Beebom Score
Borderlands 4 was my most anticipated game of the year – I said as much while fawning over its glorious pre-release previews. In preparation for its release, I ran through Borderlands 3 (plus the DLCs) and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands (minus the DLCs, of course) for a fix of its cel-shaded looter-shooter mayhem, yet I still craved more. The purpose of this prelude is to say that I adore this franchise. And after spending 50 hours engrossed in the alien trappings of Kairos, I adore Borderlands 4, well, at least, most of it.
The series’ cookie-cutter gameplay loop is punchier and more refined than ever here. Its transition to a full-blooded open world is largely seamless, barring some stutters here and there. And the guns? Gratuitous and satisfying in the best ways possible. To keep it brief, I think Borderlands 4 has an all-timer potential. But a few missteps keep it from being a homerun, and that’s exactly what I’ll dive into in this review.
A Familiar Ride with a Few Wrong Turns
Let’s address the dreaded ‘n word’ that put Borderlands 3 (a truly outstanding looter-shooter) to the sword: Narrative. I had zero doubts in Gearbox’s ability to pen a compelling plot after playing through Wonderlands. Its whimsical fantasy adventure was chock full of charm, thanks to sharp writing that towed the line between ‘Borderlands humor’ and a heartfelt D&D campaign quite effectively. So, I walked away a bit disappointed by what Gearbox has served up here.
For the latest mainline adventure, Borderlands 4 sets course for the planet of Kairos. The new setting is plagued by the same issues that prevailed on Pandora. You’ve got alien wildlife that wants you dead, raiders that really want you dead, and synths still deciding how to make it happen. Sound familiar?
As usual, an eccentric cast of Vault Hunters arrives on the planet in search of treasure. Their hunt is interrupted by the despot of the day, a gilded entity named The Timekeeper. He abducts your character with the intention of enslaving them to do his bidding. Events transpire, and a spontaneous jail break sees you escape his clutches. The plot then devolves into your standard Borderlands affair, where you come for the promise of immeasurable wealth and stay for the impromptu revolution.
All this is to say that BL4 isn’t swinging for the fences when it comes to the narrative. It sifts through familiar story beats, some of which are memorable, but ultimately, I never felt an inclination to revisit anything, really.
The memorable parts are tied to The Timekeeper’s three generals, all of whom enforce their own brand of evil on their allotted territories. You’ve got the gluttonous Idolator Sol, who serves as a solid starting nemesis, followed by Callis, the Ripper Queen, who felt genuinely intimidating, and finally, Vile Lictor, a sadistic maniac that can invoke a few chills. You’re free to pursue the big bads in any order, but I recommend tackling them in the sequence mentioned above because it simply flows better.
While I enjoyed what little screentime the trio received, the run-up to direct encounters with them is stuffed with boring missions. Quests follow the repetitive structure of meet NPC, go to point A, and kill; no questions asked. The combat, which I’ll get into later, is so top-notch that it punches through this monotony, but it cannot save a story that has very little to say. To be clear, I didn’t expect Borderlands to deviate from its central formula; I just hoped for a little bit of finesse when it came to how quests are structured.
It also doesn’t help that the story comes to an odd conclusion. A new antagonist is almost shoehorned in as a late-game curveball, and I really struggled to understand their motivations. The eventual boss fight ended up feeling like an awkward extension, and it really soured any chances of me warming up to the plot.
For those clutching onto their crosses in fear of cringy dialogue, there’s frankly nothing to be worried about. The main campaign largely plays it safe, and any comedic swings have their desired effect for the most part. In fact, Borderlands 4 managed to crack me up on multiple occasions.
BL4 isn’t swinging for the fences when it comes to the narrative, it sifts through familiar story beats, some of which are memorable.
There was a particularly hilarious one-liner that saw Claptrap insinuate that my character is adept at “cranking it,” and yeah, I laughed – sue me. The clankerous robot is actually consistently funny here, and I even found myself missing his presence from time to time. Also, it’s high time that we hold Borderland’s psychos in the same regard as Halo’s Grunts when it comes to the funniest video game NPCs. They have so many solid lines in the game, the best of which was when a psycho exclaimed, “DID YOU SEE ME ON THE COVER?” right as I turned his face into a thin red mist.
To sum things up, Borderlands 4’s story and writing are leagues ahead of BL3. However, that’s not a high bar to clear because the 2019 release didn’t feature the player character in a single cutscene of plotline importance. When assessed on its own merits, Gearbox’s latest narrative is competent enough to see through the end, but it lacks any real emotional heft – leaving BL2 as the pinnacle of the franchise in this department.
A World Built for Lootin’, Shootin’, and Getting Lost
Segmented open areas set on wondrous sci-fi locales have been the Borderlands way since the series’ inception. It’s a signature trait that I’ve grown to admire, especially since it allows for so much variety and even joyful creativity, as seen in Borderlands 3’s planetary hopscotch. I would’ve accepted another entry offering the same with open arms, but instead, Borderlands 4 dares to innovate.
That might sound like an overstatement — after all, open-world games are a dime a dozen these days. But for Borderlands, it’s nothing short of transformative. Every element of its looter-shooter loop had to evolve to suit a wide-open sandbox, and for the most part, that transition is pulled off without a hitch. The world of Kairos might feel checklist-y at first glance, but further inspection reveals bundles of its distinct charm and hours upon hours of distractions.
Structurally, Kairos feels like a graduate from the Ubisoft school of open-world design. You’ve got an expansive landmass sliced into four biomes: verdant greens, arid badlands (get it?), snowy hills, and a plot-armored urban sprawl relevant to the main story. It’s a formulaic template that we’ve seen in countless other games, but Borderlands 4 elevates it by filling the open world with activities worth completing.
But before expanding on said activities, I have to commend the painstaking attention to detail poured into every section of the map.
The grassy Fadefields stretch endlessly, punctuated by rustic farms and disturbed by the brutalist monuments of the Timekeeper’s Order. North of it lies Carcadia Burn – a sprawling wasteland of sand, ruin, and chaos which feels quintessentially Borderlands. Vestigial remnants of once-bustling cities dot its decaying landscape, while occasional sandstorms stir up a sudden, Mad Max-esque mood shift. Then there’s Terminus Range, a mountainous region blanketed in snow, where jagged peaks pierce the skyline. At its heart lies Belton’s Bore, a nomadic settlement that feels both futuristic and ancient – a pocket of warmth carved into the frost.
Finally, you’ve got Dominion, The Timekeeper’s lair. Over the course of the main story, you’ll likely develop some preconceived notions of what the city looks like. These will be shattered upon arrival, and I feel like that’s a bit of intentional subversion on the devs’ part. For spoiler’s sake, I won’t go into its general aesthetic, but I’ll certainly recommend uncovering every layer of the city.
There’s a wealth of well-written side quests to take on across all of these locations, ranging from nostalgic trips down memory lane to playing pseudo therapist for a complete stranger. I’m actually hard-pressed to pinpoint a side quest that felt boring, with some missions even enabling you to engage in activities beyond separating man from limb. A solid example is adjusting Cracky Mabacky’s petulant verbatae – a ridiculous task which involves a full-body lotion dispenser, and I’ll leave it at that.
While it doesn’t reinvent the wheel by any means, there’s a sense of cohesion and care that makes Kairos worth exploring long after the credits roll.
As much praise as I can shower on these side stories, their rewards are extremely disappointing. Borderlands 4 features zero red text weapons outside of Legendaries, which directly hurts the replayability of these quests. The series’s long-standing tradition of handing out unique Rares or Epics is broken, and seemingly for no reason. As it stands, most players will likely skip these hilarious distractions on UVHM runs. That’s a real shame, because hunting down quirky, off-meta weapons has always been one of my favorite parts of the Borderlands loop.
Thankfully, Kairos is stuffed with other farming opportunities that are consistently fun. These come in the form of repeatable encounters scattered throughout the open world, including mini-Slaughter events that hand out red chests upon completion.
BL4 also has its own version of dungeons, which come in three flavors: Drill Sites, Order Bunkers, and Auger Mines. Each dungeon type is themed around one of the enemy factions, and there are six apiece on the map. The layout is straightforward: barge in, blow everything to bits, and beat the boss to grab your loot. Every Bunker, Mine, and Drill Site has a unique boss lurking inside, all of which have dedicated drops, and that’s reason enough to revisit them dozens of times.
I have so much more to say about the open world, since I ended up liking it far more than I expected to. Even after 50 hours, I find myself getting sidetracked on the way to my billionth Vault farm, and I often catch my jaw agape at the incredible draw distances. While it doesn’t reinvent the wheel by any means, there’s a sense of cohesion and care that makes Kairos worth exploring long after the credits roll. And even when there’s nothing left to chase, it’s just a fun place to be – loud, strange, and undeniably Borderlands.
Gearbox’s Trigger Finger Has Never Been Sharper
It’s now time to dig into the really good stuff – the meat and bones of the ballistic pie – the gameplay. Right out the gate, I can confidently state that Borderlands has never played better than in BL4, and a lot of that can be attributed to the movement upgrades.
Vault Hunters can now dash, double jump, and glide at will, amping up your character’s mobility. To go along with these enhancements, fall damage has been removed entirely, encouraging players to glide across vast distances without worrying about arbitrary restrictions. Traversing the open world is also made easy via the Digirunner, a hovering motorcycle that spawns almost anywhere.
When combined with the movement, Borderlands 4 exudes what I like to call violent momentum. Your journey begins on the Digirunner, which rockets forward as fast as you can hit the button. Within seconds, you’re barreling toward your destination. Once in reach, you dismount to leap off your vehicle, pop a jump to gain altitude, double dash to close the gap, and finish it off with a ground slam that sends enemies flying. That breakneck transition from traversal to carnage is so rip-roaringly quick, and it perfectly encapsulates what the combat is all about.
There’s also a grappling hook here, but its novelty wears off far too quickly. The tool is extremely underutilized because there’s only a handful of preset grapple points in any given combat gallery. Some arenas don’t feature one at all, meaning the hook is only good for flinging barrels at enemies. As it stands, the mechanic feels underbaked – more of an afterthought than a true traversal tool, and I really hope future DLCs use the grappling hook in more intuitive ways.
The most crucial piece of the combat puzzle is, of course, the weapons. All of your favorite manufacturers are back, barring Hyperion and Dahl for mysterious reasons. Jakobs, in all its spaghetti-western glory, continues to hit like a thunderclap at every pull of the hammer. Mr. Torgue didn’t get the immigration memo, but his weapons certainly did, and they’re as explosive as you’d expect. Vladof SMGs are back, and boy, do they feel fantastic. Also, Tediores continue to suck, so there’s that.
No matter the maker, the weapons feel satisfying to use. The punch of every bullet is mirrored by crisp sound design and strong visual feedback – enemies pop, stumble, and combust in emphatic fashion, and finishing them off with a knife reduces them to a pile of viscera strewn on the floor.
From the buttery movement system to the weighty, satisfying gunplay, nearly every piece of the gameplay feels sharper, more confident, and more cohesive than ever before.
Three new weapons manufacturers have joined the party, and they’re bound to feel underwhelming at first. These include Daedalus, Ripper, and Order, with the latter two having a charge-based gimmick, which is largely detested by the community. Daedalus, on the other hand, feels like a stand-in for Dahl, but thankfully, all three become more useful once you hit Level 25.
This is because Borderlands 4 level-gates its best weapon parts until you sink around 15 hours into the game. After Level 25, the Pandora’s Box of RNG cracks open, and suddenly, you’re dealing in Double-Barrel Shotguns with infinite ammo, full-auto Jakob ARs that are fitted with a crank, and fast-firing SMGs that unleash mini-rockets, to name a few eccentric combinations. The Legendaries are just as creative, with guns like the Oscar Mike and the Rainbow Vomit becoming instant community favorites.
Farming these uniques and Legendaries is now a relative breeze, thanks to the singular greatest QoL change in Borderlands history: Moxxi’s Big Encore Machine. Installed at the entrance of every boss room, the machine lets you re-run any boss fight with the tap of a button, meaning the days of tedious save-quitting are finally behind us. I really cannot understate how essential this feature is, and it’s one of the biggest reasons why Borderlands 4 feels like a perfection of the series’ core gameplay loop.
And this praise extends far beyond just the Encore Machine. From the buttery movement system to the weighty, satisfying gunplay, nearly every piece of the gameplay feels sharper, more confident, and more cohesive than ever before. Borderlands 4 doesn’t just play better than its predecessors – it feels like the version the series has always aspired to be.
Performance Jitters Harder Than a Psycho on Eridium
Given the exhaustive controversy surrounding the subject, you don’t need me to tell you that Borderlands 4 is rough around the edges when it comes to optimization. The Unreal Engine 5 release is messy across most PC configurations, and even rigs that meet the recommended requirements struggle to maintain a smooth 60 FPS.
The same can be said for consoles, as I ran into frequent issues during my playthrough on the base PS5. At launch, the game suffered from a memory leak, which meant that the FPS gradually declined over time. So, while my sessions started at 60FPS, they eventually dropped into the mid-thirties after three to four hours of gameplay. As a temporary fix, I had to restart the title every time it felt like the frames were beginning to tank, which is far from ideal for a $70 release in 2025.
Borderlands 4 also released without an FOV Slider on consoles – a baffling decision – that was promptly fixed with a post-launch patch. The memory leak problem has also been addressed, but this doesn’t mean that gameplay is smooth across the board. Fighting enemy mobs with particle effects populating the screen will still impact the framerate, and it’s unclear whether Gearbox plans to fix these issues.
Verdict: Borderlands 4 Fires on All the Right Cylinders
Borderlands 4 is the best this franchise has ever felt in motion. Between the slick new movement options and a robust open world that invites exploration, Gearbox has finally delivered on the dream of a looter-shooter that plays as fast and loud as it looks. The quality-of-life improvements, especially the Encore Machine, do wonders to streamline the farming loop, and the sheer variety of combat encounters and weapons ensures that minute-to-minute gameplay rarely gets old.
But for all its mechanical brilliance, Borderlands 4 stumbles in the narrative department. The central story is serviceable at best, with a few standout villains overshadowed by a muddled structure and an underwhelming finale. Performance issues at launch also make it hard to fully embrace the experience without caveats, even if patches are already in the works.
Still, the highs far outweigh the lows. Borderlands 4 shines in all the areas that truly matter to longtime fans. And while it may not be the boldest leap forward in every category, it’s a confident, chaotic evolution of everything the series does best.
