Borderlands 4 review: a mature new frontier for the looter-shooter franchise

I was 15 when I discovered Borderlands, and it was everything I wanted it to be. A bright, brash shooter with a wicked sense of humour, a novel comic book-like style, and a moreish-ness in its cartoony gunplay. Over the years, the franchise has followed my trajectory. It grew out of its brashness, and became more creative and story-minded in Borderlands 2. Then, it experienced growing pains, mistaking annoying bits and loudness for humour in Borderlands 3. Now, I am 30 years old, and Borderlands 4 is once again speaking to my soul.

This is a game that feels grown up. It doesn’t reject what’s come before, but uses each experience as a stepping stone. It weaves together the narrative threads of Borderlands 2, with the beauty and smoothness of Borderlands 3. But it leaves behind everything that doesn’t serve the franchise, including the loud, slapstick humour that siloed BL3 in the doldrums.

It’s still a funny game. Claptrap is around to guffaw at players. As you travel, your Vault Hunter will make snippy little remarks about new circumstances or developments. You will still meet a menagerie of weirdos, all with their own warped senses of humour. But with deft writing, the game is able to integrate funny moments where they count – with a specific focus on elevating the often dour tone of your travels.

Borderlands 4 and the fight for freedom

In Borderlands 4, you join resistance fighters after an encounter with the malevolent and all-powerful Timekeeper leaves you shaken. You don’t initially have a clear stake in his dominant rule of Kairos, but after he forces a mind control bolt into you and commands your body to betray you, there’s an element of revenge in your quest. The Timekeeper and his lieutenants must fall. And so, you set off on a long, multi-pathed journey through Kairos, with the overarching goal of defeating this villain, and restoring peace to the land.

It’s relatively serious subject matter, which requires a deft hand. The citizens of Kairos are forced into slavery by the bolts attached to their bodies, and there’s elements of horror in their struggles to be free. If you choose to remove a bolt, for example, your body and mind could be wildly disfigured. It could rip out your entire spine.

In the Borderlands of years past, perhaps this would have been played more as a joke, but there is a notable focus in Borderlands 4 on ensuring that quests feel highly-staked, and that the humour doesn’t undermine the game’s more serious notes. I relate it to Thor: Love and Thunder, for those familiar. The disparate parts of this film were compelling, particularly the topic of a hero with cancer. But when this subject matter is paired with screaming goats and Russell Crowe doing a wild accent, the impact of its themes are lost.

Gearbox Software has corralled talented writers here, who understand the space that must be given to serious moments, and the role that humour plays in alleviation. It’s incredibly hard to balance humour in such a humourless setting, but the team have managed well here. Even when there’s slapstick jokes doing the rounds, they land at the appropriate moment, and in a way that’s typically sharp or biting.

A tight, sense-engaging experience

Elsewhere, Gearbox have made important tweaks to ensure Borderlands 4 is a tight, sense-engaging experience. It’s not only clear and purpose-driven writing leading on you onwards, but a collaboration of all parts. Where storytelling is lighter – as you get into the crux of your main quest and travel along all its many pathways, towards various bosses, and underbosses – the game’s sleek combat and strategy take centre stage.

Borderlands 4 will be familiar to returning players, but there’s plenty new here, too. There’s a larger variety of guns, and new mechanics that make each gun feel genuinely different – whether that’s in load speed, firing, charging, capacity, or in other elements. There’s more strategy in which guns you choose (as usual, you’ll need a mix to avoid ammo running out). There’s also more strategy in how you actually wield these guns.

As I covered in my recent preview, you’ll need to think more deeply about your moves in Borderlands 4, compared to previous games. Shields are flimsier and break relatively easily, and you generally have a bit less health. To counteract this, you are now able to heal on-the-go with regenerating health packs, and you do get access to a greater array of abilities, with more ranged capabilities. It means you’ll need to be more on-your-toes and active in combat, taking steps to avoid damage while running and gunning. You’ll also need to pay attention to your health as it’s whittled down, making sure to heal yourself when you’re able.

No matter where you go, you’re usually facing a challenge. With a friend by your side, this is slightly easier, as damage remains persistent as long as somebody stays alive, but there’s still a fair fight whether you’re travelling solo or with a friend.

In either mode, Borderlands 4 is a wildly enjoyable romp, with a raft of systems that work smoothly together. It’s not without friction, in terms of its high challenge level, but it all serves a greater purpose, feeding into a cohesive and mature narrative about escaping tyranny (it’s a story that perhaps feels more relevant than it should, in the modern world).

It was most clear to me that Borderlands 4 was a worthy franchise successor in its opening moments, when a devastating death was met with a resounding, awful silence – one that might previously have been filled with an alienating joke. This game lets its darker moments sink in, for an all-round more compelling, highly-staked adventure.

_{A PC code for Borderlands 4 was provided by the publisher and played for the purposes of this review.}

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