Although it’s never truly gone away, it’s been a minute since the Borderlands series really mattered to most gamers. Following a pair of excellent releases with the 2009 original and 2012’s Borderlands 2 the franchise shifted into prequels, spin-offs, and eventually a trilogy capper in 2019, but by then some of the luster had worn off. After the dumpster fire of a live-action adaptation hit theaters in 2024, it almost became hard to remember why anyone ever liked Borderlands to begin with. But they did!
The main games were extremely fun primarily due to two constants: satisfying gunplay and loot mechanics pulled from RPG series like Diablo. The special blend of action and item collection in Borderlands became a subgenre known as the looter shooter, where players kill countless enemies to earn weapons and equipment with random abilities that increasingly get stronger as the game progresses. The foundation laid by Borderlands eventually paved the way for other breakout hits like Destiny, Warframe, and The Division.
Borderlands’ trademarks are its satirical tone and crude humor, with its cutthroat world in juxtaposition to the goofy characters and colorful art style. The series arguably peaked with 2012’s Borderlands 2, which refined the shooting mechanics of its predecessor and featured a much better story, introducing memorable characters like the charming antagonist Handsome Jack and the enthusiastically unhinged Tiny Tina. By Borderlands 3, however, the fine-tuned balance was thrown off with a maximalist approach that pushed the game’s mechanics, storytelling, and vulgarity to the breaking point — leaving many fans exhausted.
Now, the developers at Gearbox have their work cut out for them with the latest installment, Borderlands 4 (out Sept. 12). The game is saddled with some tough tasks, needing to both bring back lapsed audiences from the series’ heyday and serve as a starting point for new players, too. And while there’s some major improvements that go a long way, many of the choices made feel like an overcorrection in unsatisfying ways.
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To those who came before
The first and most glaring shift comes in the form of the game’s tone. While still an onslaught of snide jabs and one-liners, the developers have dialed the raunchy humor back to a fault. The pared down edginess, combined with a new antagonist with a more measured personality leaves the game feeling somewhat neutered in comparison to previous entries. Borderlands 4 may still feel great to play, but players may struggle to trudge along through its mostly boring story.
Borderlands 4 brings the story to a new planet with a whole new set of Vault Hunters to play as.
2K Games
Borderlands 4 takes place on the planet of Kairos, instead of Pandora, which was the setting of the first three games. Kairos previously remained cloaked until after the events of Borderlands 3 when Pandora’s moon, Elpis, crashed into Kairos, unveiling its existence. The newly revealed world is tyrannically ruled by the Timekeeper, a being who has existed for thousands of years and whose origins are shrouded in mystery.
Like previous games, players take on the role of one of four Vault Hunters, mercenaries who seek out alien depths on planets to discover the treasures hidden inside. Now that Kairos is no longer hidden, the protagonists join a group called the Crimson Resistance to explore these vaults and take down the Timekeeper in the process.
Compared to fan-favorite Handsome Jack and even Borderlands 3’s less-beloved Calypso twins, the Timekeeper is a rather boring villain. His motivations and obsession with keeping order at all costs aren’t really revealed until the very end and even then it seems mostly one dimensional. He’s an overly serious antagonist who doesn’t seem to have a single funny bone in his body, much less an ounce of the striking charisma that Handsome Jack embodied. As a result, it’s hard to stay engaged with the story.
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The game’s narrative and comedic writing feels flat. Somehow even more Claptrap would be welcomed.
2K Games
Despite Borderlands 3’s excess of tasteless jokes, the game was at least pushing to entertain. Here, the more muted sense of humor feels slightly deflating. Even the franchise’s mascot, the obnoxious one-wheeled robot Claptrap, briefly makes an appearance near the start of the game only to disappear for the rest of the adventure. Many fans have a love-hate relationship with Claptrap; most of the time, he’s a grating presence, but he fits the series’ madcap tone perfectly. It’s hard to believe, but that chatter-mouthed bastard is sorely missed, and his relative absence in a new entry just feels wrong.
The more the merrier
As in the previous Borderlands games, there are four new Vault Hunters to choose from: Amon, Harlowe, Rafa, and Vex. Each fits into typical RPG classes — with Armon being the close combat brute, Harlow the magical crowd control specialist, Rafa the agile rogue, and Vex serving as a summoner who calls on minions to do the dirty work. They all have wildly different attacks and moves to cater to various playstyles. Each character has three action skills and corresponding ability trees to invest in. As they level up, players gain skill points to become more powerful. Like most RPGs, there’s a trade off to what kind of skills you’ll want to unlock in order to forge the most desirable build.
For example, Rafa can augment his Peacebreaker Cannons to disconnect from him as an active auto-turret, but that means giving up the ability to fire homing missiles from them. It’s fun experimenting with different builds to see which one fits best, and the game lets you reset spent skill points at a Respec Station for a small fee. Experimentation is encouraged without incurring much of a penalty.
Capitalizing on team synergy with Amon’s Crucible skill makes for wild combinations.
2K Games
While Borderlands 4 can be played solo, it’s much more fun in co-op. This lets each Vault Hunter’s abilities synergize, resulting in much more explosive minute-to-minute gameplay moments. For example, Harlowe’s Zero-Point ability lifts enemies in midair, leaving them vulnerable to your teammates’ bullets. This could give anyone playing as Amon a brief moment to more properly aim his Crucible skill, where he conjures ice and fire axes that deal massive damage.
It feels like co-op play is emphasized too. In Borderlands, whenever a Vault Hunter falls in battle, there’s a brief period where they can gain a “Second Wind” by killing an enemy while in the downed state, immediately reviving them to go back into action. While this is feasible during shoot outs with multiple regular enemies, Second Wind’s flaws become apparent during boss battles. Some bosses spawn lesser minions that can be killed to activate Second Wind while downed, but not all do. Being downed in a solo game without any fodder to shoot can leave players completely helpless and forced to start the battle over again. With co-op teammates, it’s a non-issue thanks to the ability to revive each other. This can make single-player more of a chore during some sections.
Fortunately, Borderlands 4’s online and lobby matchmaking system work extremely well. Friends can be invited to join a campaign if players are having trouble with a boss, and they can drop in and out at will. The game scales dynamically depending on the players’ levels, ensuring a balanced difficulty even if one person happens to be more powerful. Borderlands 4 also supports cross-play, which lets everyone play together across all platforms, including PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
Cross-play is supported despite its omission in many modern multiplayer games.
2K Games
While cross-play is hardly revolutionary and should be standard in co-op and multiplayer games, the feature has been conspicuously missing from some of the biggest games in 2025, including Elden Ring Nightreign and Rematch. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater’s upcoming multiplayer mode, Fox Hunt, won’t support cross-play either. A healthy user base uniting all available players is paramount to the longevity of co-op and multiplayer games — something Gearbox thankfully understands.
Gunning and running
While the story might be lacking, the actual gameplay of Borderlands 4 is an overall improvement over the previous game — but it’s not perfect. Although it was initially praised as one of the series’ best, fans later soured on Borderlands 3, claiming that it gave Legendary weapons away like candy. Legendary is the highest and most powerful tier of firearms in the game, and their drop rates were so high that it diminished the satisfaction of getting one. However, Borderlands 4 overcorrects to the point where it feels like hardly any appear at all.
Guns and equipment are separated into five tiers: Common (white), Uncommon (green), Rare (blue), Epic (purple), and Legendary (gold). Most enemies will drop the first three tiers at a regular pace, but the less frequent Epic and Legendary weapons contain more powerful effects.
Throughout my entire campaign run, only one boss dropped a Legendary weapon, with others offering only Epic ones at best. It’s a drastic change from its predecessor that dampens the joy of defeating a boss. After completing the story once, Ultimate Vault Hunter mode unlocks, which lets players take on tougher enemies for better loot. While this helps extend the game’s lifespan with plenty of follow-up content, a few more Legendary weapons during the initial run would provide a greater sense of accomplishment and more exciting moments in between an otherwise unremarkable narrative.
The gunplay feels great but the low drop rate for Legendary weapons is disappointing.
2K Games
Borderlands 4’s gunplay feels even better than previous games, especially with some of the overhauls implemented in the gear and movement systems. Instead of having to find separate ammo for power weapons and equipment like grenades and rockets, they’re now all on a cooldown timer. This gives Borderlands 4 a much faster pace and chaotic sense of carnage, where bigger explosions and hordes of enemies fill the screen more often. Players can dash and glide, as well as shoot a grappling hook now too — opening up new defensive and evasive maneuvers like quick dodges for more hit-and-run tactics.
Despite such an unpredictable, but nearly limitless variety of procedurally-generated guns, every one feels weighty and impactful, along with having unique traits that make no two weapons the same. There are different kinds of elemental damage, like cryo that can freeze enemies in place, and corrosive, which slowly eats away at their health. There are also different firing modes like single-shot or semi-auto. Hell, this even extends to reload mechanisms. There are some rare guns out there that when reloaded, automatically eject their bullet chambers to home in on enemies and explode.
It feels like each gun is special, with its own unique combination of abilities that players will become overly attached to even when they begin to have diminished impact. A favorite of mine was a sniper rifle with an easy-to-read scope that could kill almost every enemy with a single headshot. Since loot is tailored to your character’s level when it drops, it eventually had to be replaced as its damage output couldn’t keep up with late-game enemies’ increased health. Even though a more powerful sniper (with a less-readable scope) took its place within my gun rotation, I kept the old one sitting in my inventory despite it taking up a precious inventory slot that could’ve gone to a new weapon. It had sentimental value.
Players may find themselves personally attached to weapons well past their appropriate level.
2K Games
What makes Borderlands so smooth to play is its focus on headshots and critical hits. Like many other shooter franchises, these strikes do extra damage to enemies, but Borderlands 4 takes it a step further. Every time one lands, a floating text briefly appears shouting, “Critical.” From a readability standpoint, this provides satisfying visual feedback and fits well within Borderlands’ graphic novel-inspired art style. Along with a significant increase in inflicted damage, scoring critical hits feels rewarding with enemies dramatically flying like ragdolls. It adds a bit of levity into frantic gun fights just when they begin to feel overwhelming.
Open world shenanigans
Much like many big games today, Borderlands 4 features an open world. It’s exhaustingly large, but makes good use of the environments by littering side missions and collectibles all over the map. They’re well-spaced, with every nook and cranny having at least something rewarding to find, whether it’s a new audio log to flesh out the lore, or items to increase your character’s inventory slots or ammo capacity.
Completing side missions in Borderlands 4 rewards players with experience, cash, and weapons to help along the journey. In addition to worldbuilding, some of the storylines are genuinely funny, injecting some much needed humor that’s lacking in the primary quests. All these activities incentivize exploration beyond just following the linear narrative path.
Digirunners make exploration smoother, faster, and more exciting.
2K Games
To help streamline exploration, players can now summon a fast vehicle, called a Digirunner, at almost any location. Borderlands 4 uses its futuristic sci-fi western setting to its advantage, as the Digirunner is much more agile than a traditional car in realistic open-world games like Mafia: The Old Country. Its maneuverability and floatiness lets it turn tight corners smoothly, making the open-world much more of a breeze to traverse compared to previous games.
Unfortunately, there are some bugs and glitches that infested the open world and specific story missions. In one instance, an invisible wall prevented me from entering a critical path — which only opened after rebooting the game in frustration. Another instance clipped my character through the ground while exploring, leading to instant death and the subsequent loss of the $50,000 in my pocket.
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After fading from the limelight in recent years, Gearbox is trying to get back into our good graces with Borderlands 4. It mostly works. It’s not the revolutionary, genre-defining game the original was nearly a decade and a half ago, but Borderlands 4 is fun to play — and that’s good enough for a series that could’ve easily been retired entirely. Although its improvements often feel like a half measure, it’s still a step forward nonetheless.
Borderlands 4 launches on September 12 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
