Borderlands 4 is exactly what you’d expect, and that’s mostly a good thing. It’s loud, crude, and absolutely overflowing with guns, loot, and over-the-top explosions. Gearbox has doubled down on what makes the series click while fine-tuning the gunplay and adding a greater sense of freedom through its expanded movement system. It’s not perfect; some questionable UI changes and technical hiccups keep it from true greatness, but when the bullets start flying, Borderlands 4 is the most fun the series has been in years.
Borderlands 4
Developer: Gearbox Software
Price: $69.99
Platform: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review
It’s Borderlands! It’s crude, full of guns, cringy writing, and did I mention more guns? I hope I did, because as usual, they turned it up even more when it comes to generating some truly crazy weapons that will have you cursing the RNG gods as you pursue that perfect upgrade. Borderlands 4 is the latest entry in the looter-shooter franchise that is largely credited with popularizing the genre and laying the groundwork for its evolution over the years. It honestly cements itself as a step in the right direction after the more controversial Borderlands 3. The crazy part is that while Borderlands 3 and the Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep game that came after had some of the best gunplay in the series thus far. 4 makes it even better by giving us more freedom of movement than ever before and further tightening up the gunplay. Sadly, it invents a few problems of its own that have me scratching my head, but the bad doesn’t outweigh the good.
Borderlands 4 brings us four new Vault Hunters to a new planet called Kairos, six years after the end of Borderlands 3, which revealed its existence to the universe in search of the riches and danger found in Vaults. Unfortunately, Kairos is controlled, forcibly, by an intimidating dictator with an army of slaves, synthetic soldiers, and biologically engineered weapons. The Timekeeper, as he is called, asserts himself right away by capturing your Vault Hunter and implanting them with a control bolt, which is how the Timekeeper controls the population of Kairos. Thankfully, there just happens to be a MacGuffin that helps you escape and find the Crimson Resistance to begin the rebellion against the planet’s ruler.
It’s a Borderlands story, so it’s not high art, but I think the Timekeeper is a better and more oppressive villain than Borderlands 3’s Twins. I get some chuckles here and there, and the side quests have some references littered through them as expected. One I thought was the best was the side-quest that led to a bunch of autonomous Tediore guns running rampant, requiring you to throw a capture ball at them to stop them. Nintendo must be looking at Randy Pitchford right now after their Palworld lawsuit and thinking, “Really!?” Some fan-favorite characters return, and honestly, the Vault Hunter I took into the post-game, Rafa, was an absolute joy to adventure with. He was honestly cracking me up at times, and he was a blast to play with his autonomous twin cannons that I used the whole way.
Speaking of the Vault Hunters, it was nice to see that all of the Vault Hunters have three different active skills that align with the three different skill trees the series has. It seems to let you find the one that works for you and your playstyle if you want to test everything. My Vault Hunter Rafa had the aforementioned auto cannons, but he could also use laser blades attached to each of his arms, or a big damage nuke shot if you want to keep it simple. They also made it so heavy weapons fit into the grenade slot under the new name of Ordinances, and a much-welcomed change. I’ve seen some people tear it up with those and the right build.
Of course, it’s Borderlands, so if you want to one-shot all of your bosses, most any class can do that with the right equipment, but that is part of the fun in a PvE game like this. Plus, after everyone complained about the generous legendary drop rate in Borderlands 3 (couldn’t be me…), they dialed those rates way back down, so something to save some time when you have to farm a boss 20 times to get the drop you want can be nice to have. They added more ways to get signature traits from some gun manufacturers onto others, leading to a ton of variety and some things that are just a blast to use, even without being legendary.
They upped the variety of movement you have in this one to help us explore the new open world they gave us, and it translates to combat in a really satisfying way. You can double jump, air dash, ground dash, you have a jet pack to slow your descent, a grapple hook to move yourself around quickly, or bring things to you. These come together in a super satisfying way that has you flying through the air, embracing a lot of verticality, and having the agility to dodge more mechanically demanding boss mechanics. Although the increased mobility doesn’t make the “carry this across the map in one hand” missions any more enjoyable.
Borderlands 4 Has Performance Problems That Bring the Experience Down
Sadly, it’s not all good. If you have heard anything negative about Borderlands 4, it’s the performance, and that’s definitely not defending that. I’ve had a pretty rough time with it on PC. I’m writing this before a big balance and performance patch that they pushed back a week comes out. Still, my hopes aren’t high (Update: after the patch came out, I saw zero improvement to performance, and I’m also disappointed with the laziest seasonal event I’ve seen in a game in some time). Somehow, they made the UI really bad as well. We’ve been iterating on the Borderlands 2 inventory for a while, but this feels like two steps back. Default sorting resets every single time. For some reason, I can’t even click the gun filters, and you have to go into deeper menus to see important stats for guns, which used to be readily available on the info cards you see at a glance. It’s a bit frustrating that I can’t find much to be positive about in the changed UI, so it feels like a net negative. That isn’t the only thing I find myself asking, “Why” about.
I was PUMPED when I found out that after beating the game, I could roll a new Vault Hunter at level 30 and start in the unlocked harder difficulty with the story done. I quickly found out it was kind of a slog because the tuning is really uneven at the start, and the worst part is that none of the inventory upgrades, fast travel points, or anything else are shared. There really isn’t much of a reason to do it for that; you would be better off just starting a new character normally, throwing it on easy, and speeding through the story, naturally unlocking things. I hope they change this. I recall that, at the very least, the inventory upgrades were shared between characters in the past. Something I noticed after I beat the game too, there really wasn’t any music that stood out to me at all in the game, when Borderlands is often remembered for its advertising campaign prominently featuring the song “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked” by Cage The Elephant I kind of always thought the games had a good soundtrack that made it feel like the music was part of the identity of the series so it’s a bummer this one had no memorable music.
The Final Word
Borderlands 4 is more Borderlands, but it plays better than any other game in the series. Improved movement, a new open world format to go with the new planet Kairos, and a better-written villain than the last entries’ heavily criticized ones. There are some weird parts, a bad and under-functional UI, and some real performance issues, but you would be hard-pressed to find a better looter shooter to play with friends that you haven’t already exhausted by now. I have to give the game its flowers for being a ton of fun to play, despite some questionable design decisions.
MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
