Borderlands 4’s story might play it safe, but its gameplay is a hit.
At long last, Borderlands fans have the game they’ve been clamouring for since Borderlands 2. Gearbox Software's latest sequel Borderlands 4 presents a step in the right direction for this franchise, following the goofy-to-a-fault Borderlands 3, and the admittedly fun spin-off Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.
After delivering fan service in spades and typing up loose ends, this fourth installment of the franchise goes back to basics with a single–though much bigger–world for players to explore, and a more refined take on the slick and addictive grind Borderlands is known for. Performance issues and middling story aside, it’s genuinely hard for me to put this game down.
Now with less Claptrap than ever before
Borderlands 4 does a little narrative switch-up for the franchise here, with its main story trading the silly and whacky tone of its predecessors for a more grounded tone. Its story takes place wholly on Kairos, a planet being torn apart by its new omnipotent ruler: the Timekeeper. This big bad leads an army of robots built to shackle Kairos’ people, and unfortunately, those same people now count you among their ranks.
After the Vault Hunter arrives on Kairos to unearth some treasure, they are swiftly kidnapped by the Timekeeper and introduced to his regime. Upon escaping the Timekeeper’s base, however, they run into the infamously whiny trashbot Claptrap, who claims to be the leader of Kairos’ rebellion: the Crimson Resistance. The rest of the story then sees the player build up the Crimson Resistance with the ultimate aim of freeing the Timekeeper, though their actual journey might not be as clear-cut it first appears to be.
It’s clear that Gearbox was taking notes when fans first decried Borderlands 3’s grating antagonists and unfunny sense of humour, the latter of which took the series’ typical Looney Tunes-esque slapstick tone and escalated it further to diminishing results. Three installments in, the franchise’s juvenile writing and cheap jokes weren’t cutting it anymore–so Borderlands 4 has done away with it almost entirely. I say almost, because while the game’s main plot is played mostly straight, there’s plenty of classic Borderlands silliness to be found in its side quests still.
While it’s nice to see Borderlands take things seriously for once, it’s still not enough to keep this plotline from feeling dull and unengaging. The main mission’s action-packed setpieces offer plenty of challenge and excitement, but the story’s writing falters with poorly-written villains and half-hearted twists. The Timekeeper himself takes much too long to become anything more than a pervasive, and yet utterly boring, threat, devoid of personality and charm. Thankfully, the game’s cast of side characters add some levity to the mix, doing much of the heavy lifting where this new enemy faction drops the ball.
Launch woes
Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. On console, Borderlands 4 is going through a rough patch two weeks from launch. With only distant promises of patches and fixes to alleviate these problems, players currently have to put up with a few nuisances during gameplay. The game lacks an FOV slider, and that can get pretty annoying to deal with when you’re in enemy bases and have to keep track of multiple threats at a time. More than a few times, I’d get blown up by something I couldn’t quite understand, simply because the attack came from offscreen.
The game’s technical woes also can’t be understated. If you’re attempting to speedrun Borderlands 4’s main story, chances are that you’re going to have to quit and restart the game quite a few times to resolve framerate dips. Things are otherwise smooth on a fresh boot-up, though not as smooth as I’d like, as lots of effects, abilities, and enemy mobs going off at the same time in an open-world environment can still cause a few stutters. Things are a tad worse on PC at the moment, with well-documented issues faced by players since launch, though fixes seem to be coming more swiftly on that end.
It can take a while to get your first vehicle to speed around Kairos in, which helps solve how far apart all of its points of interest and unlockable fast travel points are. The vehicle doesn't solve all of Borderlands' navigation issues, however. Poorly-placed grapple points can make it a pain to hike up the game's many cliffs and mountains, and multiple similar-looking icons tend to clutter up the compass and lead to confusing navigation routes. Are you heading to the main mission or some irrelevant side objective? You'll find out when you get there.
Another issue is how long it takes for Borderlands 4 to find the fun. The game gives players an extremely slow start, even for a looter-shooter. For the first few hours, you’ll be faced with a pretty incapable Vault Hunter armed with naught but pistols to slay armies of Psychos. It’s only later that you start getting access to more powerful weaponry, and the game’s addictive grind falls into place.
That’s the good stuff
Here’s the thing: despite all of its faults, I’m still deeply addicted to Borderlands 4. Its gameplay loop represents a polished version of one that has already drawn players in, time upon time again, to lose themselves completely. The game once again offers four Vault Hunters for players to choose between, ranging from the tanky Forgeknight Amon to the run-and-gun Exo-Soldier Rafa. I picked Vex, simply because I always play Sirens first in these games, and she didn’t disappoint.
All four of these Vault Hunters offer varied playstyles, and Borderlands 4 pays a little more attention to diversifying those further by giving each character three skill trees each. Now, players can choose between three Action Skills before developing their ability of choice with further passives and perks. They can also mix and match between these skill trees, though they might want to focus on their current Action Skill first, as points must be spent there to unlock additional rows of abilities.
Progression is incredibly satisfying thanks to the number of options players have at hand, though level-by-level, I was more tempted to hoard skill points to see bigger jumps in my Vault Hunter’s abilities at a time. Vex’s summonable panther can wreak havoc on the battlefield even before you start kitting it out, and when coupled with some of the extremely cool gear players can pick up on the battlefield–like grenades that explode into even more grenades, or rifles that dish out massive AoE attacks as secondary fire–the power fantasy that this game has to offer quickly begins to glimmer with potential.
Easy breezy exploration (except for those pesky navigation issues)
Borderlands 4 also sees the franchise pivot to a fully open world map, for better or for worse. I’m not convinced that this is a franchise that needed to go open world, considering that previous titles managed to better capture the scale of this universe with multiple planets and regions. However, the ability to roam through every location without being interrupted by a loading screen seems like a worthy result of the trade-off.
Kairos is a beautiful place to explore, with the Vault Hunter now equipped with a bevy of movement abilities–double-jumps, grapples, jetpacks, and more–to get around the land quickly and cleanly. This is the best that traversal has felt in a Borderlands game, with multiple ways to scrabble around levels quickly and lots of verticality to take advantage of during intense combat encounters.
The game also improves on the old Catch a Ride vehicle system by allowing players to summon their vehicles on the fly, which serves as a huge time-saver when travelling from one quest area to the next. The vehicle, much like the Vault Hunter and their weapons, features extensive customisation options, which paves the way for every looter’s true endgame: fashion.
It should also be noted that Borderlands 4 is a pretty challenging game, forcing you to stay on top of your gear at all times. That can be tough, considering most items dropped by enemies tend to be rubbish (though players will find another use for them later on), but it does keep main story quests and big bossfights interesting. Admittedly, I’m still not a big fan of Borderlands’ quest design. Most sidequests tend to boil down to fetch or kill quests, with lots of standing still while hearing people yap into your ear in between.
This has been the case for the series for a long time, and remains to be a sore spot for Borderlands 4. Admittedly, the side quests are where most of the game’s fun and quirky characters can be found–such as a Psycho scientist playing Dr. Frankenstein, or a sentient missile computer named Gigi–so they’re worth taking on just to meet the very strange people of Kairos. Also, the XP. Fine, mostly the XP.
Verdict
Despite an iffy story and unremarkable villain, Borderlands 4 is a true return to form for the franchise. With improvements to be found in almost every corner for its iconic looter-shooter gameplay loop, and much less Claptrap than before, it’s hard to focus too much on the game’s faults when faced with such a good time.
It’ll be a while before I put Borderlands 4 down for good, and while that means bad things for my own productivity, it can only be a win for Borderlands fans.
Borderlands 4 is out now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC for US$69.99. We received a copy of the game for this review.
