9.0

Review: Borderlands 4

First impression: Chaos as old

Borderlands 4 is back with its distinctive mix of explosive action, absurd humour and a crazy amount of weapons. The game takes place on a new planet called Kairos, where you as a Vault Hunter fight against the mysterious Timekeeper. Although the formula remains largely familiar, the fourth part feels like a fresh, flowing experience that remains true to the roots of the series.

Story and Setting

The story is as you might expect from Borderlands: not deep, but sufficient to drive you forward through chaos. You play like one of four new Vault Hunters, each with unique skills. The antagonist, the Timekeeper, misses the charisma of previous bad guys like Handsome Jack, but fortunately his accomplices bring more flair.

The planet Kairos is divided into four large zones that feel like an open world, despite short charging screens. The world is full of side missions, random events and secrets to discover.

Gameplay and Mechanisms

Borderlands 4 is a loter-shooter at heart. The gunplay is tight, the skilltrees are extensive and the weapons are creative and over-the-top. Think of shotguns firing fireballs or snipers hitting multiple enemies at once. The game excels in co-op: playing together creates organized chaos and hilarious moments.

New RPG elements and action skills provide more variety, but the core remains: Shoot, close, upgrade. The balance between solo and co-op gameplay is good, although Gearbox encourages you to also do side content for better loot and extra levels.

Visual Presentation

Graphical is Borderlands 4 colorful and stylish, with the well-known cell-shaded look. The framerate is stable on consoles, but on PC it is a different story. Despite the impressive visual flair, the game faces serious performance problems on PC.

Technical Problems on PC

The PC version of Borderlands 4 got a flood of criticism on release. Even high-end systems like the RTX 5090 had trouble getting stable framerates. Players complained about crashes, stuttering gameplay and poor optimization. Gearbox responded with a Nvidia Optimization Guide and a Day 1 patch, but many problems remain. Although I played on the ps5 I found this important to mention. (We enjoyed ourselves very much, by the way) 

Critical Reception

Critics are mostly positive. On Metacritic the game scores 84/100 and on OpenCritic even 85/100 with a 97% approval score. Many reviewers call Borderlands 4 a “back to form†However, there are comments: Enemy variation is limited and the open world sometimes feels empty

Verdict Patrick (Editor)

Borderlands offers for me a lot of fun has great graphics contains fun humor a healthy dose of side quests and nice storyline and what's huge to me is the open world aspect it really fits well with a game like Borderlands