Borderlands may be one of my favorite series of all time. I am saying that so you, as the reader, understand that I have had ALL the expectations for this game. While it has definitely impressed me the most since Borderlands 2, it is not without its faults. A handful of bugs threaten to ruin the experience, but if you can get past that, Borderlands 4 delivers an awesome looter-shooter experience that I do not believe anyone can top.

*Mr. Torque Voice* IMPROVEMENTS?!

Borderlands 4 boasts a TON of great things over past entries. The gunplay feels amazing. Weapons feel different than each other. Given there are billions (yes) of combinations, they all feel unique in their own way. Whether some have that chunky, big gun feel, or others have the speedy and explody handling. And sometimes, both. New underbarrels or licensed parts add a whole new layer of depth and honestly, a lot of these feel like legendary loot in themselves. I come across knife throwing snipers, assault rifles that switch to shotguns, and orbital air-strike secondaries that are just too dang fun to mess around with. You will find your favorites and start hunting for them eventually, but it took me about 20 or so hours before I stopped messing around with literally everything.

Movement has got a big upgrade as well. It has never felt better to be in a Borderlands world. Double jumps, spawnable vehicles, grappling hooks, and more, launch you around the map and make you want to explore everything. And while you can’t necessarily get everywhere (more on that later), there are definitely multiple ways to get to certain POI’s on the map. It FEELS great.

Co-op is back, of course and it is drop-in/drop-out. I’ve played through the majority of the game with a friend and we have had little to no issues joining each other on our quest to become the best Vault Hunters in the all the land. Explosions everywhere fill the screen as we take on all the psychos and it is absolute chaos. At one point, we both had grenades that swam and bounce off into 3-5 more grenades at the same time that our shields launched missiles while in the middle of combat. It was fantastic fun to watch the fireworks show. Even fighting bosses with their new mechanics has been fun with a co-op partner as we both struggle to figure out what the heck we were supposed to do next.

The story comes back with a more grounded approach this time around. The big bad, the Time Keeper, has an actual villain aura around him, and frankly, freaks me out. This is something I haven’t felt in a Borderlands game in a while, and was happy to see it here. It is your “Hey. This guy is bad, we gotta find some vaults and then find him” start to the game but slowly and surely becomes a bit deeper and engaging. The last entry had me fall off of the narrative fairly quickly and 4 kept me interested. Borderlands 3 was a good game, gameplay-wise, but its villains fell flat and seemed more of a mockery than anything. Not this time. There is an actual sense of urgency to saving the planet now, and I love it. There are some totally humorous Borderlands moments and characters sprinkled into the game, too, so don’t worry about it losing what made it a riot to play Borderlands 2 in the first place. Claptrap is also around and he doesn’t make me want to launch him back to Pandora as much as I would have previously. In between story missions, you can relax by finding bounties, patrols, or collecting things for the various safehouse scattered across the open world. These give you experience to help level you up as well as new SDU points so you can safely upgrade your backpack and ammo storage without having to spend your hard earned cash to do so. Kairos (the planet) is a dangerous place and these enemies need to Vault Hunter-ed so you can hold MORE things!

To increase your ability to destroy all the enemies and animals of Kairos in your path, you get 3 skill trees to choose from with each Vault Hunter (currently 4). Each offer their own playstyle and one in particular, Amon (who I uses) was seemingly the most versatile as he felt like 3 characters in one. Gain XP, gain a skill point. Increase your damage, buffs, health, etc. It is Borderlands, and if you have played those or any game that allowed you to level up a skill tree, you know the drill.

Also, visually, Borderlands 4 is gorgeous. Even on perfomance mode, the game shines. You get your cel-shading textures on next-gen hardware looking awesome. There were times I would soak in the specific area of the map I was in just to look at it. And with all the particles, fire, frost, radiation, etc flying around, it doesn’t take too much of a dip. Superb!

The improvements also bring some things that may have been lost in the shuffle as well. So let us get into those.

“I Can Fix That” – Dr. Zed

Among the things that got me excited throughout my playthrough, there were also some that downright bummed me out. Some broken quests that required me to restart my game multiple times to trigger it, walls (and sometimes whole buildings) disappearing, the inventory system being a nightmare to navigate, and some latency issues where I was reviving my friend (I know, I know), and it was working on my end and he died on his, being some of the few minor but annoying issues.

It seems there isn’t a new game releasing without faults anymore and this is definitely no exception. As stated before, the game itself is spectacular, but there are certain things that irk me. The out of bounds areas are not clearly marked so you will often think you can jump or climb a certain way only to be smashed into invisible barriers. Or the new ECHO option that shows you routes to your next destination will point you through walls or giant rocks as if it thinks you have enabled the old Clipping codes from DOOM back in the day. Minor things, sure, but eventually they add up. A lot of things like the inventory navigation I am positive can be fixed while the invisible walls may have to wait to the next game.

The Final Verdict

Since switching to open-world, Borderlands has offered up something I have wanted in the series forever now: Singularity. The game feels like you are a part of the world. It is nice, even though you can fast travel, to hop on your vehicle and cruise around. The music gets intense when you’re about to get into a battle, and the ambient sounds of a wooded area make you want to relax and stay for a while to forget the destruction you’ve caused 30 seconds ago. The tone of the overall game is here but it feels much more my style. I can search of one of the 200 bobbleheads through the world or I can bounty hunt for an hour. The options are present. Do what you want.

This may not be the newest experience you have ever had in your video game life. Combining open world and shooting isn’t exactly groundbreaking. But if you have been looking to get into looter shooters and have yet to try out a Borderlands game, this is the one for you. Movement and guns feel nice, the story and humor are there, and joining your buddies has never been easier. Overall, I give Borderlands 4 an 8.5 out of 10.