without saying that you can respec your characters by going to a specific machine, allowing you to play around with various builds, if you wanted. Naturally, like with any Borderlands game, some builds will be stronger than others, but each of the characters can feel pretty strong in this iteration.

And that leads to the general gunplay of the game, which feels really, really good. There’s something just fun about running into a group of enemies, shooting one in the head with a shotgun, then hitting an explosive barrel that staggers/kills another enemy, allowing you time to trap an enemy in a bubble to take him out of the fight for a few seconds. Most enemy encounters will be against multiple foes and you’re going to get downed, but you get that Second Wind to potentially kill an enemy and get back up. It’s still always annoying to get downed, then try to find an enemy that conveniently decides to take that opportunity to hide behind cover, forcing you to respawn.

Like a Boss

One of the bigger highlights in Borderlands 4 is the major boss fights, which actually have some mechanics, instead of just shoot them until they die, like so many bosses in previous titles. As an example, there’s one boss that covers the entire floor with poison, so if you stay there, you will have your health gradually depleted. However, look up and you’ll see grapple points, allowing you to escape that toxic floor and see a weak spot at the top of the boss’s body that can be destroyed to return the fight to normal. These bosses are great, because you have to do more than just dodge their attacks, hope you don’t die and wish there was a fodder enemy around to get that Second Wind.

While playing the game, you might feel that it’s challenging, which it is and it might be the toughest game in the series to date. We’ve played the game on Hard, switched it to Easy, then to Normal, just to test things out. Even on Easy, we ended up dying a fair bit, especially with some of the more notorious enemies, to the point that one or two of them took off most of our shield and health with a single strike. There’s a joke that runs around the community that health is just a concept in Borderlands games, and it certainly feels that way, even with this newest entry.

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The major bosses in the game are one of the bigger highlights.

As with any main game in this series, you’re certainly going to get a good amount of playtime from it. Depending on how much you do, you might be seeing around 50+ hours from it, just to finish the main story. There’s some content to do after the main story, but nothing that isn’t going to be too fresh or new, since a good bit of it is just the same stuff as before, but more difficult. One nice thing they added in this game is the ability to refight bosses right by their arenas, with it just costing you a little bit of cash. You are also able to replay missions after clearing them, although not every single one can be done this way.

Overall, Borderlands 4 still feels like the typical Borderlands game, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. While the story isn’t anything to write about, it’s better than the low bar that was BL3’s narrative. The main focus, though, will be the gameplay, which has never felt better. There are some issues with the difficulty, as well as with the in-game UI, though, that keep it from being truly untouchable. If you like the series, it’s a great entry that feels great and familiar.