Borderlands 4 review – better than the movie

Borderlands 4 – not as obnoxious as you’d think (2K)

The original looter shooter returns and it’s finally managed to grow up, in terms of its open world gameplay and its dubious sense of humour.

When any game hits its fourth iteration, dilemmas are bound to crop up. The obvious one being whether to provide more of the same, keeping the existing fanbase happy but leading everyone else to question whether the series lacks innovation. Happily, developer Gearbox Software appears (a tad uncharacteristically, some would contend) to have put some deeper thought into the creation of Borderlands 4, which works essentially as a soft reboot for the franchise.

In certain aspects, this is the same old Borderlands: the looter shooter gameplay (which Borderlands pretty much invented) is reassuringly familiar, as is the game’s cel-shaded, comic book style visuals – although its graphics have been considerably sharpened up compared to previous games. But one thing that has changed the fourth time round is the franchise’s trademark, in-your-face adolescent humour.

Whereas earlier Borderlands games were populated by characters who seemed purposefully designed to be as obnoxious as possible, Borderlands 4 – whisper it – contains some characters who are actually likable. There’s still plenty of jokes, but the humour is much less basic than before: it doesn’t exactly display Dorothy Parker levels of sophistication, but at least it isn’t actively annoying.

Unlike Borderlands 3, in particular, this sequel also has a serviceable storyline. It starts off in a fairly formulaic manner but eventually heads off in more imaginative and unexpected directions – including some impressively surreal sequences. Borderlands 4 takes place on a planet new to the franchise, called Kairos, which feels much more coherent and alive than the generic settings of its predecessors.

Kairos is under the totalitarian yoke of the Timekeeper, who has subjugated its inhabitants by installing information-gathering ‘bolts’ in their necks. As a vault hunter arriving on the planet, you initially seek to rouse the oppressed inhabitants into some form of resistance. With the help of one of the Timekeeper’s lieutenants, who has turned against him, you set about eliminating his other minions to acquire their bolts and get to the Timekeeper himself. In the process, an increasing number of Kairos’s previously apathetic inhabitants join your Crimson Resistance movement.

The deeper you get into Borderlands 4, the more sidesteps the storyline takes, creating an ebb and flow absent from previous games in the franchise. There are also vast numbers of side missions and activities, such as puzzling out how to unlock safehouses and powering up giant machines. The side missions vary greatly in nature and quality but ensure plenty of reasons to explore everywhere. And, of course, there are vaults – basically dungeons with bosses at the end – to clear, bringing rich rewards in terms of loot.

As far as weaponry is concerned, Gearbox has really gone to town. Borderlands 4 contains some impressively weird and imaginative guns, each with distinct attributes and personality, although it is a job to filter the wheat from the chaff.

Meanwhile, the four vault hunters you can choose between (essentially class types) are a Siren with summoning abilities, an Exosoldier with enhanced speed and weaponry skills, a tank like Forgeknight with lots of melee skills, and a tech-orientated Gravitar.

With each of these you must choose between three wildly diverse skills, including manifesting turrets and other assistants or entering into a melee frenzy. Once you find one that suits your play style you can improve it and your character at the same time via the skill tree; luckily, Respec machines abound, allowing you to reallocate skill points at any time.

Co-op play in a proper open world is a big draw (2K)

The end result is some genuinely fun shooting action, in which, especially as you progress and find new weaponry, you develop the ability to take on large groups of enemies in some style. One of the biggest new features gives each character a grapple, double jump, and even a jump-and-glide, which is used in both combat and exploration, and a surprising amount of not-terrible platform sequences.

Borderlands 4’s combat, while familiar to anyone who played the franchise’s previous games (when downed, for example, you still get a chance to resurrect by finishing off an enemy quickly), feels sharper than before. Despite being obsessed by guns, Borderlands has never had particularly good gunplay, but this is definitely a franchise best in that regards.

Borderlands 4 pulls off a neat trick by remaining familiar to fans of the franchise while freshening up many aspects and getting rid of some annoyances from previous iterations. Traversal is definitely quicker and more fluid (you also have a hoverbike you can summon at any time) but the whole game feels more modern in general.

For the first time it’s properly open world and yet can still be played co-operatively by up to four people. The opposition you face scales up nicely if you do and it means you can be resurrected by co-op partners if you fall. Although if you’re playing on your own you often face enemies in tandem with AI-controlled characters, who can also revive you.

With over 30 hours’ worth of main story and a vast amount to do beyond that, value for money is not an issue here – even though this is not a cheap game. But there are some question marks worth highlighting. Firstly, only PC review code was made available pre-launch, so we have no idea how well it runs on consoles, and even after a 65GB patch it crashed a few times (once after a boss fight which, mercifully, it didn’t make us replay).

Also, the new found air of added maturity sometimes hits a jarring note when old characters from the franchise make cameo appearances and temporarily lower the tone, often bringing with them in-jokes from the franchise’s history, which are never explained and will baffle Borderlands newbies.

But overall, Borderlands 4 feels like the refresh the franchise needed, bringing both focus and maturity to a series of games that previously lacked both. It no longer feels like a game for perpetual adolescents, but instead a relatively serious, technical first person shooter – albeit with its tongue often in its cheek.

It’s still nowhere near as funny as it thinks it is but in terms of gameplay, world design, and story this is definitely the best Borderlands has ever been.

Formats: PC (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2
Price: £69.99
Publisher: 2K
Developer: Gearbox Software
Release Date: 12th September 2025 (3/10 on Switch 2)
Age Rating: 18

Vehicles are a much bigger part of the new game (2K)

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