Borderlands 4 looks absolutely chaotic and crazy in gameplay blow out

Gearbox is clearly very confident in Borderlands 4. The developer wouldn't have brought the shooter's release date forward almost two weeks if that wasn't the case. That's something we can also somewhat attest to ourselves now following the recent State of Play that showed off a ton of new gameplay.

The show confirmed a few things, including that Gearbox has been looking to take the series back to its roots for this instalment, offering better loot, endless mayhem, greater exploration, more badass enemies, a more grounded tone, and all while being a good entry point for new fans. There's a lot of buzz phrases here that no doubt pique the interest of long-time fans.

The gameplay took us onto the surface of Kairos to meet the two of the four new Vault Hunters. As many would have expected, there's a new Siren called Vex who can use a spectral feline familiar to help mauls psychos and other threats. To help her is a Tediore trooper that wears an exo-suit known as Rafa, who seems to be your more traditional run-and-gun-type character. The other two Vault Hunters were not focussed on during the showcase.

What was mentioned was that all the gameplay was running on a PS5 Pro, which is claimed to offer next-to-zero loading times, enhancing the amount of time you spend blowing stuff up and looting weapons. In the world, on top of having a variety of new locations and biomes to explore, we're also told that there are a bunch of fresh activities too, including world bosses and Order patrols. For those looking for a friendly face to meet when on the surface, we can expect appearances from Claptrap, Moxxi, Zane, Amara, and some others too, including mentions of Lilith.

As for the gun manufacturers that will be available in the game and how the new ones differ from the rest, we're told:

• Order guns focus on precision with high-powered bursts


• Ripper guns charge up to go fully automatic


• Daedalus guns are easy-to-use and incorporate multiple ammo types


• Tediore guns are reloaded by tossing them as grenades


• Maliwan guns specialize in elemental damage to burn, freeze, and shock


• Jakobs guns can fire bullets as fast as you can shoot with ricochets on critical hits


• Vladof guns have a high rate of fire and huge magazines


• Torgue guns have heavy-duty explosive rounds that can switch to sticky projectiles.

These can be matched up with new Ordnance explosive weapons to shake up the battlefield, Enhancements that replace the Artifact slot and provide additional benefits, and Repkits that add healing utilities too.

You can see all of this in action in the lengthy gameplay segment below, including a brief taste of cooperative action.