Borderlands can be a difficult series to stomach. The over-the-top loot shooters have always gone to extremes when it comes to characters, dialogue, humour, and gameplay mechanics. It’s a little bit cringe, but over the years developer Gearbox Software has gone a very long way in making this a part of its overall identity. Intentional or not, this kinda thing has stuck.
Borderlands 4 Is Great, But I Wish Its User Interface Wasn't Total Garbage
Gearbox has crafted a user interface that would have felt right at home in 2008.
I recall the first game — aside from the introduction of Claptrap — being relatively serious when you compare it to the hijinks of Handsome Jack and Butt Stallion that would follow. Gearbox would pack dialogue and quest design with outdated jokes, crass internet humour, and many ideas that would only serve to make its central narrative and key characters less enjoyable.
It turned a lot of people, myself included, away from playing the games altogether. That, or you would stick on a podcast or jump into a Discord call with friends to drown out the awful writing so you could murder psychos and grind for the best loot in peace. In Borderlands 4, I’m taken by the central narrative and the things surrounding it more than I ever expected it to be.
Borderlands 4 Has Far More Honest Heart Than Hokey Humour
Don’t get me wrong, Borderlands 4 is still cringe. It still has dialogue and characters I would rather people don’t walk in on me experiencing because they’ll discover I’m secretly a loser. But the heart that permeates the new cast of vault hunters and their relentless desire to do good is worth celebrating. Upon escaping the Timekeeper’s clutches and being set free in the open world, you have relative freedom to take on quests and explore the opening area without compromise.
While you could easily jump into the main quest and pursue the narrative right away, I would recommend taking on a few nearby side quests to come to grips with the planet of Kairos, along with what exactly its inhabitants are fighting for. Gameplay, aside from new ways to traverse the environment and a few extra bells and whistles added to gunplay, will be familiar to those who’ve played Borderlands before, so don’t worry too much about that.
One of the first quests I found was ridiculous, asking me to follow the trail of local alcoholics until I arrived at the porch of a local Moonshine maker. He needed me to gather ingredients for a new batch from a variety of locations, all while regailing me about the history of Kairos and how he’d called this planet home for generations. Apparently it was pretty peaceful until one day the sky opened up and tyrants began pouring through it.
The moonshiner loves to spout the usual one-liners the series is known for and had me rolling my eyes on more than one occasion, but I appreciated a side quest that wasn’t just about shooting things, but also learning about what makes this new stomping ground tick.
Against All Odds, It Even Made Me Warm To Claptrap
Another early quest, this time featuring the one and only Claptrap, also went a long way in humanising a character who for decades has been nothing but an annoying bucket of bolts. He’s feeling homesick on this new planet and nostalgic about the things that came before. He tells tales of how he had no choice but to leave behind old friends or mourn dead ones while yet again being replaced in a position of leadership for the Crimson Resistance.
You’re sent on a wild goose chase to receive nostalgic items for Claptrap all while he talks about the difficulty of letting go, and how in the past he was perhaps far more annoying to friends than he needed to be. There are also a few well-earned laughs here as the strange robot promises that he was best buddies with Moxxi, and didn’t just stalk her for decades. It all ends in a moment when you place Claptrap’s monuments of the past into a boat, send it out to sea, and set it alight. A symbolic farewell and a new beginning for a character that we have come to associate with all the bad things about Borderlands.
One final quest I want to mention takes place in one of the first settlements you stumble into. It followed the core of a missile that failed to launch, and for years it has sat undetonated in the town square pondering its purpose in life. If it can’t explode when asked, what else is a ballistic missile good for? You must talk through these complicated emotions as you assemble a new rocket and send it firing off into the sky in a flurry of fireworks.
Like I mentioned before, Borderlands 4 could have been filled with substanceless quests that ask you to shoot first and ask questions later, and while many quests do follow that mantra, it is the ones that don’t which have the greatest impact. I’m still in the opening hours, but if the writing can keep up this level of light-hearted and emotionally resonant honesty, I’ll be in for a treat.
