By Sam Chandler

Copyright shacknews

Borderlands fans have been starving for a great entry in the fabled franchise. The first one whet the appetite, the sequel filled our bellies, but unfortunately the third made a lot of people feel ill. Borderlands 4 is here, and while it’s taken a more sombre tone with its narrative, Gearbox has prepared us a feast with the game’s combat, buildcrafting, and sheer scope of its open world.

Divine comedy/tragedy

Borderlands 4 introduces players to the world of Kairos, a prison planet controlled by the Timekeeper and his Order. This enigmatic man has enslaved the entire population with bolts, implants in their necks that lets him monitor their whereabouts and even control them if he so chooses. After the moon Elpis appears and tears a hole in the sky, Vault Hunters head to the planet in search of riches. This is where players begin their journey of a billion guns and countless buildcrafting opportunities.

The narrative of the main campaign takes a more sombre tone compared to previous titles. The outrageous characters and their random dialogue snippets are toned down, replaced with heartfelt words along with clear motivations and internal conflicts. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the tonal shift, as I thoroughly enjoyed the wacky characters of Borderlands 2. However, despite how heavy the narrative got, there were moments of levity where the tension was broken with a witty comment here or there.

That’s not to say the weird and wonderful characters are missing. Mad Moxxi returns and she’s as coquettish as always, Zane offers up his roguish charm, and everyone continues to absolutely detest Claptrap, which is always amusing. But they’re all toned down during the campaign, so it feels like it’s missing the downright silly one-liners and off-the-wall moments that made Borderlands 1 and 2 so popular.

The good news is that the humor isn’t gone, it’s been shifted. The main brunt of the laughs is tucked away in the side quests, the open world, and the crazed enemies throughout. It’s also not topical humor, with Gearbox leaning back toward the more absurdist style of the original games. Overall, it places the narrative and humor in a better place, making it far more enjoyable to engage with the game over the long term, which is critical as Borderlands 4 is huge.

Hunter of vaults

Right off the rip, it’s clear that Borderlands 4 is a step up from the previous entries in terms of scope. There are four Vault Hunters to choose from and each features three Action Skills with individual skill trees. These trees then splinter off into separate paths, each offering Augments and Capstones, which dramatically change the Action Skill. It’s a lot, and that’s before reaching the end of the game where things expand further.

There’s great variety in Vault Hunters as well. Vex is the Siren who can summon entities from the Phase to aid her in battle. Amon is all about the tank life, able to create a defensive shield, dual axes, or a rocket fist. Harlowe uses her science know-how to create a big ol’ gun, a cryo-dome, or a bubble to suspend enemies. Rafa is the soldier that can have knife arms, shoulder cannons, or an off-hand rifle. He’s also the one I opted to use in both my Borderlands 4 preview and my time with the game for the review.

These characters are also more mobile than ever. Each one can double jump, glide, slide, dash, and even use the grapple hook to attach to points throughout the world. Any time I started fighting, I’d find myself spending equal time on the ground and in the air, slingshotting myself to the opposite side of the arena to defeat enemies in the backlines. The combat is pure chaos and gives back as much energy as you put in, especially when playing co-op, which is always where Borderlands excels.

Numbers make brain go brrr

While good story and humorous side quests make Borderlands 4 easy on the ears, it’s the buildcrafting that makes it a moreish experience. I love the multiple systems at play here. Not only do you have the Vault Hunters with their perks and preferences, you’ve got guns, Class Mods, Enhancements, Ordnance, set bonuses, and more. All of this twists and connects into a rich system where the effort you put in rewards you with bespoke killer builds.

As Rafa, I opted for a glass cannon build. My shoulder mounted cannons were my critical hit masters. Each critical hit reduced my skill cooldown and let me hit crits easier with my own weapons. Any perk that increased Rafa’s gun or critical damage was an instant unlock. And then I was looking at the weapons.

There are now more weapon manufacturers than ever. You no doubt have your favorite, and I have mine. I could not stomach the Order weapons with their slow charge time, even if they offered higher DPS. Give me Tediore, give my Vladof, give me Daedalus. To that end, I was also an SMG sicko and only switched to something else if the worst thing happened: I ran out of ammo.

So, I had a Vladof SMG with a Daedalus secondary fire that used shotgun ammo and a Ripper mag that required me to charge the gun before it fired. This thing spewed out bullets and, if I could aim steadily, afforded me numerous critical hits. I then found a delicious Enhancement. This bit of gear tweaks any weapons that have a specific licensed part. I found one with High Roller, which affected weapons with a Ripper licensed part. Now, whenever I fired my SMG, each consecutive hit increased its damage by 2 percent, stacking 25 times.

With some RPGs, most of the buildcrafting takes place in the late-game. You need to put in a shift to actually get to the good stuff. While the endgame of Borderlands 4 is where you’ll want to spend your time, tinkering and buildcrafting happens every few minutes throughout the initial grind. Every single loot-spewing enemy you kill means a quick scour to see if you can eke out a bit more from your build.

Soon enough, you’ve got Class Mods that are granting you several points into perks at once along with boosts to attributes. Then gear starts dropping with Firmware, which grant set bonuses when equipping up to three of the same type. Before long, my base perks from Rafa’s skill tree were lifted through weapons, Enhancements, Augments, Firmware, and more.

All of this is nearly overwhelming. There are a ton of things that go into creating a build for just a single character. However, you could completely ignore it and still have a blast playing through the campaign using any old thing you find. But for those who want to dig deep, Borderlands 4 offers a smorgasbord of opportunities to flex your builds, especially if you opt to dive into the game’s Ultimate Vault Hunter mode (which increases the difficulty and offers higher rewards), where exploiting every single benefit is critical to your success.

I will say that one change took a bit of time to get used to, and that was the repurposing of the grenade slot. This is now the Ordnance slot. You can still equip grenades, but there are some new additions like a minigun and rocket launcher – both with limited ammo and a cooldown. What this unfortunately means is that rocket launchers are no longer a regular weapon option. It gives the Ordnance slot a more important role in your build, but I do lament the days of dual-wielding rocket launchers as Salvador.

Hello, world!

Arguably the biggest change in Borderlands 4 is that it’s now an open world game. This is a massive boon in terms of a reduction in loading screens and sheer number of things to do, but it does mean that some sections can feel similar. The original games had such unique levels, many of which stand out as iconic, but Borderlands 4 doesn’t quite nail that aspect. The four unique regions are gorgeous, as is everything else thanks to the series’ iconic cel-shading, but the points of interest within each region are quite similar. One shanty town in The Fadefields looks like any other within the area.

That small gripe aside, the world itself is a delight to explore, as there’s something to do every few feet. I’d be zooming along in my Digirunner (which you can summon wherever you want), only to leap off to fight a boss that drilled up through the earth or appeared inside a large thunderdome.

I’d then find myself outside of a shanty town, accepting contracts from a board like collecting enemy drops, hunting someone down, or some other small task. While I was there, I’d scoop up the side quests and look around at the map to see if there was a safehouse nearby to takeover.

Sometimes there’d be an enemy-controlled point between me and my target. Sometimes I’d get a ping that I was close to a hidden Vault Fragment. By the time I’d finished the campaign, my map was riddled with question marks, exclamation points, and a dozen icons vying for my attention. On top of all this, the game has challenges to complete, caches to find and carry back to the closest base, hidden vaults with their own unique challenges and gauntlets to conquer, and so much more. It’s a veritable buffet of content, and you can go back for exactly what you want, repeatedly.

But this change to an open world design isn’t without its technical problems. During my time with Borderlands 4, I experienced no fewer than 20 crashes to desktop. I’m running an RTX 3080 with an i7-12700KF CPU, so I’m within the recommended specifications. I even tried installing the game on a different NVMe drive to no avail. On top of this, there were often framerate drops as well as hitching that slowed down the gameplay. The only saving grace here is that I imagine this is a fixable problem.

The end(game) is nigh

With Borderlands, the campaign is typically the obstacle between players and the late-game experience. As heartfelt and fun as the Borderlands 4 campaign can be, it’s ultimately not where the most gameplay hours will take place. I’m pleased to report that Borderlands 4 has a sumptuous endgame experience.

I don’t want to reveal too much, as part of the joy of the endgame is discovering the tantalizing things you’ll be chasing. Expect to have more than just your skills to level up, a new type of vendor, a kind of perk transmog, weekly rotating missions and challenges, as well as the Ultimate Vault Hunter Modes (UVHM).

I finished the campaign at about Level 30, did the prerequisites to activate Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode 1, and started exploring the world. It was tough as nails, as most enemies no longer had a number beside their health bar but an exclamation point. The goal was now crystal clear: level up and chase better loot to be able to clear UVHM1 and move on to UVHM2.

In addition to this, once you finish the campaign, Borderlands 4 lets you start a new character at Level 30, essentially giving you access to one skill tree’s bottom-most ability. It’s a great way to propel you into the real meat and potatoes of the experience.

You’ve prepared a feast, Jones!

Borderlands 4 is bloody chaotic and pure mayhem. Vault Hunters with dozens of perks across multiple skill trees. Guns raining from the sky with wildly unique perk combinations. Enhancements, Class Mods, set bonuses, and more dramatically feeding into your builds, making numbers go higher and enemy health bars go lower. Each system links arms with the other and grabs hold of you as you dash, grapple, sprint, and shoot your way through battlefields of screaming, rambling psychos that will test your build to its limits. Borderlands 4 is the best the series has been in decades and a testament to Gearbox’s ability to absolutely cook. Are you ready to taste the chaos?

This review is based on a Steam copy of the game provided by the publisher. Borderlands 4 is scheduled to release on September 12, 2025, on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X. It will release on Nintendo Switch 2 on October 3, 2025.