When Borderlands 4 was first announced, I wondered how much the series could have possibly changed since its last installment. Over the course of four mainline entries and almost two whole decades, Gearbox’s interplanetary, comic book-inspired looter-shooter has maintained a distinct identity in an increasingly crowded industry. It’s the only game that gives us billions of guns and just as many jokes. The former consistently, and satisfyingly, hitting their targets has made up for the latter missing more often than not.
Though familiar faces like Claptrap, Moxxie, and hordes of masked Psychos are back this time around, Borderlands 4 is surprisingly different from its predecessors. Not in the big, flashy ways you’d notice in a trailer, but in dozens of smaller ways that add up over time. And those tiny adjustments are almost universally positive.
I Love It When Borderlands 4 Gives Me Distant Map Icons To Chase Down
When the main quest really feels like a quest.
A Quick Note On Performance
Before we dig in, I should note that much of the conversation about Borderlands 4 since launch has revolved around the game's widespread performance issues. On Steam, the game's ratings are Mixed, with tens of thousands of negative reviews that largely stem from optimization problems. If that's your experience with the looter shooter, I understand the frustration.
But across 50 hours on PS5, the most serious issue I've encountered was some lag after leaving the game suspended overnight. I closed it, opened it back up, and it ran just fine from then onwards. Borderlands 4 has played like a dream for me — and this review reflects that — but depending on where you purchase it, there's a good chance that won't be your experience. Alright, onto the review.
Borderlands 4 Gets A Whole Lot Right
First, the jokes. Compared to previous entries, Borderlands 4 has turned the Quip-O-Meter wayyyyy down. And yet, it's the only game in the series I can remember making me laugh. And shock of all shocks, Claptrap has been the primary character to elicit those chuckles.
And with a line that included the word “bazongas,” no less.
I didn't get to Borderlands 2 until long after release, so the appeal of "Butt Stallion" may have just been lost on me, but I was there for Borderlands 3 upon release, and the situation was dire with fans turning against it at every turn. Gearbox has heard that feedback loud and clear and has vowed that Borderlands 4 would be different.
I was skeptical at first, but after 50 long hours, I can confirm that Borderlands 4 is much less annoying than its immediate predecessor and, as my colleague Jade King wrote, it has an unexpected amount of heart, which it reveals on a surprisingly sincere main quest and in easily missable moments off the beaten path.
Now, the guns. The weapons still largely handle like they always have, which we can safely file under 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.' They're punchy, fun to experiment with, and pop out of chests, dumpsters, and Port-o-Potties in seemingly endless variations, which makes scrounging around an arena or looting a boss' corpse after a tough fight consistently rewarding. You’ll likely find the guns you like and stick with them until a tough encounter forces you to change things up, but messing around with an explosive gun you chuck at your enemies instead of reloading is entertaining even if it doesn’t earn a permanent place in your arsenal.
This is the best the series has ever felt to play because, while shooting has stayed the same, everything around it has improved. There's a double jump and a dash now, which makes moving around arenas more fast and fluid than ever before. A grappling hook is useful for mobility, but also for grabbing explosive projectiles to hurl at your opponents. There's a glider you can activate, allowing you to snipe your earthbound foes while maneuvering across the sky. You climb ladders and grated walls automatically, making vertical traversal a breeze. You can take enemies out with a ground pound. The game feels like it was designed to keep you moving, moving, moving at all times.
Pacing And Progression Problems On A Pretty Pleasing Planet
Unfortunately, that zippy moment-to-moment energy doesn’t extend to the game’s overarching pace, where Gearbox seems determined to always give players their money’s worth whether they want it or not. I spent upwards of two hours on many main missions — and side quests are not exempt from that feeling of bloat. In fact, it almost feels like the game is playing a joke on anyone who wants to jump in and jump out in under an hour. Everything feels like it has been extended to take the maximum amount of time — from quests to side activities like surviving the hordes of enemies thrown at you at the recurring ‘Propaganda Speakers’ events to weathering any of the random battles around the open world, everything seems to last one wave too long.
Though Borderlands 4 resists the casual checklisting open-world games tend to excel at delivering, Gearbox made the right choice in shifting from the segmented worlds of previous games to the all-encompassing planet of Kairos, where our Vault Hunters are stranded until they take down the villainous Timekeeper.
Borderlands 4 Is A Live Service In Single Player Clothing
The similarities go deeper than first-person shooting.
While 3 peppered in variety through a range of planets, 4 reimagines those biomes as seamlessly interwoven regions on a sprawling map. Borderlands’ constant loading screens have always made the series feel a little herky-jerky and 4 finally finds a satisfying rhythm for exploration. I loved unlocking new silos to use as home bases, chasing down creative side quests, searching the environment for Vault Keys, or just setting out to see what was hidden in the still-darkened corners of the map.
Freeform exploration is made possible by the game's approach to level-scaling, which is a bit of a mixed bag. Enemies rise or fall to your level, which is nice in some ways. It means that I — 50 hours deep — and my friend — still around the ten-hour mark — can hop into a game together and both get an equal challenge. He's not going to get obliterated by level 31 enemies and I'm not going to steamroll all his level 12s. But, it can be frustrating when you encounter a tough part of the game — for me, it was the last mission of the Terminus Range quest line, "His Vile Sanctum" — with no way to get stronger.
Sure, you can change your build, swapping out a weaker shotgun for a stronger one or a shield that protects against radioactive damage for one that blocks corrosive offense. But this is an RPG. I want the numbers going up to actually mean something. And your level rising primarily seems to just mean that you have a new perk point to spend. That's nice, but when I've been struggling to get past a chokepoint, level up, and then see that the opponent who was just at level 30 has now scaled to level 31 to match me, the grind feels a little pointless.
The primary purpose of leveling up is to unlock new abilities for your Vault Hunter. Through my first 50 hours with the game, I've been playing as Rafa, one of four new heroes added this time around. I’ve leaned heavily on his shoulder-mounted guns, and have enjoyed improving them with added bombs. I look forward to playing the game again as the three other Vault Hunters, or one of the two new ones Gearbox is planning to add down the line. There are tons of abilities I haven’t unlocked yet, even just for Rafa and I can see myself returning to the game for months, slowly seeing all it has to offer, especially since Gearbox has plenty of fresh content in store for the next year and change.
Though I have issues with certain aspects of Borderlands 4’s pace and progression, it does so much right that those problems aren’t dealbreakers. Far from it. Sixteen years in, this is Gearbox’s cel-shaded shooter series at its best. From a well-calibrated tone, still-satisfying guns, best-in-class traversal, and an inviting open world, Borderlands 4 answers the question I asked when it was announced. How much can the Borderlands series possibly change? Turns out the answer is both not much… and a whole lot.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 82/100 Critics Rec: 87%
- Released
- September 12, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- Gearbox Software
- Publisher(s)
- 2K
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Genre(s)
- Looter Shooter, Action, Adventure, RPG
- The guns still feel great.
- Movement is better than ever.
- There are fewer jokes, but the ones that are there have a higher hit rate.
- The open world is satisfying to explore.
- Level-scaling can make progress feel pointless.
- Missions have a tendency to drag on longer than you want them to.