I've often felt that the Borderlands series has been the victim of its own success. Following the rather innovative original and the excellent sequel that improved on the formula in every possible way, Gearbox has been scrambling to reach the same heights since. It's not that the talented team has failed to present entertaining video games, it's just that the projects in the time since Borderlands 2 have not been as memorable nor as excellent. It's because of this that an immense amount of pressure is being put on Borderlands 4, as this is the next great effort to reach and perhaps even surpass the marker that the series has set in the past. Is Borderlands 4 that game? That's open for debate.
For starters, let me just make things clear right away: Borderlands 4 is still Borderlands as you know and love it. The top-of-the-line gunplay, the immense variety and buildcrafting depth, the absurd weapons, the iconic cel-shaded art direction, the daft, witty, and satirical humour, this is all there and in many places better than ever.
The story in the game is lightyears better than Borderlands 3, providing a tale that you want to continue progressing through toward your inevitable meeting with the main villain The Timekeeper. He's savage, tyrannical, a little mysterious, and everything that the Calypso Twins were not. Likewise, the supporting cast and their respective arcs are much better, weaving that delicate balance of Borderlands familiarlity with something fresh and new as we see what happens when Claptrap, Moxxi, Zane, and Amara are matched up with Rush, Levaine, Zadra, and Defiant Calder. From a storytelling and character development perspective, it's not to the same standard as Borderlands 2, but it's much better than what we've seen in recent memory.
Likewise, the humour is stronger with better and more calculated jokes that catch the player off guard and elicit chuckles and even outright laughter. The satire is still present and more fitting than ever, the one-liners from the enemies are memorable and you rarely hear repeats, and the standard of humour and wit is of a higher quality so much so that it doesn't make you wince or cringe when someone says something that makes you think of that streamer your little brother can't get enough of.
Otherwise, looking at the gameplay, Gearbox has clearly paid attention to what fans have been asking for as we see improvements in key aspects that just make each area better. The movement is faster and smoother than ever thanks to the Glide Pack and the action is even more entertaining and streamlined thanks to how Ordnance combines grenades, heavy weapons, throwing knives, and more into one category and how Licensed Parts make weapons all the more exiting delivering combinations and random rolls that otherwise would belong to a Legendary weapon in past chapters. The HUD and menu design is smoother and much more intuitively designed, making studying your weapons, figuring out your active side quest, or reading through your challenges all the easier. This is on top of responsive and excellent gunplay where every weapon is a delight to handle and actually feels and sounds lethal with epic and punchy gunfire effects and noticeable impact. Oh and let's not forget the enemies of which there are a multitude to gun down, each of which change throughout the game into tougher and more complex variants as additional gameplay mechanics are introduced.
The point is, Borderlands 4 is a joy to play and perhaps the best-feeling Borderlands game we've had to date. It's an enormous game with a ridiculous amount of content to chew through, something that is only exacerbated by the fact there are four massively unique characters to play and master, be it solo or with friends. Again, it's an epic experience when you look at it on these metrics.
But, and this is a big but, not all of the changes that Gearbox has implemented necessarily work. For one, the idea of the seamless world isn't all that it seems. Essentially, aside from a couple of smaller, typically major boss-based areas and the main city area that becomes available in the latter parts of the story, all of the wider map is free to explore as and when you see fit. This means you can travel from the very north of Carcadia, to the far eastern reaches of Terminus Range, to the sandy beaches of The Fadefields, and then back up into Carcadia without seeing a loading screen. Great! However Kairos is a big world and the majority of its points of interest aren't really worth visiting. Some are reserved for side quests, some for where you find collectibles, others for absolutely nothing. The point is, travelling around Kairos isn't exactly a treat, no, in fact it's more of a chore sometimes, especially considering that the majority of the collectibles are mind-numbingly boring making it hard to suck any sense of joy out of finding their obscure locations.
Sure Gearbox has provided a customisable and freely spawnable Digirunner vehicle to make it easier to get around Kairos and it is very useful, but that's all it is: a tool to get to and from points on the map. And the world itself isn't even very encouragingly built as it almost feels like a multitude of traditional Borderlands levels squished together with wide open spaces between them. Trying to get past that mountain range? There's no Skyrim shuffling up the side of the mountain, you have to find the specific path to get around as the drawn rocky features are not at all climbable. This level of frustration with being diverted and told to explore the map in a certain way isn't even alleviated by the Echo-4 companion bot that often doesn't know how to explore the map any better than you do...
The side quests are also both some of the best and the worst parts of this game, as Gearbox really doesn't mind wasting your time with drawn out and disinteresting quests that feel incredibly typically Borderlands. You'll stand and wait for an NPC to finish talking for two minutes straight to head somewhere, blow something up, and head back, and while it works, it's also the exact same style of quest Borderlands has been serving up for almost two decades now. The only difference is that there are now Contracts to add to the equation, with these being side-side quests, if you will, and some of them being the most boring "head to location, scan object" type activities possible. These are entirely optional granted, but they don't often make me inclined to accept them.
Adding to this is the Borderlands jank that we all know and most of us don't love. Yes, it's a pre-launch review build that I've been playing, and it's because of this that I'll forgive the somewhat choppy performance on PC, but I've played enough Borderlands games to recognise the daft bugs where quest items don't spawn, where characters freeze and refuse to continue what they were doing to advance a quest, where enemies get trapped in the environment and are unable to be killed, and similar. Any Borderlands fan knows how to solve these problems by simply backing out to the main menu and reloading the game, but still, this is the fourth numbered Borderlands game, shouldn't we expect better than this by now?
Still, just because there are issues don't let that detract from the fact that Borderlands 4 is an absolute blast and joy to play. Long-time fans will adore this chapter of the series, whether that be down to the excellent and varied array of Vault Hunters or the core improvements that just make the general experience better and more engaging. There's a lot of love here with tens of hours of content to chew through before you even get a first whiff of the endgame and the Ultimate Vault Hunter elements.
So, while I can't say whether you'll find much joy in finding all of the collectibles and having to explore Kairos, especially multiple times as you level up the different Vault Hunters, I can promise that Borderlands 4 is a step forward for this series, an improvement on Borderlands 3, and a title that shows Gearbox still has ideas, some on the mark and some not, for elevating and innovating with its tried and tested formula.
