Borderlands 4 Review – The Unstable Vault

Borderlands 4 is a first-person looter shooter developed by Gearbox Software. Following the announcement of the game at Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards ceremony, the lead-up to the game’s launch was, for lack of better terms, a struggle for Gearbox. Despite Borderlands 3 pushing the looter shooter envelope, it still soured the entire Borderlands community’s sentiment regarding the series. They did not do much to gain goodwill afterwards, with the launches of the somewhat good Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, the poorly received sequel to Tales of the Borderlands, and the disastrous movie. They had a lot to make up for to their fans, myself included, and somehow, with this game, it paid dividends.

Borderlands 4 is not just a game better than the previous entry that has been relentlessly mocked over the years; I would say it’s better than the second game as an all-around package. It is a title that stands on its own two feet while reinventing itself in brave and sometimes lackluster ways. It has a fantasy story, a well-crafted setting, and riveting characters that gripped me during so many of its well-executed story moments. Borderlands 4 is a worthwhile experience that was thrilling from beginning to end, with its ever-impressive shooting, looting, and side content.

Developer & Publisher // Gearbox Software, 2k
Platforms // PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
MSRP & Release Date // $69.99, September 12th, 2025
Reviewed On // Xbox Series X

Kairos, The New Frontier

We are not on Pandora anymore. Borderlands 4 takes place on Kairos, a world once shrouded from the rest of the universe by a mysterious being known as the Timekeeper. After the events of Borderlands 3, the moon of Pandora, Elpis, breaks that shroud, allowing for a band of new Vault Hunters to land on the planet. The Vault Hunters are then captured by the Timekeeper and his army, the Order, and thrown in prison. In this prison, the Vault Hunter has a Bolt screwed into their necks, allowing the Timekeeper to see and control them.

When the Vault Hunter is set free by a member of the Crimson Resistance, they are let loose on Kairos to get their revenge on the Timekeeper and three ruling figures across Kairos itself. But the story is not just centered around the simple A-to-B revenge plot.

When tackling the other ruling figures across Kairos, such as Sol in the Fadefields or Lictor in the Terminus Range, you will be treated to many side characters and their struggles. Rush, the leader of the Outlanders, is in a continuous struggle against Sol. He keeps everyone’s spirits up, but shows how much of a toll it takes on his personality. Meanwhile, in Terminus Range, you meet with Calder, who has you retrieve an artifact to rally the main town before meeting with Amara to track down Lictor.

Borderlands 4 not only takes its time with character introductions and individual plot threads, it also excels in its cinematic approach for important story cutscenes.

A Cinematic Approach for Borderlands 4

There is a lot of meaningful cutscene integration into many moments in Borderlands 4. Such as meeting the Timekeeper for the first time, where the tone and presentation made the Vault Hunters feel powerless. The cutscene also featured fantastic motion capture to convey someone who looked down on someone as they took away their free will.

Every cutscene fits the mature tone the game’s rating warrants. With shocking turns of events that made me feel worried for the characters, as the outcomes felt unpredictable. Going alongside this, Borderlands 4 also has stellar voice acting from every character. I cannot recall a single bit of weak line delivery, whether it was in side quests or important story moments; everyone gave it their all, especially the Vault Hunter I played as, called Rafa.

Rafa is voiced by Alejandro Saab, who has been featured in many big titles from Hoyoverse, Atlus, and even Square Enix. His performance was serious, edgy, and funny when it was warranted, like everyone else in the game, due to the shift in writing in Borderlands 4.

Balanced Writing

Borderlands 3 was mocked for its parody-like writing, and rightfully so. Borderlands 4 only has bits and pieces of that “funny” writing as a result. The main story, and a good chunk of the side content, leans more on mature writing, with some comic relief where it’s warranted. Any jokes during the story felt like “Gallows Humor“. Just a way for characters to cope with the situations around them.

Outside of that? Borderlands 4 makes it clear from the get-go that it’s a mature story with interesting sci-fi themes. Seeing Amara become a “crazy cat lady” from being isolated for years actually made sense while characters like Calder feel understandably angry over his people’s complacency. I loved every performance, and I never looked at my phone or wanted to skip a line of dialogue or cutscene.

The rest of the game focuses on Siren Lore and actually digging into the deeper picture around the mysterious Eridians. Borderlands 4 had my attention from start to finish in its ~20-hour main storyline. I felt scared, intrigued, and happy during so many different moments. It felt refreshing, and it is the biggest goal this game achieved. It proved that Gearbox can write an actually good story.

From Levels to an (Almost) Truly Open World

Kairos in Borderlands 4 is an open world, as opposed to having individual levels. This was risky, but it is both hit and miss. Exploring is seamless; you’ll see large stretches of the green fields of the Fadelands, the icy mountains of Terminus Range, and the jagged, desolate cliffs of Cascadia Burn with their own visual identities to soak in and random enemies in between.

But between story missions and side quests, there are plenty of mini activities to find and do. Such as speakers to hack and kill enemies, patrols and bounties that give loot and XP as rewards, and my personal favorite, Rift Champions. Rift Champions are open-world bosses that appear in translucent bubbles around certain locations.

Killing them causes loot to shoot out of their bodies like a fountain. It was exciting to pick up all the loot and see what I could use and what I could sell. Outside of these, the speakers that spawn waves of enemies to fight against, and even excavators that offer parkour challenges. My favorite thing to discover while playing was the Eridian audio logs that told the story of the first Phase Leech siren.

There are also dungeons and boss lairs to discover. Such as mines filled with wildlife, bunkers that are owned by the Order, and drill sites infested with Psychos. Each one is handcrafted with different layouts, enemies, and bosses. Some of which can have more than one, and sometimes a trio to take down. Borderlands 4 was not playing around with its approach to difficulty, and every boss poses their own memorable challenges.

Encore! Encore!

Borderlands 4 really upped the game when it came to everything boss-related. Every single boss drops tons of loot, with dedicated legendary drops in unique arenas and extra chests to open after killing them. Where the game ups the ante is with the new “Encore Machine”. The Encore Machine is stationed outside of every arena. When you walk up to it, you can spend cash to respawn that boss to fight it again on demand. In the chest room, there is also a portal to send you back to the Encore Machine and the associated vending machines to sell the loot you collect. The loop is simple from then on. Press the button, kill the boss, loot, sell, repeat.

This is one of the best changes in Borderlands 4. Every time I found a new boss, I would just keep farming it until it dropped a legendary, no matter how long it took. There is virtually no friction in this process, and it is very addictive as a result. The bosses are no slouches either. You either have Eridians in the Vaults that felt like taking on mythical dragons. Then you would have big psycho heads on spider legs, a trio of flying Tinks, and even giant mammoths with a bus on its back, with psychos firing at you from it. Gearbox absolutely outdid itself with the boss designs and how you can farm them.

Gun Licensing in Borderlands 4

Borderlands is known for its loot, and Borderlands 4 went in yet another exciting direction. The guns in the game have a very new and exciting idea to keep the loot chase exciting. That is by making “Licensed Parts” from different gun manufacturers. Obviously, you can still find plain Jane Jakobs western pistols, Maliwan elemental guns, or Torgue weapons that fire rockets. But with the Licensed Parts system, this is where Borderlands 4 gets crazy with its loot.

Imagine if you will, a Jakobs pistol with the Children of the Vault’s unlimited magazine function that lets you fire until the weapon overheats. If that doesn’t sound crazy enough, you could find a Tediore assault rifle that you can throw to reload that also has a Hyperion shield to absorb damage when you aim down sights and use an alternate fire that fires rockets from an underbarrel attachment. I also found an SMG that fired fast with torgue rockets and also had a flamethrower that I could activate at will.

The legendaries in Borderlands 4 can also have these parts rolled into their unique function. Some legendaries can fire explosive potatoes, summon literal space lasers, work like the Doom Slayer’s Super Shotgun, and even a Ghostbusters-themed gun that uses your shield for ammunition. Gearbox somehow reinvented how guns work in their universe, and did it very well.

Reinvigorated Gameplay and Customization

The final bit of changes in Borderlands 4 is regarding the new movement and traversal tech. Outside of having the ability to double jump, float, and summon your vehicle on demand, you also have a very useful grappling hook. It can bring you above copious amounts of ledges, grab explosives, and even fish. The same cannot be said for your new vehicle. You collect different “drives” for different stats that aren’t noticeable, and the new swimming feature isn’t used in interesting ways when you travel.

Every Vault Hunter also comes equipped with unique action skills, and Borderlands 4 raised the bar with this batch of Vault Hunters. The character I played the most with was Rafa. Rafa can either have a Mega Man-style blaster in his hand, equip arm blades, or summon cannons on his shoulders to fire at foes. I bounced between all three of these skills. I loved the blaster, but gravitated towards the arm blades to bully bosses to death since I could stun lock them with the blades, and then settled on the shoulder cannons for their auto aim assistance.

Customization is also touched up a little bit in the game. Swapping styles for your Vault Hunter, Echo-4 drone, and vehicle is easy and noticeable. While adding skins to weapons is still on a per-weapon basis instead of one universal option. I do not understand why applying skins to guns cannot be universal and easy, while the other options are simple.

Four Guns and an Ordnance

Adding on top of the customization in Borderlands 4 are the changes to equipment. In this game, you can equip four different standard guns and 1 “Ordnance”. The standard guns can be snipers, assault rifles, pistols, SMGs, and shotguns. Ordnance can be anything from miniguns, rocket launchers, throwing knives, and grenades. Ordnance functions on a cooldown, and while miniguns and rocket launchers sound like no-brainers, I instead loved using throwing knives more. This is because they can deal critical damage and cooldown almost instantly. Plus, throwing a knife at a psycho’s head and watching it pop off was always satisfying.

Shields and class mods function almost the same as previous entries. The biggest changes to shields are that they can either revolve around energy or armor. Energy shields still cooldown like normal, while armor shields regenerate in blocks over time. With this in mind, there is a unique shield that deploys missiles at enemies every time a block is broken. Class mods no longer have specific gun buffs, and those are now relegated to relics. Relics can buff certain classes of guns, while class mods can offer damage buffs or action skill cooldown enhancements. The customization is nuts in this game, and I still feel like I have not found the perfect build for my Rafa.

The Gritty Iconic Comic Style of Borderlands 4

Borderlands 4 looks as gorgeous as ever. The sleek and colorful comic style translates very well to the open world of Kairos. NPCs all have distinct looks depending on which region you are in. Such as the Outbounders having more minimal rogue-ish clothing, while characters in Terminus Range all have robes and fancy headwear. The enemies, from the psychos to the wildlife, all have a distinct flavor to them.

Psychos all have that classic baggy pants with masks that have glowing eyes. While wildlife, like Manglers, are akin to panthers. Kratches are flying creatures like Rakk’s from previous games. While Wildhorns are like Mammoths, and can be a callback to the Rakk hive from Borderlands 1, just with more variations. Kairos felt like a wild and interesting new frontier to tame, and I loved seeing familiar designs with new takes.

Sweet Noisy Ambience

Borderlands 4 is just as “noisy” as its previous entries. You will hear psychos shouting funny one-liners. For instance, I only heard this line once, but a psycho claimed he was going to kill me, then his wife and her boyfriend, which made me pause, and I had to get my laughter out. Manglers are very silent when attacking, while Kratches have distinct wing flapping noises that warn you before they attack you.

The guns are where the audio design shines. It is a looter shooter, so the guns have to be impressive. Every type of gun had its own distinct sound. Ripper weapons sound subtle and plastic-y, while maliwan guns sound like they are squeezing the elements out of their barrels. The sound design for Rafa’s arc knives also made them feel electric with heft to them.

The only disappointing part of the entire soundscape is the music. There are standout tracks that feel western-y, but a lot of the music gets drowned out in the action. None of the music sounded poorly, but they felt designed to be background tracks.

A Nightmare Under the Hood

The state that Borderlands 4 launched in is unacceptable. I did not play on PC, but heard nothing good about the PC version. In fact, in a recent patch, it has gotten worse. However, on console, specifically the Xbox Series X, the game launched with a consistent memory leak that tanked performance. As a fix, I kept going to the main menu and reloading my character to fix the performance issues every hour or two. While this is not ideal, it still worked in my 60 hours of playing. This allowed for silky smooth gameplay at 60fps before the memory leak kicked in.

In the aforementioned patch, consoles now have a field-of-view slider, and in my time playing since the patch dropped, I have not noticed any performance issues, which may indicate that the memory leak is fixed. To the game’s credit, however, I never experienced a buggy quest, crash, or freeze. The only other issues I noticed were icons for guns and other equipment not loading, texture streaming problems, and the water in Terminus Range loading in weirdly sometimes.

The state the game launched in was so bad that Gearbox had to indefinitely delay the game on the Nintendo Switch 2. While I am still addicted to the game, Gearbox should not have launched Borderlands 4 as it is. No post-launch patches can make up for that.

Underwhelming UI and Difficulty Options

The UI in Borderlands 4 is an interesting new take that feels like a step down from previous games. Where previous entries felt like you were looking at a small and concise menu projected on screen, this game feels like a run-of-the-mill menu layout complete with a Destiny 2-style cursor. Navigating took some getting used to, but it still feels like an odd step backwards. Especially when you need to hover the mouse over dedicated currency and ammo tabs to see how much you have.

The options for Accessibility are decently implemented. With text size sliders, font color options, and color blind options. Borderlands 4 essentially just has the “normal” suite of options, nothing truly special.

There are also difficulty settings that I highly recommend reading carefully. My playthrough was on hard, and it made the elements of guns matter way more than raw damage stats. It is stated that Hard gives better rolls on weapons. However, I could never tell what “better loot quality” meant, especially in the endgame. I would have hoped for more XP and better drop rates instead of choosing that punishing option. The risk is noticeable, but the rewards feel unclear.

A Disappointingly Messy Endgame

The endgame for Borderlands 4 is its own separate beast that is clear and sounds fun on paper. But has many little issues that snowball into making it feel messy and disappointing. After finishing the story, you will be given a quest to complete challenges to go from Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode rank 1 to rank 5.

The problem here is that each rank feels the same. It is never shown how guns and gear benefit from either rank. While the weekly activities are either reruns of story missions with a guaranteed legendary or a weekly “Big Encore” version of a singular boss to farm. It feels like a foundation for things to come, but when you buy a house, you expect more than the foundation itself.

Final Thoughts on Borderlands 4

Borderlands 4 is a gorgeous, incredibly well-crafted experience on the gameplay and story fronts. With many innovations in the series, farming and gun rolls. As well as very cool action skills for every character. However, the state the game launched in makes it very hard to recommend to people who are suffering on PC. The console experience feels like the best way to go if you want to play it. But, even then, some of the icon loading, texture streaming problems, and being unsure if the memory leak that plagues the console version is resolved make it an unacceptable launch for such an exceptional game.

I think I speak for the game’s community when I say that everyone would have waited longer if it meant having a flawless experience day one to enjoy discussions across every platform, not just leaving many feeling isolated to their selfish addictions. The noise is hard to cut through, and there is a brilliant, timeless game here, one that I will be playing for many years to come, despite all of the problems.

Final Score: 7.5/10

Pros:

• Incredible Story
• Mostly Mature Writing
• Beautiful Graphics
• Fantastic Gun Rework
• Cool Action Skills
• Innovative Boss Fight System

Cons:

• Technical Issues
• Clunky UI
• Hard Loot Quality Unclear
• Underwhelming Gun Skin Customization
• Music Doesn’t Stand Out
• Lackluster Endgame