By Harvey Randall

Copyright pcgamer

Skip to main content

Close main menu

THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES

View Profile

Search PC Gamer

PC Gaming Show

Movies & TV

Affiliate links

Meet the team

Community guidelines

About PC Gamer

PC Gamer Magazine Subscription

Why subscribe?

Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming mag
Try a single issue or save on a subscription
Issues delivered straight to your door or device

From£35.99Subscribe now

Borderlands 4
Essential Hardware

Battlefield 6

Don’t miss these

I’ve already spent hours making builds, but I’m worried Borderlands 4’s endgame isn’t going to give me anything meaningful to do with them at launch

Don’t get stuck grinding in Borderlands 4’s version of the Hinterlands—in fact, you’re screwing yourself out of EXP if you try to do every sidequest before beating the main campaign

Borderlands 4’s campaign skips could be a double-edged sword for Gearbox

Borderlands 4 devs want to redeem the series’ story, which is a tall task, since it’s always been all over the place

Is Borderlands 4 the series at ‘its most potent’, or ‘uninspired’ and ‘painfully dull’? The PC Gamer team is divided

Borderlands 4 review round-up: ‘The best Borderlands game I’ve ever played—but with a small hitch’

If you can’t wait for the new Borderlands, I genuinely recommend BL3’s solid DLC campaigns—which aren’t nearly as obnoxious as the base game

Borderlands 4 certainly looks like it’s taking its story more seriously: ‘We wanted to go back to this sense of dread about the villain of our game’

I’m ranking every Borderlands game ahead of BL4’s release from worst to best, because the people love their lists and I’m here to provide

Borderlands has been too hot, too cold, and will now be just right, says Randy Pitchford: ‘We can see those times we’ve gone too far’

Borderlands 4 shed its iconic UI and all it got was this stupid live service-y inventory that doesn’t let me filter my crap properly

Borderlands 4 has ‘more passive perks than all the previous Borderlands combined’—uh, is that a good thing?

Borderlands 4 live launch coverage: are you ready to loot 30 billion guns?

Borderlands 4’s new endgame mode will let you skip the campaign so you’re ready for the next year of seasonal events and bosses

Borderlands 4 has a volume slider specifically for muting Claptrap—if you’re a coward

Borderlands 4

In the 16 years I’ve played this series, Borderlands 4 is the first entry that’s made me want to do post-game grinding—Gearbox just needs to fix its dang Wildcard Missions first

Harvey Randall

17 September 2025

I’ve got that quest fever.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Gearbox Software)

Harvey Randall, Staff Writer

(Image credit: Future)
Last week I was: Trying not to lose it over that one boss in Silksong. The guy with the maggots. You know who I’m talking about.
This week I’ve been: Playing around 47 hours of Borderlands 4. Send help, I’m trapped in the loot dimension.
I’ve been playing the Borderlands series since its inception, but I have something terrible to confess—I have never, not once, been tempted to engage in the endgame. The closest I’ve ever got was when I rinsed through Borderlands 3’s DLCs (many of which were shockingly good), and even then, that was more coincidental.

I’d simply run out of levels, so I was technically in the postgame. But I’ve never tried to get a build going, farm that all-important legendary, or so much as sneezed at a raid boss. I’m here to play 30 hours of a shooty RPG and then do something else.
Borderlands 4, though? Now I’ve chewed through the campaign, I’m severely tempted to get stuck back in. I would be, were it not for my professional obligation to actually write videogame words for this videogame website, so I’ll settle for nattering at you about wanting to play more BL4 instead.

Related Articles

I’ve already spent hours making builds, but I’m worried Borderlands 4’s endgame isn’t going to give me anything meaningful to do with them at launch

Don’t get stuck grinding in Borderlands 4’s version of the Hinterlands—in fact, you’re screwing yourself out of EXP if you try to do every sidequest before beating the main campaign

Borderlands 4’s campaign skips could be a double-edged sword for Gearbox

It’s a partially conflicted feeling, mind. I’ve still got tons to do on Kairos because you should actually wait until after you’ve beaten the campaign to do most of those side quests: However, I also have to recognise the clever trick Gearbox has pulled off here.

While past Borderlands’ post-games would see you churning through the same stuff you’d likely just spent 50-odd levels gnawing at, BL4 makes the game the postgame, so you can do endgame while you game-game. Am I making sense? I’ve been shooting very loud psychos for 47 hours and I can hear Claptrap in my walls.
Let me put it another, less loot-addled way: All of the stuff you’d otherwise be doing in an open-world RPG also happens to be the best way to get your Specialisation levels—a post-campaign progression system fed by EXP—and legendary loot. The postgame is just playing an open-world RPG, mopping up sidequests and snagging collectables. In other words, exactly what I like.
Two other factors also help. Firstly, the game has co-op level scaling, so if I want to hop in with a mate and grind out some of those delicious progression points, I can do that by tagging along with a buddy, even if they’ve not completed their campaign yet or are a much lower level than me.

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.
Secondly, you can now start a new character at level 30 if you’ve beat the main campaign. While this has given our illustrious guides writer Rory Norris cause for concern, I’m almost the opposite: I rarely try out other classes in these games, because that often-tedious starting grind is enough to put me to sleep. But now I can get stuck right in with the tinkering. There is, however, one obstacle: The Wildcard missions system.

Wildcard missions are cool in theory. Every week, you can up your world’s difficulty (and loot) by playing through a story mission with enemy modifiers slapped onto the mooks you’re shooting. Also, sometimes you get a Rainbow Vomit shotgun.

(Image credit: Gearbox)
In practice, however, things are less peachy. My first Wildcard mission was the one in Carcadia where you need to re-route the water system—forcing me to spend the first 10 minutes flipping switches and listening to a long spiel I’d already heard before. Which, for Borderlands, is a criminal amount of time to spend not shooting somebody.

Related Articles

I’ve already spent hours making builds, but I’m worried Borderlands 4’s endgame isn’t going to give me anything meaningful to do with them at launch

Don’t get stuck grinding in Borderlands 4’s version of the Hinterlands—in fact, you’re screwing yourself out of EXP if you try to do every sidequest before beating the main campaign

Borderlands 4’s campaign skips could be a double-edged sword for Gearbox

My second Wildcard mission I had to repeat two goddamn times. See, these story missions can last upwards of 40 minutes, often taking you between several locations—and while you can die on them without having to start over, if you quit out of the game, it bugs, or you crash? Then you’re screwed, bucko.
I experienced my second-ever crash in 47 hours playing this Wildcard mission. On my second attempt, an enemy got stuck in a wall (also the first time that had happened) making it impossible for me to kill it before moving on.
In a game this pockmarked with bugs—bugs that typically haven’t ruined my enjoyment until now—you simply cannot have a 40-minute time investment that requires you to start over if it breaks. It sucks all the momentum out of the game’s otherwise unerring loot, shoot, repeat momentum.
The monologue problem rears its ugly head again here, too. I just so happened to be doing the mission that introduces you to the trio of main villains in the game—and so I had to listen to Zadra describe who the Timekeeper’s lieutenants were for almost two straight minutes at the tail-end of the mission. Zadra, I like you, but I just spent like 30 hours finding and killing the Timekeeper’s dastardly rogue’s gallery. Me and the business end of my gun are intimately familiar.
Both seem like relatively straightforward, if time-consuming, things Gearbox could fix in future updates. Letting players pick up their Wildcard missions from where they left off if they crash, seems the less involved of the two—but it also wouldn’t hurt to do a quick dialogue-snipping pass, too. If Gearbox sorts that, then me and BL4’s endgame are golden.

Borderlands 4: Everything you need to know.
Borderlands 4 Shift codes: The new key connection.
Borderlands 4 Black Market location: New legendaries, no grind.
Borderlands 4 characters: Meet your new Vault Hunters and find out who’s strongest.
Borderlands 4 Harlowe builds: The amped-up Gravitar.
Borderlands 4 Rafa builds: The speed-demon Exo-Soldier.
Borderlands 4 Vex builds: The spooky Siren.
Borderlands 4 Amon builds: The fierce Forgeknight.

Gearbox Software

Harvey Randall

Social Links Navigation
Staff Writer

Harvey’s history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he’s since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G’raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He’ll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don’t ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.

I’ve already spent hours making builds, but I’m worried Borderlands 4’s endgame isn’t going to give me anything meaningful to do with them at launch

Don’t get stuck grinding in Borderlands 4’s version of the Hinterlands—in fact, you’re screwing yourself out of EXP if you try to do every sidequest before beating the main campaign

Borderlands 4’s campaign skips could be a double-edged sword for Gearbox

Borderlands 4 devs want to redeem the series’ story, which is a tall task, since it’s always been all over the place

Is Borderlands 4 the series at ‘its most potent’, or ‘uninspired’ and ‘painfully dull’? The PC Gamer team is divided

Borderlands 4 review round-up: ‘The best Borderlands game I’ve ever played—but with a small hitch’

Latest in RPG

Don’t get stuck grinding in Borderlands 4’s version of the Hinterlands—in fact, you’re screwing yourself out of EXP if you try to do every sidequest before beating the main campaign

Diablo 4’s new ‘Chaos armor’ is a card game-inspired response to criticisms over boring seasonal powers

Witcher creator Andrzej Sapkowski gets gold Polish culture medal, accepts it with face like he’s just had his Switch 2 pre-order cancelled

‘Because no one was paying attention we could just put anything into the game,’ says the writer responsible for sneaking The Lusty Argonian Maid into Morrowind

Netflix released another Witcher teaser showing off Liam Hemsworth as Geralt, and I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised

What does OG Fallout’s co-creator want to see in the series? An ‘actual good faction, like 100% good’

Latest in Features

In the 16 years I’ve played this series, Borderlands 4 is the first entry that’s made me want to do post-game grinding—Gearbox just needs to fix its dang Wildcard Missions first

Stalker’s remaster has taught me just how much of a terrible sicko I am for the pop of a Steam achievement

This Frankenstein’s monster of ARPG and battle royale from a studio founded by a former Blizzard chief creative officer is stitching together pieces of Diablo, Dark Souls, and PUBG into something new

I have finally played the best version of Battlefield 6, and of course it’s big maps with lots of vehicles

Borderlands 4 shed its iconic UI and all it got was this stupid live service-y inventory that doesn’t let me filter my crap properly

Is Borderlands 4 the series at ‘its most potent’, or ‘uninspired’ and ‘painfully dull’? The PC Gamer team is divided

HARDWARE BUYING GUIDES
LATEST GAME REVIEWS

Best SSD for gaming in 2025: the fastest and the best value solid state drives to perk up your PC

Best gaming laptop in 2025: I’ve tested a ton of notebooks this generation and these are the best in every category

Best Hall effect keyboards in 2025: the fastest, most customizable keyboards for competitive gaming

Best PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming in 2025: the only Gen 5 drives I will allow in my PC

Best graphics cards in 2025: I’ve tested pretty much every AMD and Nvidia GPU of the past 20 years and these are today’s top cards

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor review – Vampire Survivors is no longer the king of the genre

Humanscale Freedom Chair with Headrest review

Strange Antiquities review: Solve dozens of little mysteries in a creepy yet cozy curio shop

Hollow Knight: Silksong review — Worth the pain

Asus ProArt Case PA401 review

PC Gamer is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

Contact Future’s experts

Terms and conditions

Privacy policy

Cookies policy

Advertise with us

Accessibility Statement

Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury,

BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait…