Borderlands 4 Hands-on Preview: Impressions after two hours on Kairos

Borderlands remains one of the most stable video game franchises birthed during the PS3/Xbox 360 generation. Think of some of the hottest action or shooter AAA series of that time, fifteen years ago, and you will find that some have faded into oblivion (Infamous, Resistance, Rage) and the ones that survived have needed some soft (or hard) reboots (Assassin's Creed, Crysis, Saints Row) with varying degrees of success.

Gearbox and 2K Games knew how to ration the Borderlands franchise so that fans had a consistent stream of content without saturating them. Part of the reason for their success is that they have never deviated too much from the formula, a mix of shooter and RPG with a distinct personality and visual identity, which was incredibly original back in 2009. Many have copied them later, some may even have outgrown them (like Destiny), but Borderlands remains.

Even if the series doesn't really feel as fresh as it once did, and may never will, they have a huge and loyal fan base eagerly awaiting the release of Borderlands 4 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on September 12, 2025, and even on Nintendo Switch 2 some time in the future. We recently had the opportunity to play the still in-development game and even talked to some of their creators, including executive producer Chris Brock, who told us that they feel this will be a larger evolution from Borderlands 3 (2019) than that game was from Borderlands 2 (2012).

The best news possible, at least from out point of view, is that Borderlands 4 doesn't change its core to forcefully suit the current trends in gaming. This remains a narrative heavy game, fully playable in single-player mode but better suited for four-player online cooperative, with no live service elements (although free and paid DLC have been confirmed already). Thankfully, it won't be priced at 80 USD, at some people believed it would, as the price was confirmed to be £69.99/€79.99/$79.99 in consoles.

Borderlands 4 does, however, implement one of the obligatory trends from modern gaming: the open world nature. And I mean open world "nature" and not simply "open world" as Gearbox developers are very careful to avoid using the words "open world", knowing how slippery that can be. From the rejection it often elicits from some players, tired of playing the same game over and over again, to the false expectations set by games like Mario Kart World and its "open world" that maybe wasn't really meant to be played as one.

Instead, Gearbox utilises the term "seamless world", which, in all honesty, describes exactly what you'll find in Borderlands 4. All the game is within one map, with no load times between zones, and you will be able to (eventually) go everywhere you want. But that doesn't necessarily mean it will be so much bigger: we expect it to be the largest map in Borderlands history, of course, but you will not spend hours wandering around finding nothing, and instead the world seems as dense as usual with characters, towns, quests, enemies, and secrets to encounter as you explore the world at your pace.

Gearbox has put a lot of emphasis in how the game will give the player more agency to do things their way, complete quests in whichever order they please (with the usual RPG limitations regarding character level, of course), allowing you to focus on the things or quests that seem more interesting or appealing. In the demo we played, that seemed to be the case: we played for a over an hour in the Fadefields, the initial area of the game, but the main story content we played accounted for perhaps one third of the time we spent playing. The rest was really up to us.

We had a fairly large area to explore, which suggests that, while the game will indeed be "seamless", you will not be able to explore it all and once, and you will still be "unlocking" new places as you progress through the story. In the part of the world we were allowed to see, there were several things to do, including mini-bosses or dangerous creatures usually protecting tempting loot, camps with other survivors, caves or bases with challenges and rewards... Truth be told, I spent a significant amount of time driving (you can bring out a hover bike anytime you want) around the same places over and over again with nothing really interesting to do, but as I became stronger I was able to face what I was told was the hardest challenge in the demo, a crash site filled with enemies, only to find that there was much more to explore underground, and eventually running out of time.

This left me with the right feeling, which I guess is what Gearbox was looking forward to with this slice of content: showing me a demo large enough so that I couldn't see everything in one sitting. If the game maintains this pace, it can really be quite addictive, but that requires a good balance of story content to push the story forward and evolve the gameplay while also letting go of the player's hand so that they are pushed to venture on their own. Plus that side missions, enemies, and stories are meaningful, of course.

Gameplay-wise, Borderlands 4 comes with a new set of traversal moves to make exploring more agile, including a grappling hook that can also be used for combat. However, at least in the parts we played, the grappling hook seemed a bit limited in use, and the combat arenas were not vertical enough to make this movement stand out. A boss we played later did use the grappling hook all the time to grab to the ceiling... and it got a bit boring, to be honest.

Of course, this is Borderlands we are talking about. With the amount of weapons and modifiers at display, and the presence of four new characters (Amon the Forgeknight, Harlowe the Gravitar, Rafa the Exo-Soldier, and Vex the Siren) variety in combat is more than guaranteed. Gearbox has even introduced the possibility of mixing weapon modifiers from different in-game manufacturers, which may sound a bit overwhelming for some players, but will ensure that every player online will have more unique loadouts.

Gearbox has also confirmed improvements in online play to make it more balanced, ensuring that each character has their own loot drops, or that the difficulty level automatically scales up or down for every player, so that everyone will have pretty much the same experience whenever and with whoever they choose to play alongside. Split-screen for two players on PS5 and Xbox Series X is also present.

And finally, what about the story? Borderlands 4 is set on Kairos, a planet that has been forever ruled by a ruthless dictator named the Timekeeper. But following the events of Borderlands 3, Lilith happened to teleport a moon right in front of Kairos, which pierced a protective veil blocking the planet from the outside world... and all hell will break loose as their inhabitants realise what hell they've been forced to live in.

That means that Borderlands 4 will have a slightly sombre, graver tone than other games in the series, and that will permeate into the humour. Of course, it wouldn't a Borderlands game without humour, senior writer Taylor Clark told us, but he said that "it wouldn't be appropriate" to have the same type of "shotgun approach to humour" as in previous games, so we can expect a bit of a drier tone, with humour birthing from the characters and their interactions and less from the outside, like pop-culture references.

In other words, Borderlands 4 will be more mature. And it was great that Gearbox was so open about that. Every player would expect the gameplay to evolve between games, and indeed it does (open zones, more weapon customisation, traversal movements), but Borderlands is more than gameplay. The series has been known for its quirky and often edgy sense of humour, but the sensibilities in 2025 are not the same as in the early 2010s, so it's only natural to hope that Borderlands 4 will also evolve in that area.