Borderlands 4 Review

Mike Taylor (Ishikawa)

So, you want to play a game, eh?

Borderlands 4 exploded into the forefront of the gaming world back in September in ways both good and bad. The 16-year-spanning series was in a massive lull after the critically-panned Borderlands 3 released in 2019. The third entry in the series was heavily criticized for its cringe humour, lackluster story, and irritating characters.

Fans of the series were cautiously optimistic when publisher Gearbox Software announced they were taking the feedback on while developing Borderlands 4 . Writing on Twitter in 2024, Narrative Director Sam Winkler insisted the developers were “cutting back on the toilet humour” compared to the previous entry in the series, adding “[Author] Paul Tassi joked that we were gonna have a gun called Hawk 2A, and a fellow dev asked me if it was real and I wanted to put my hand down the sink grinder.”

Gearbox was making it clear: the fart jokes were done.

And they seem to have mostly followed through: Borderlands 4  does serve as a relatively clean break from past entries. The game takes place entirely on a new planet, Kairos, which is split into four massive and distinct regions. Previous characters in the series do make an appearance in the story, but not until the player has had a chance to explore and get a taste for the world on their own. Even then, their relevance to the story and relationship is explained quickly enough that a first-timer won’t be confused.

Exploration is where the series has made the biggest leaps, though. Grappling hooks and jetpacks may often be signs that a series is running on fumes, but they fit perfectly at home in Borderlands’ “high-tech, lo-fi” stylised settings. The physics of the game feels great, too. You grapple to propel yourself across the area, jet pack to steady as you gun down an enemy, then smash into the ground with a melee attack to literally turn the enemy into a bloody pulp. It’s a simple yet satisfyingly gory gameplay loop. Long distance exploration has also become much more streamlined as players are quickly given a vehicle that can be summoned in most areas.

The small quality of life additions go a long way to making the game more fun. There are also dozens of captivating side missions that make straying off the beaten path worthwhile. One particularly poignant side quest features a sentient undetonated bomb desperate to find meaning in its existence. Another mission takes the player on a walk down memory lane with Claptrap, the series’ intentionally annoying mascot. While this initially feels like it’s going to be a slog, the player character’s reactions to Claptrap’s dialogue makes the robot actually open up, develop, and let go of the past.  There’s genuine love and effort from Gearbox and it really shines through in quests like these. 

“Moving on” is a big theme of the game in both story and design philosophy. Kairos is new and there are extremely few references to Pandora, the main setting of the previous games. The ghost of Handsome Jack, the universally-acclaimed sarcastic and apathetic villain from Borderlands 2 has been exorcised. In his place is the Timekeeper, an all-seeing immortal who rules over Kairos with his followers and can mind-control its denizens through spinal implants. We are mostly shown his character through his routine check-ins to sneer at the player and how other characters in the rogue gallery react to his presence. The Timekeeper may not be the series’ best villain, but he does fit well into the setting and style of the game.

While this review has been generally positive about the game, there are a couple of CEO-sized elephants in the room. First among them is the notorious performance issues which seem to have become a common feature of AAA games on release these days. PC and console users alike have been plagued with crashes and frame-rate drops, which have made the game virtually unplayable for some despite meeting the game’s minimum system requirements. While it’s understandable that the sheer variety of PC setups can cause issues for some, the sheer volume of complaints is unprecedented. Console players have even more justified gripes: the whole point of the console is that the game is optimized for the platform. 

None of this has been helped in any way by Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford. In a massive PR blunder, the head of Gearbox has taken to social media to argue with fans complaining about performance issues on the JPY 9,460 game, saying “Please get a refund from Steam if you aren’t happy” and has maintained that the game is “pretty damn optimal.” It’s the latest in a series of PR faux pas that Borderlands fans will be all too familiar with. The boss had previously come under fire for defending the game’s price tag, saying “If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make [paying for] it happen.” 

Is Borderlands 4 good? Yeah, it might be the best in the series. Should you rush out to buy it now? Probably not. Is Randy Pitchford worth boycotting the game over? That’s up to you.
Verdict: Wait until it’s on sale.

Pictures ©2025 Gearbox Software. Published by 2K Games.

Author Bio:
Mike Taylor is a JET alumnus from Scotland now living in Kanazawa, Ishikawa. In his free time, he hurriedly rushes to prepare for upcoming Dungeons and Dragons sessions. The party can just get attacked by ninjas, right?