My ardour for looter shooters has burned fairly brightly for over 15 years and Borderlands is the flame that lit the fuse. With Borderlands 4, Gearbox proves it nonetheless is aware of methods to deliver the increase. After fizzling considerably with Borderlands 3, it felt like this sequence had begun to fall behind within the style it pioneered, however breaking away from segmented ranges and embracing an sincere-to-goodness open world permits 2025’s Borderlands to shock us once more. Drastically improved motion makes it the most effective-feeling first-particular person shooters on the market, the story takes a refreshingly grounded strategy that pays off, and the expanded buildcrafting choices like therapeutic gadgets, throwing knives, and weapon enhancements are all improbable concepts. However taking these swings additionally comes with some unlucky downsides, like how exploration is kind of actually held again by invisible partitions and awkward surfaces that refuse to be trod upon, to not point out pretty rocky technical efficiency (not less than on the PC model supplied for evaluate) and quite a few bugs. However these tough edges borders did little to maintain me from as soon as once more falling head over heels for my first looter-shooter love, and blasting via hordes of psychos with a pal or three feels as superior because it ever has.
In the event you’re new to absolutely the madness that’s Borderlands, it’s a sequence the place the bizarre enemies you mow down drop more and more weird weapons that you just then use to mow down even weirder enemies in an limitless cycle of looting and taking pictures. How weird? It’s stuff like an assault rifle that shoots tiny rockets, can name in an airstrike, and explodes like a grenade if you reload and toss it. Or perhaps you’ll luck right into a sniper rifle that fires off ammo like a gatling gun and stops consuming ammo whereas overheated, or a grenade that screams absurd (and sometimes sexy) issues because it bounces up and down, spewing acid. Borderlands 4 retains that feeling recent by persevering with to iterate on the foolish weapons it provides you, which might cross-pollinate throughout totally different weapon producers for even weirder outcomes.
The opposite distinctive bit of favor that’s set its finest video games other than the group is that regardless of all the time having been full of lowbrow dick jokes to match its hand-drawn graphic novel look, Borderlands has by no means been afraid to shock with sharp turns towards genuinely touching story moments. (Heck, it’s a universe that’s supported a Telltale-made Tales from the Borderlands recreation and its Gearbox-developed sequel, so it’s not all about run-and-gun motion.) Borderlands 3 notably didn’t have a variety of these, although, so it was a reduction when this followup lastly ditched the unique planet of Pandora and lots of of its legacy characters who’d began to wear down their welcome to inform a very new story on a world referred to as Kairos that’s been dominated by a malevolent, brainwashing dictator named the Timekeeper.
Borderlands 4 is far more than only a breath of recent air, bordering on what virtually looks like a gentle reboot at occasions. It instantly provides some memorable characters to its forged, like the flamboyant and charming Levaine, who has a considerably messy relationship historical past along with your fellow Vault Hunters – however then each every so often it takes a welcome dip again into the nostalgia pool to have Claptrap rattle off just a few jokes. (Sure, the sassy little bot is again; love him or hate him, it wouldn’t be Borderlands with out him.) With just a few neat twists in retailer and a compelling plot about making an attempt to free this planet, I ended up liking the story fairly a bit, even when it doesn’t hit the highs of Borderlands 2 (particularly when it comes to its iconic villain).
Many of the motion itself is what you’d count on from this sequence, however quantity 4 (or six, when you rely The Pre-Sequel and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands) makes numerous fairly large adjustments that shake up your vault-searching expedition. The most important by far is the truth that Borderlands 4 is a correct open-world recreation (versus the standard strategy of huge zones separated by loading screens) that’s full of aspect quests, timed actions, collectibles, and puzzles to hunt out. You even have a complete bag of tips to help you within the exploration of Kairos’ 4 various areas, like a grapple hook that permits you to get to areas usually out of attain, a glider to soar over massive swaths of land, and a automobile you possibly can summon on command to zip over hills and thru deserts with out having to hoof it to a Catch-A-Trip station first. Except for a really restricted few (similar to The Division 2 or Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League), totally open-world video games are fairly uncommon within the looter shooter area – none of that are in first-particular person.
That may not look like an enormous deal at first, nevertheless it’s laborious to overstate how totally different this makes Borderlands 4 from its predecessors, not simply since you’ve obtained so many new methods to get round, however as a result of progressing via the story and leveling up your character is a lot much less linear now. Typically I’d spend just a few hours simply exploring a brand new area of the map, clearing the fog of conflict away and finishing any actions I encountered alongside the way in which, whereas different occasions I’d race from place to put, specializing in one a part of the primary story quest line earlier than pivoting to a different a part of it in a unique area. That story took me about 40 hours to finish, however that was with loads of distractions, and I’ve spent one other 20+ after the credit rolled with heaps nonetheless left to do.
It’s additionally superior that you just don’t have to fret a lot about sticking subsequent to your teammates this time. They are often leagues away doing their very own factor, and in the event that they need assistance with one thing you possibly can simply pull up your map and warp to them immediately. Open-world actions are extra various than I used to be anticipating as properly, and vary from correct story-targeted aspect quests to an exercise the place it’s important to repair an enormous crawler to say a automobile improve to at least one the place you combat a great deal of madmen at a drill web site to earn some badass loot. The truth that you are able to do all that free-wheeling exploration and discovery alongside a gaggle of mates in a method that’s by no means inconvenient makes it that a lot better and spectacular.
There’s one main subject with this new open-world philosophy, nonetheless, which is that the bodily terrain of Kairos doesn’t all the time rise to the event of those free-roaming ambitions. For instance, some areas are full of invisible partitions that you just’ll unsatisfyingly slap into whilst you’re making an attempt to glide over a hill or mantle up a ledge. Borderlands has all the time had points with its environments being a bit wonky, nevertheless it feels a lot extra noticeable in an open world the place you naturally assume you’re meant to discover each nook and cranny, and most video games provide you with pure boundaries like mountains or oceans to make it clear you can go no farther. As a substitute, you rapidly discover the restrictions of that exploration they usually really feel synthetic. Though I finally discovered to acknowledge when a floor was most likely not one thing I used to be going to be allowed to work together with, it nonetheless bums me out that there isn’t just a few form of “out of bounds” warning when going locations I wasn’t meant to.
One different main space of evolution is fight, which not solely has tighter, extra responsive gunplay than any Borderlands recreation earlier than it, however comes filled with a frankly foolish variety of new motion choices that make battles far more dynamic. Along with the present methods to get round like operating and sliding, now you can double leap, glide, grapple hook, sprint in any route, and even swim (that’s proper, water not immediately kills you, reward Moxxi). It truly took me fairly some time to recollect all the brand new methods I used to be anticipated to navigate fight encounters, however with the assistance of some enemies that neatly push you to make full use of your choices, I finally discovered to grasp them. By the tip, I used to be hovering throughout the map, dodging assaults like a professional and raining hell down upon my enemies. It grew to become splendidly satisfying stuff as soon as I obtained the dangle of it.
Gearbox has additionally heaped an impressively excessive quantity of recent issues to shoot into this recreation. Whereas different Borderlands sequels reused most of the identical enemy varieties relationship again to the 2009 unique, Borderlands 4’s change of planetary venue means it has to considerably broaden its menagerie. Positive, the masked psychos that function the sequence’ poster boys (they’re like a disturbing model of the Minions from Despicable Me, they usually managed to hitch a trip off of Pandora in some way), however there are additionally little mechanical spiders that mirror all of the bullets you ship their method once they to spin their legs quickly, creatures coated in crystals which can be immune to wreck till you shoot these crystals off and rapidly destroy the floating orbs they flip into, and lots of others that I hadn’t seen earlier than. These precipitated me to cease and adapt to their techniques in attention-grabbing methods, and that was all the time a memorable second.
Even higher are the boss fights, which have developed fairly considerably in that they often contain some particular mechanics it’s important to study so as to beat them. These are sometimes fairly easy issues, like selecting up and throwing a poisonous bomb onto one boss to peel his armor off, or having to juggle your self within the air with grappling and gliding after the ground turns into hazardous for a section of one other combat. Granted, they don’t come near the mechanical complexity of one thing you’d discover in a Future raid, however these are sometimes form of over-the-high and this can be a vital step up from among the fundamental “dodge and shoot it till it dies” battles we’ve seen in Borderlands previous. It’s a contented medium, and that makes these bosses quite a bit much less forgettable. That’s to not say there aren’t any fundamental fights, nevertheless it’s honest to say that these may be an entertaining excuse to show off your mind and blast one thing to bits and function a distinction to those with an additional component to them. Relaxation assured, the key bosses often step up their recreation fairly noticeably.
Borderlands’ Vault Hunters, Ranked
Borderlands’ Vault Hunters, Ranked
It’s additionally neat that you just’ll begin encountering enemies with numerous modifiers as you get additional into the journey and unlock larger issue settings through the endgame grind. These is likely to be issues like Elemental Eater, an impact which means enemies aren’t simply proof against a particular kind of assault however healed by it, or Centripetal, which causes a black gap to type the place an enemy with this trait dies, pulling every thing in vary into its middle and dealing large injury. It’s not all new, groundbreaking stuff for Borderlands – these are much like results present in Borderlands 3’s Mayhem Mode, as an illustration – however they’re now a central a part of Borderlands 4, and that makes fight extra attention-grabbing and has you staying a bit extra conscious even of enemies you’ve seen a variety of already.
One large ache level, although, is that the total descriptions for every of those modifiers’ results don’t seem like listed anyplace, so that you’ve simply gotta determine them out by yourself – or look them up on the information that IGN’s staff is already cooking up for you. I can’t let you know how lengthy I spent by chance therapeutic a foul man earlier than realizing I used to be doing one thing very mistaken, and it will have been good to have a codex someplace with extra data.
If the truth that I’ve gone this lengthy with out even attending to discussing the fully new batch of Vault Hunters in Borderlands 4 doesn’t let you know there’s quite a bit occurring right here, I don’t know what is going to. It principally sticks to custom, however places some fairly neat spins on the sequence’ present lessons. There’s the Siren, Vex, who makes use of her area magic to deal elemental injury and has some superior life-stealing choices; Rafa, the Exo-Soldier who can summon all types of DigiStructed weapons, from shoulder-mounted turrets to melee arm blades (as if Borderlands didn’t have sufficient weapons already!); Harlowe, a Gravitar with an assortment of gravity-manipulation talents that may lure enemies in bubbles, amongst different issues; and Amon, a large, cybernetically enhanced warrior referred to as a Forgeknight, who has a bunch of melee choices at his disposal. Each feels fairly good, with distinctive instruments that make all of them viable decisions for endgame actions with out feeling particularly overpowered.
Whereas I’ve been fairly excessive on it thus far, I do have some complaints to lodge as somebody who tends to play this sort of recreation greater than as soon as, and with an eye fixed towards making every of these playthroughs really feel distinct. After just a few dozen hours with it, it strikes me that Borderlands 4’s buildcrafting hasn’t pushed this sequence into the realm of one thing like Diablo or – dare I say it – Path of Exile, provided that there are just a few branching paths to select from in every Vault Hunter’s ability bushes you can then can optimize with gear to excel at a handful of particular issues like dealing a great deal of elemental injury or therapeutic your self when getting kills, however not sufficient customization choices to essentially go wild.
That mentioned, the three totally different bushes every character does have every not less than add a bit little bit of selection to how each class can play, which means multiple particular person in your staff can use the identical Vault Hunter whereas having a unique set of buffs and skills that may make them work properly collectively. For instance, for the primary half of my playthrough I targeted on Vex’s Spectral Summoning tree to deploy ghostly doppelgangers onto the battlefield, however after discovering a legendary merchandise that labored properly for a unique form of construct, I respec’d into the basic DPS tree that targeted on casting highly effective spells as a substitute of summoning others to do my bidding. If these two totally different characters labored collectively aspect by aspect, there’d be little overlap in what they’re bringing to an up-to-4-particular person staff.
Ah sure, groups! Though Borderlands 4 feels nice to play solo as properly, for certain one of the best ways to play is when amongst mates, however those that play collectively ought to count on to expertise bugs collectively. The overwhelming majority of my time in Borderlands was spent with mates, and we encountered nearly each subject within the on-line-multiplayer ebook: lag and desyncing from fight when you’re not the host, enemies generally changing into immune to wreck or teleporting across the map, and non-host gamers shedding progress or getting locked out of quest strains as a result of one thing didn’t monitor correctly, simply to call just a few.
A few of this, like the truth that you don’t uncover the map in your personal save file whereas exploring with mates, looks like it is likely to be intentional, however remains to be deeply annoying and disincentivizes teaming up. Different points, like gear-promoting merchandising machines that constantly supplied no wares in any respect for any of us whereas in co-op, are simply head-scratching pains within the neck. There have been occasions after I hit sufficient points in succession the place it grew to become preferable to simply play solo, and others the place it created friction when deciding who could be the group’s host as a result of we knew that particular person would see the fewest issues. That’s positively not the form of dynamic you need in your co-op recreation, and it precipitated my group no small quantity of grief as we found the assorted methods during which issues really feel not so nice when taking part in collectively, regardless of gunplay and synergizing our builds with each other in any other case being actually superior. Granted, a few of that is the results of taking part in a short while earlier than launch and there will definitely be not less than just a few fixes by the point you play it – but when historical past is any lesson it is going to be a minute earlier than all of that is ironed out.
Taking part in solo is smoother, however there’s no escape from all the issues as a result of Borderlands 4 is a reasonably buggy trip typically. It looks like there are as many bugs as there are weapons, and the longer you play the extra probably you might be to see issues like rare however extreme framerate hitching, or your backpack all of the sudden deciding you may have method much less area for gear than it’s best to till you again out to the menu and reload. Two of my crew even discovered themselves locked out of the endgame grind when totally different steps within the questline broke, blocking their development and making it so we couldn’t run the actions we needed to do collectively. It’s a testomony to simply how enjoyable exploring Kairos is that, even with all of that laundry listing, I nonetheless couldn’t wait to play extra even after dozens of hours. You’ve gotta take these complaints in context.
Talking of the endgame grind, Borderlands 4 seems to return pre-loaded with a type of (although hey, I mentioned the identical factor about Diablo 4 – you possibly can’t name all of them proper, however I’m feeling optimistic). There are three actions you’re anticipated to finish weekly: a tougher model of a narrative mission that has a bunch of tough modifiers, like one the place all enemies explode right into a black gap of harm and one other the place enemies heal themselves when dealing injury to your staff, a repeatable boss combat that principally simply looks like it’s there to present you a simple enemy to kill as many occasions as you’d like for nice loot, and a hidden merchandising machine that strikes round every week and sells assured legendary loot.
As you grind these actions, you’ll additionally unlock the extra superior world tier difficulties that supply higher loot, however these are gatekept behind extremely difficult quests with a great deal of modifiers which can be the last word check of your loadout and taking pictures abilities. At this level, none of this stuff are notably deep or time-consuming because you simply run all of them every week after which are mainly accomplished, however even when that’s not your factor there’s nonetheless a large map that has a lot of aspect actions so that you can full out of the “field.” (Are there nonetheless packing containers?) Past that, we have now guarantees that Gearbox has a reasonably good monitor report of delivering on, courtesy of a submit-launch roadmap which incorporates loads of content material on the way in which. I’ve a variety of hope that Borderlands 4 can have legs for fairly a while.