Borderlands 4 review — Just freakin’ fun

Borderlands has put us into the boots of Vault Hunters since 2009. That means Claptrap is old enough to have a driver’s license. In that time, we’ve experienced the maniacal Handsome Jack, the iconic Mad Moxxi, and the bombastic Tiny Tina. Unfortunately, in recent years, reception has been somewhat more tepid amongst fans with the Calypso Twins leaving a sour taste in our mouths. I'm excited to say Gearbox redeemed this franchise with Borderlands 4.

Welcome to Kairos, a verdant planet full of chaos and strife, ruled by the Timekeeper, a tyrant who forcefully implanted cybernetics into the brain stems of his inhabitants so he can bend their wills to his Order. The Vault Hunters travel to Kairos in search of the vault, and the vile tyrant captures and implants his cybernetics into the Vault Hunters. They join the Crimson Resistance and do everything in their power to see the planet's freedom renewed.

I like the premise behind Borderlands 4’s story. Unlike the Calypso Twins, who were insufferable, the Timekeeper and his cronies are well-written, properly motivated big bads, and each faction leader working to regain their independence is relatable in their own way. Great care has been taken to make the four Vault Hunters lively, likable characters as well. In my 40+ hours with Amon, I was continually impressed with the brute’s sharp wit and eloquence. It felt like Gearbox designed a wrecking ball with a monocle and great comedic timing.

Borderlands 4’s main missions have been crafted with care, each delivering an adventure that whisks the player around Kairos with intention. That said, I would be remiss if I didn’t address the side missions. To my pleasant surprise, they are often given as much love as the main story. These are so much more than "go here, kill thing." They're written in a way that it's worth paying attention to, similar to classic Borderlands or Borderlands 2 missions. They're comical, outrageous, surprisingly emotional, and tell parables.

Borderlands’ gameplay loop has largely remained intact from its inception. You’ll choose a Vault Hunter and strike out, shooting and blasting your way across the landscape, slaughtering psychos and other aggressive life on the way, all while searching for sweet loot. New to Borderlands 4 is the inclusion of a “heavy ordinance” slot. This effectively lets you expand your grenade slot to include throwing knives (a personal favorite that can dissect enemies with ease) or a heavy weapon (like a laser), which offers more welcome variety to engage with. Borderlands 4 offers each character 3 skill trees to employ and grow. There’s a significant breadth of options within a single skill tree, though, so while you may play a character one way, someone else could play them in a totally different fashion, and I think that’s fantastic.

Out of the gate, gunplay in Borderlands 4 feels great. Landing headshots and seeing critical damage pop up never gets old, and it’s immensely satisfying to watch your enemies’ health bar drain as you pour a wide range of damage into them. Combat is chaotic, with enemies often swarming from all over the place. This requires you to maneuver well and aim true - a system that feels sublime when it’s at its best. Sniper rifles deliver satisfying cracks, SMGs give the sense of holding a ballistic chainsaw, and shotguns feel appropriately chunky and hard-hitting. Getting dropped in the middle of a tense situation, then landing the killing blow for a “Second Wind,” never stops feeling good. Borderlands 4 also added a few new mechanics to enhance the overall experience. Borderlands 4 has added a gliding mechanic for covering long distances and a lash/whip mechanic that lets you reach new heights or grapple items to throw in combat. Combined, these give the game an exciting new sense of verticality, particularly when tackling combat in various environments. It feels great.

In terms of raw firepower, familiar weapons manufacturers make their return. Each company has unique traits in its various weaponry. When a Torgue shotgun hits the ground, you know I’m going to be all over it! With Borderlands 4, we can now get guns from one company that has licensed parts from another, allowing mechanics to bleed into one another for more powerful combinations. While I have yet to find many licensed weapons that fit my liking, I love that so many possible combinations exist. We’re going to be chasing god rolls for years to come. As you spend time accruing new gear, you’ll invariably fall in love with a few combinations. I’ve found a few ways I love playing with Amon, but I can’t wait to continue experimenting to find what potential he really has!

As with any new Borderlands title, we get four more Vault Hunters to play with. Vex, this entry’s Siren, has vampiric, spooky abilities to tear her foes apart with. Amon, the Forgeknight, wields elemental axes and shields that can get him into the thick of combat or let him pick foes off from a distance. Harlowe, the Gravitar, uses gadgetry to protect her friends and destroy her foes. Rafa, the Exo-Soldier, uses high-tech weaponry, including built-in cannons, to decimate everything in his path. No matter your playstyle, there will be something here for everyone, and often, depending on how you build their skills and gear, each character can be played in a wide range of styles. Exploration and trial is a huge, satisfying part that Borderlands 4 fans will love getting to experience. I’ve personally been drawn to Amon and his elemental axes. His skill tree offered all kinds of options for tackling the dual blades, but I opted to soup up his freezing capabilities and passive damage, while earning bonuses to fire weaponry as a synergistic perk. Watching some of the other GT staffers, a few things quickly became clear: putting some brainpower into your build and supplementing it with appropriate gear can turn you into an absolute machine, and dang it, I want to fully experience all four Vault Hunters and their loadouts to the fullest myself!

Speaking of exploration, Borderlands 4’s Kairos is a massive open world full of sites to see and events to uncover. The game does an excellent job of keeping you engaged with different things to do as you travel. Borderlands 4 gives players the chance to grab vault keys and explore vaults on Kairos, which gives a welcome sense of gameplay meaning to being a Vault Hunter. Order bunkers, which are hidden throughout Kairos, were a neat chance to explore and play around with mechanics that aren’t spelled out for you. The world features several safehouses you can clear out and claim. You’ll always want to do these, particularly since they’re not too difficult and add fast-travel points all over the planet. One thing I got a particular kick out of was the addition of randomly-spawned “world boss” encounters that pop up, each housing a limited-time crack at some brutally challenging enemies. You only get one chance at them, since dying or leaving the bubble causes the boss to de-spawn, but it ramps up the challenge in an exciting way!

While past games have featured the “Catch-A-Ride” buildings for spawning vehicles, Borderlands 4 has opted to streamline the process by letting you digitize a personal vehicle on demand. While these don’t pack the firepower of a 2-4 player buggy or tank, they give you a quick, near-instantaneous way to get around Kairos without having to hoof it everywhere. It’s nice having access to quicker travel options that let you explore, but at the end of the day, I’d almost rather take the Skyrim approach of hoofing it to a wider array of fast-travel points. The added personalization with the vehicles is nice, but I kind of miss them having any real significant firepower.

Many potential Vault Hunters are going to wonder about Borderlands 4's post-game. Beating the campaign will allow players to play “Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode.” This unlocks a whole new Specializations skill tree, which I’m happy to say lets me enjoy more of those dopamine rewards and a deeper level of customization. On top of that, players will get access to a set of special weekly challenges with the promise of beefier loot. For those of us interested in post-game content, that’s great news! One mission a week did initially seem a little short on offering, but when you consider they can take over an hour, it makes a bit more sense. I wouldn’t typically want to play that more than once a week. The weekly boss fight challenges are a great way to lean into post-game content, especially if you’re on a time budget and want a quick, fun experience. We’ll also have to work as a community to track down Maurice’s vending machine - an aspect I think will play well to folks like me who enjoyed Destiny’s constant Xur location juggling. I got a kick out of further personalizing my build with the firmware modification system. I’m also stoked to hear that, per the post-launch roadmap, we’ll get an entirely new gear rarity called Pearlescent, invincible bosses (not literally, but they’ll have insanely high health), and more are slated for the coming months. They’re promises I’ll be happy to return to when the time comes.

Borderlands 4 is nothing if not a rich audiovisual experience. The series’ signature comic book art style is on full display and more striking than ever. Characters, bosses, gear, and environments all look incredible. The game’s soundtrack is banging, particularly when you can feel it pumping into your ears during intense fights. 

I want to make it a point to particularly call out the game’s voice work. To each of the voice actors involved with the game, congratulations! Borderlands 4 features incredible voice work, and the talent behind the characters has done an excellent job bringing Kairos to life. Borderlands wouldn’t be where it is today without top-tier performances, and Borderlands 4 continues that tradition. From the Vault Hunters to villains to folks that do psycho battle chirps, it’s all fantastic.

Unfortunately, for everything Borderlands 4 does right, it still feels heavily harried by a range of technical issues and some awkward design decisions. After finishing major story beats, the game requires you to travel back to a zone entrance and activate a zone-swap before you can fast-travel to the major hub you’ll invariably want to access. We also ran into some bizarre instances where the game would recommend different travel paths to our team when going to the same spot, which was particularly bizarre since it would take a teammate up a mountain path while it guided me on a wastefully long loop around the mountain and up the opposite side. Music would occasionally drop during boss fights. There are other times the pathing seemingly doesn’t show up at all.

More egregiously, in our time playing together, the GamingTrend team encountered a host of technical issues, all playing on PC. I had an instance where I killed a boss, died immediately, and was spawned in a location the game refused to let the story acknowledge. This required me to fast-travel elsewhere and manually work my way back. One of our team members inexplicably lost several hours of story and character progress when the game rolled back to a previous save state overnight. Spread from the Eastern US to the West Coast, we experienced a wide range of lag issues playing together (and the whole team was playing on gigabit and fiber connections). We even had one instance where we did an Ultimate Vault Hunter weekly mission, sat through all the unnecessary repeat story dialog, and as soon as the game went to reward us, my partner's game crashed, and he was denied his weekly rewards. In a game built around grinding content with other people to sustain itself, these issues are a significant turn-off. Gearbox will release a day-one patch, which will, hopefully, address these issues

Borderlands 4 returns the series to its roots. The game’s sense of style is immaculate, the humor hits often, and the voice acting is fantastic. While the story doesn’t do anything to break new ground, it’s a well-written, enjoyable narrative that had me exploring Kairos for dozens of hours. The constant deluge of loot kept me on the lookout for the next cool thing, each character’s skills are fun, and there were plenty of options to customize my build. Combat feels frenetic in an engaging way, and the gunplay feels fantastic, making for an engaging gameplay loop that kept me coming back. Unfortunately, the game has some design decisions and technical issues that have kept it from greatness, but I’m hopeful they’ll be quickly resolved. If you’re a fan of Borderlands, looter shooters, or just a good time, Borderlands 4 is one you definitely don’t want to miss.