Borderlands 4 looks promising, but the question still stands whether it can match the series' peak

We've recently seen our first substantial look at Borderlands 4. It has been a whopping six years since the last mainline entry in the looter shooter series, and it seems Gearbox has gone back to the drawing board in some ways while keeping the legacy of the franchise alive in others.

I'm not going to dig up all of the gameplay changes here, you can find them in the deep dive or summarised in a news piece here, but I will go over what I think is promising, and what I think this game needs to really match the peak of the franchise, which is Borderlands 2 to most of the fanbase.

Already, even from just 20 minutes looking at the game, it's clear the gameplay has taken quite a big step up, especially when it comes to the types of guns you use thanks to the ability to swap different parts from different manufacturers and the ways you move around the map. Borderlands 4's new traversal options can give you a lot to do around the map besides point and shoot, and the shooting looks as good as ever too. We will of course have to wait until one of us actually gets our hands on it before we can make a final judgement, but it's looking like one of the stronger points of the fourth game, which you would expect at this point.

A departure from Pandora is also a welcome one. We've still got old favourites like Claptrap and Moxxi, but it's nice to ditch the desert here for some more vibrant environments. The cell-shaded style doesn't seem as prominent in Borderlands 4's look, but the game is perhaps the most visually inviting title we've seen in the series so far.

There also seems to be a much more grounded atmosphere in Borderlands 4. Instead of chasing the Handsome Jack dragon like the streamer Calypso twins did in Borderlands 3, the new villain controlled an entire planet, keeping it hidden from everywhere else for ages until Lilith chucked a moon into his garden. Controlling his subjects through their spine, The Timekeeper seems to have a good deal of menace about him. Also, throughout the gameplay, we weren't forced to put up with the overly loud, outdated humour of Borderlands' past. It seems incredibly doubtful that the series has gone serious now, but if a new approach to the comedy has been taken, that would be another welcome change. Comedy changes, times move on, but Borderlands still seemed very stuck in its roots, laughing at farts and the word boner in the way a ten-year-old might. I'm not asking for a nuanced satire or anything like that, but perhaps something that feels a bit funny more than it feels stupid would be nice.

What Borderlands 4 needs to do in regards to its story and villain is put the onus back onto the player. Handsome Jack worked not only because he was well-written and had a great voice actor, but because the player wants to take him down. In Borderlands 3, Lilith takes the stage, with a story that largely feels as if it could happen without you. The Vault Hunters this time around need their own reason to take down The Timekeeper, not just because he's a bad guy doing bad things. That connection makes your villain memorable, and helps keep a central purpose within the story.

With Lilith apparently making some sort of return, alongside Samara, there is a slight fear that Sirens could once again just become the main focus, which only furthers when you look at one of the Vault Hunters, Vex. It has never been more apparent which of the Vault Hunters is the poster child of a Borderlands game than it is with Vex. Her design seems leagues ahead of what the other Vault Hunters are offered, and she gives off an aura that makes me wonder if there was an idea to skip having four playable characters and just have Vex in Borderlands 4. It doesn't help that she was the only character featured in the cutscenes shown.

Sirens are cool, and really interesting in the lore of Borderlands, but it seems right now as if you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't play Vex. Of course, this can change in time, and it will need to if Borderlands 4 wants to return the franchise back to its peak. In Borderlands 2, some characters were certainly more interesting than others, and even in the third game, each Vault Hunter seemed pretty equal when it came to detail, but right now Vex is a favourite child in a group that sorely needs some non-Siren love, especially after Borderlands 3 was all about Sirens.

The gameplay looks good, but gameplay alone is not enough to bring the love for Borderlands back. I worry sometimes that perhaps it was just the product of its time, a perfect storm created in the early 2010s when "random XD" humour was at its pinnacle, but this series can and should do a lot more with the incredible foundations it has built. We don't need Handsome Jack, but we do need a story that can hook you into the looting and shooting for hours on end. It stinks to just keep living in the feeling that even Gearbox knows they somehow made an incredible villain and game and don't know how to do it again, but I believe they do know how to do it. Perhaps Borderlands 4 will be the one to bring it back to its former glory. Or, perhaps it won't. Either way, unless the other Vault Hunters start to look a lot cooler, I'm going to be fighting my friends to play Vex.