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It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 15 years since the original Borderlands was released. While each mainline entry has furthered the formula in different ways, they’ve rarely fundamentally altered the structure of a Borderlands game until now. Borderlands 4 is the most innovative title in the series thus far, swinging for the fences with many of its changes and new additions. Not everything sticks, but the ones that do make for a worthwhile looter-shooter experience that fans of the franchise will love.
Borderlands 4 is set on the planet of Kairos, a world separated from the rest of the galaxy by an interstellar barrier that keeps it hidden. The people of Kairos live under the iron fist of The Timekeeper, a power-hungry tyrant who seeks to establish his perfect order through cybernetic implants that control the population. Despite the Timekeeper’s best attempts to keep Kairos hidden, Lillith’s action at the end of Borderlands 3 results in Pandora’s moon, Elpis, phasing into Kairos’s orbit, shattering the barrier for all to see.
Vault Hunters descend upon Kairos in response, hoping to find, unlock, and plunder its Vault for all its worth. The Timekeeper is not a fan of unexpected variables, though, and quickly snaps up Vex, Rafa, Harlowe, and Amon to be assimilated into his order. Our cast is promptly broken out of The Timekeeper’s prison by an aspiring Vault Hunter named Arjay, eventually leading to our protagonists joining a budding Crimson Raiders movement that’s looking to dismantle the Timekeeper’s order.
Much like Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, the writing is far better than that of Borderlands 3. Humour feels more current than being stuck in the past; there are some genuinely great character arcs and moments – especially with Amara and Zayne, who return from Borderlands 3. Its approach to non-linear storytelling in its second act is also quite strong, offering enticing stories from different parts of Kairos and how they’re affected by The Timekeeper’s rule.
I do feel that things start to fall apart in the game’s final act, though. Everything seems to be building up to a big finale with some context-altering twist behind The Timekeeper’s actions. There is something there, but the ending still feels as though it’s missing a piece of the puzzle and is setting up for another sequel and/or downloadable content. The Timekeeper himself is another missed opportunity, who exudes a menacing aura when he is on-screen – it just doesn’t happen often enough. It’s a crying shame, given Dave Fennoy gives a phenomenal performance when you are graced with his presence.
At first glance, it may seem that Borderlands 4 is an iterative step forward rather than an evolution of the formula, but there’s quite a bit going on under the hood that’s entirely new here. The most notable of which is the transition to an open-zone format. Kairos is split into four separate areas: the Fadefields, Carcadia Burn, Terminus Range, and Dominion. Each is home to different factions and peoples of Kairos, and once you get through the initial hours, you can tackle them in any order.
Each follows a similar structure of introducing you to the zone while you help out with numerous issues brought about by The Order. More often than not, the root cause of these problems is the Timekeeper’s lieutenants who watch over each area. The Fadefields is under the supervision of Idolator Sol, a sycophant in every sense of the word who will do anything to earn the admiration of The Timekeeper. Terminus Range is haunted by Vile Lictor, an overly ambitious scientist who thinks himself above everyone else – including The Timekeeper. Last is Callis the Ripper Queen, who has defected from The Order and runs her own faction appropriately named The Rippers.
The undisputed highlight of Borderlands 4’s campaigns is the missions where you bring the fight to each of these leaders. They have pace, scale, and momentum unlike any other mission in the game, throwing waves of enemies at you as you rip through strongholds to bring these key figures down. Each of these missions culminates in boss fights that are some of the series’ best, melding mechanics and movement to create bullet-hell style encounters that require your utmost attention and maintain appeal on subsequent replays.
Side content is also drastically restructured, offering the standard Borderlands side missions in conjunction with new activities and world events. While not as densely packed with them as previous entries, side missions in Borderlands 4 are a case of quality over quantity. Many of these are outright hilarious and often deliver on satisfying small stories. One such mission involves Claptrap, who’s struggling with his newfound loneliness since arriving on Kairos. He reminisces on his time with the old Crimson Raiders on Pandora while referencing countless bits and pieces from older games.
The open world stuff is similarly engaging, often bite-sized in nature and intrinsically rewarding in that it provides expansions to your SDUs, increasing total ammo capacity for certain weapon types. There’s also a wide variety of things to mess around with here, world event boss fights, abandoned mines, collectibles, and more. The highlight of these is the Silos, small outposts that provide a hint as to the location of Vault Key fragments. Collecting three of these in a zone allows you to access its Vault, offering a combat gauntlet that concludes in more excellent boss fights and showers of loot.
Part of the reason all of this is so moreish and inviting is that there are several changes to the core gameplay loop of Borderlands in Borderlands 4. The movement tech introduced in Borderlands 3 is heightened further by omnidirectional dashing, gliding, and a grappling hook. It can’t be understated how much this changes the pace and general flow of combat. You’re pushed to be far more aggressive, dodging and weaving between enemies as you take the fight to them. Combine this with stim packs you can equip and use to regenerate health, and it becomes clear that Borderlands 4 wants you to rush in and get amongst the violence.
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You also want to get in the fray all the time to test out your builds and see what your Vault Hunter is capable of. My playthrough was on Vex, who uses the Phase to summon apparitions that help you in combat. She has an absurd number of build crafting options to invest in and play around with as you progress. I landed on a build that focuses on high uptime for Trouble, one of Vex’s Phase Familiars, and keeping him alive with overshields while emitting an elemental aura. While I haven’t played as much with the other Vault Hunters, I have played around with them enough to know that a similar level of depth is present here – especially with Amon, who has two Action Skills for each of his skill trees.
These builds mean nothing if you have nowhere to use them, though. While I haven’t spent as much time with it as I would like, Borderlands 4’s endgame is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, I think it’s a great iteration on what previous games have done when it comes to chasing loot. There are a lot of quality-of-life improvements and rotational content to keep things feeling fresh as you play. On the other hand, its lack of new content specifically for endgame feels strange given the approach taken by Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.
Almost everything you do in Ultimate Vault Hunter mode is recycled from the campaign or open world. Wild Card missions are campaign missions that change weekly, with the key change of enemies coming with modifiers like regenerating health or creating a black hole on death. Clearing this grants a guaranteed Legendary drop, but there’s currently a big fat question mark around longevity and how their replay value holds up in the long run. You can also upgrade your Ultimate Vault Hunter tier by completing challenges, most of which have you beating a world boss on higher tiers and finally completing a Wild Card variant of each region’s final mission.
Loot rarity has also been tinkered with quite heavily. Legendary drop rates are much, much lower than they were in Borderlands 3. I can count on one hand the number of Legendary drops across my 40 or so hours in Kairos. It helps to keep Legendary gear feeling rare and the pinnacle of the loot chase. Bosses are also easily rematched through Moxxi’s Encore machines, and Maurice’s Black Market, a teleporting vending machine that sells Legendary gear, is a fun inclusion that fits right into the open world design.
I’m sure there’s more on the horizon to look forward to, but as it stands now, it’s a little disappointing that something like Chaos Chambers isn’t present here in Borderlands 4’s endgame. There’s a lot that’s been shaken up with the change in structure, but I worry that those who aren’t hardcore fans simply won’t stick around for the post-campaign loop due to its inherently recycled nature.
Playing a game made with Unreal Engine 5 these days feels like spinning the roulette wheel when it comes to performance, especially on PC. Thankfully, Borderlands 4 does not suffer from many of the issues that many other UE5 titles do. The cel-shaded art style really pops off the screen and performs excellently on my 9070XT. While mileage may vary on consoles and other card types, my experience was largely positive.
It should also come as no surprise that this game looks great. The art style of Borderlands is a timeless one, but it feels even more heightened by the capabilities of UE5 and the power that it brings to the table. Whether it be the lush rolling hills of the Fade Fields or the frigid peaks of Terminus Ridge, there’s a load of new environments and unique colour palettes that we haven’t seen in the series before.
While production values are strong, the game is full of harmless issues that pop up from time to time. Sometimes points of interest won’t load on the map, forcing you to return to the main menu to fix it, reload animations will continue even if interrupted by other animations, and the grapple hook sometimes won’t register. It’s a lot of little things that lead to the experience feeling less polished than previous entries, but hopefully, most of this is fixed by the day-one patch.
Like Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands before it, Borderlands 4 is a very different Borderlands game that feels more willing to step outside of the franchise’s established trends to experiment and try new things. Not everything lands, but the things that do make for an engaging and frenetic looter-shooter that is launching with the legs to carry it far into the future. Its core gameplay loop is arguably the best in the series and brings with it some truly excellent boss fights and expressive build crafting.
