A return to form for the franchise back towards one of the best looter shooters in feel and format
BORDERLANDS 4 provides a welcoming romp for experienced vault hunters while moving in a slightly more serious direction and adding new elements of gameplay to keep its cell shaded heroes feeling lighter on their feet and faster on the trigger.
The difficulty has been ramped up a tad in the new version, the gap between our heroes and the minions they are supposed to be mowing down is a lot smaller than in BL3. It actually feels a lot like BL2 which is high praise.
The new villain moves away from the critically panned juvenile streamers the Calypso Twins of the third entry, once again providing a foil with a “Space Hitler” style big bad in the form of the The Timekeeper. The stakes are higher here and the mission for the vault hunters is far more critical.
For this play though I am joined by two Borderlands Veterans, Kris Paljetak on Amon the Forge Knight, Kyle Dubbelman as Rafa the Exo-Soldier and myself on Vex the Siren.
Amon provides a great combination of all our favourite bemuscled, honor bound heroes of the past decade, with Kris frequently quoting Kratos whenever using the hero's battle axes (The venn diagram for axe enjoyers here is basically a circle).
Rafa creates less of a visual impact on the battle feild than his mates, filling in the standard "soldier" role this time around that is a staple of the Borderlands series. Looking forward to see what he can do in the late game.
I have much more to say about Vex, and so does GearBox apparently. She is clearly the star of the cast, getting more promotional material than any of the other Vault hunters. I chose her because she gets a pet (a no brainer really) and specced her out for for the maximum cat all day every day. Trouble (The cat’s name is Trouble) is always ready to throw down but refreshingly you have a bit more control of how they impact the fight than previous pet classes in the series.
For now I have them on assassin duty, on command they can deal massive critical hit damage to a single enemy. Although as with most AI companions in looter shooters - his programing could use a little work. He's often off somewhere eating faces while I’m getting my butt whooped.
The whole package is blemished slightly with the inventory and item management systems which are usually a standout feature in the BL franchise. Different gear like shields and grenades used to have a clear design language in past games - it's just not entirely crystal what is what here.
The menu also lags and stutters a bit too much for my liking, even Kyle with his monster PC experienced a lot of jutters and lag spikes when moving in and out of the menu.
That being said Kris experienced no such problems on his console, with performance that was buttery smooth.
“PS5 baby” - Kris Paljetak 18/09/2025 1107 AWST
A stand out early mission for us was a quest for CLAPTRAP where we are tasked with finding what remains of the previous iterations of the Borderlands Franchise. It's a trip down memory lane with a surprisingly thoughtful ending where CLAPTRAP waxes lyrical about what the past means and how it could affect the future.
A surprising tone shift from his usual inane nonsense (don't worry Claptrap 'fans', you can mute him via slider in the menu options).
Borderlands 4, remains at least for my group, a familiar place to be with many new things to do. A large world to explore and save, while talking the same shit that we did while playing the old versions. Borderlands continues the tradition of being an extremely fun looter shooter that is at its best when played in co-op with mates.
A copy of BORDERLANDS 4 on PC was provided to SIFTER for the purpose of this review.
