Borderlands 4 assessment — Simply freakin’ enjoyable – GamingTrend

Borderlands is again. Once more. AGAIN!
Borderlands has put us into the boots of Vault Hunters since 2009. Meaning Claptrap is sufficiently old to have a driver’s license. In that point, we’ve skilled the maniacal Good-looking Jack, the enduring Mad Moxxi, and the bombastic Tiny Tina. Sadly, in recent times, reception has been considerably extra tepid amongst followers with the Calypso Twins leaving a bitter style in our mouths. I am excited to say Gearbox redeemed this franchise with Borderlands 4.
Welcome to Kairos, a verdant planet filled with chaos and strife, dominated by the Timekeeper, a tyrant who forcefully implanted cybernetics into the mind stems of his inhabitants so he can bend their wills to his Order. The Vault Hunters journey to Kairos seeking the vault, and the vile tyrant captures and implants his cybernetics into the Vault Hunters. They be part of the Crimson Resistance and do every thing of their energy to see the planet’s freedom renewed.
I just like the premise behind Borderlands 4’s story. In contrast to the Calypso Twins, who have been unbearable, the Timekeeper and his cronies are well-written, correctly motivated large bads, and every faction chief working to regain their independence is relatable in their very own approach. Nice care has been taken to make the 4 Vault Hunters vigorous, likable characters as nicely. In my 40+ hours with Amon, I used to be regularly impressed with the brute’s sharp wit and eloquence. It felt like Gearbox designed a wrecking ball with a monocle and nice comedic timing.
Borderlands 4’s principal missions have been crafted with care, every delivering an journey that whisks the participant round Kairos with intention. That mentioned, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tackle the aspect missions. To my nice shock, they’re usually given as a lot love as the primary story. These are a lot greater than “go right here, kill factor.” They’re written in a approach that it is price listening to, just like traditional Borderlands or Borderlands 2 missions. They’re comical, outrageous, surprisingly emotional, and inform parables.
Borderlands’ gameplay loop has largely remained intact from its inception. You’ll select a Vault Hunter and strike out, capturing and blasting your approach throughout the panorama, slaughtering psychos and different aggressive life on the best way, all whereas looking for candy loot. New to Borderlands 4 is the inclusion of a “heavy ordinance” slot. This successfully enables you to develop your grenade slot to incorporate throwing knives (a private favourite that may dissect enemies with ease) or a heavy weapon (like a laser), which gives extra welcome selection to interact with. Borderlands 4 gives every character 3 talent bushes to make use of and develop. There’s a big breadth of choices inside a single talent tree, although, so when you could play a personality a technique, another person might play them in a completely completely different style, and I believe that’s improbable.
Out of the gate, gunplay in Borderlands 4 feels nice. Touchdown headshots and seeing vital harm pop up by no means will get outdated, and it’s immensely satisfying to observe your enemies’ well being bar drain as you pour a variety of harm into them. Fight is chaotic, with enemies usually swarming from in all places. This requires you to maneuver nicely and goal true – a system that feels chic when it’s at its greatest. Sniper rifles ship satisfying cracks, SMGs give the sense of holding a ballistic chainsaw, and shotguns really feel appropriately chunky and hard-hitting. Getting dropped in the course of a tense state of affairs, then touchdown the killing blow for a “Second Wind,” by no means stops feeling good. Borderlands 4 additionally added just a few new mechanics to boost the general expertise. Borderlands 4 has added a gliding mechanic for masking lengthy distances and a lash/whip mechanic that permits you to attain new heights or grapple objects to throw in fight. Mixed, these give the sport an thrilling new sense of verticality, significantly when tackling fight in numerous environments. It feels nice.
When it comes to uncooked firepower, acquainted weapons producers make their return. Every firm has distinctive traits in its numerous weaponry. When a Torgue shotgun hits the bottom, you already know I’m going to be throughout it! With Borderlands 4, we are able to now get weapons from one firm that has licensed components from one other, permitting mechanics to bleed into each other for extra highly effective combos. Whereas I’ve but to search out many licensed weapons that match my liking, I like that so many potential combos exist. We’re going to be chasing god rolls for years to come back. As you spend time accruing new gear, you’ll invariably fall in love with just a few combos. I’ve discovered just a few methods I like enjoying with Amon, however I can’t wait to proceed experimenting to search out what potential he actually has!
As with every new Borderlands title, we get 4 extra Vault Hunters to play with. Vex, this entry’s Siren, has vampiric, spooky talents to tear her foes aside with. Amon, the Forgeknight, wields elemental axes and shields that may get him into the thick of fight or let him choose foes off from a distance. Harlowe, the Gravitar, makes use of gadgetry to guard her associates and destroy her foes. Rafa, the Exo-Soldier, makes use of high-tech weaponry, together with built-in cannons, to decimate every thing in his path. Regardless of your playstyle, there shall be one thing right here for everybody, and sometimes, relying on the way you construct their abilities and kit, every character will be performed in a variety of types. Exploration and trial is a large, satisfying half that Borderlands 4 followers will love attending to expertise. I’ve personally been drawn to Amon and his elemental axes. His talent tree supplied every kind of choices for tackling the twin blades, however I opted to soup up his freezing capabilities and passive harm, whereas incomes bonuses to fireside weaponry as a synergistic perk. Watching a number of the different GT staffers, just a few issues rapidly turned clear: placing some brainpower into your construct and supplementing it with acceptable gear can flip you into an absolute machine, and dang it, I need to absolutely expertise all 4 Vault Hunters and their loadouts to the fullest myself!
Talking of exploration, Borderlands 4’s Kairos is an enormous open world full of websites to see and occasions to uncover. The sport does a wonderful job of maintaining you engaged with various things to do as you journey. Borderlands 4 offers gamers the possibility to seize vault keys and discover vaults on Kairos, which provides a welcome sense of gameplay which means to being a Vault Hunter. Order bunkers, that are hidden all through Kairos, have been a neat probability to discover and mess around with mechanics that aren’t spelled out for you. The world options a number of safehouses you’ll be able to filter out and declare. You’ll at all times need to do these, significantly since they’re not too troublesome and add fast-travel factors all around the planet. One factor I acquired a selected kick out of was the addition of randomly-spawned “world boss” encounters that pop up, every housing a limited-time crack at some brutally difficult enemies. You solely get one probability at them, since dying or leaving the bubble causes the boss to de-spawn, nevertheless it ramps up the problem in an thrilling approach!
Whereas previous video games have featured the “Catch-A-Journey” buildings for spawning autos, Borderlands 4 has opted to streamline the method by letting you digitize a private automobile on demand. Whereas these don’t pack the firepower of a 2-4 participant buggy or tank, they offer you a fast, near-instantaneous method to get round Kairos with out having to hoof it all over the place. It’s good accessing faster journey choices that allow you to discover, however on the finish of the day, I’d virtually somewhat take the Skyrim method of hoofing it to a wider array of fast-travel factors. The added personalization with the autos is good, however I form of miss them having any actual vital firepower.
Many potential Vault Hunters are going to surprise about Borderlands 4’s post-game. Beating the marketing campaign will permit gamers to play “Final Vault Hunter Mode.” This unlocks a complete new Specializations talent tree, which I’m comfortable to say lets me take pleasure in extra of these dopamine rewards and a deeper degree of customization. On high of that, gamers will get entry to a set of particular weekly challenges with the promise of beefier loot. For these of us fascinated with post-game content material, that’s nice information! One mission per week did initially appear just a little quick on providing, however when you think about they will take over an hour, it makes a bit extra sense. I wouldn’t sometimes need to play that greater than as soon as per week. The weekly boss battle challenges are a good way to lean into post-game content material, particularly in case you’re on a time funds and need a fast, enjoyable expertise. We’ll additionally must work as a neighborhood to trace down Maurice’s merchandising machine – a facet I believe will play nicely to of us like me who loved Future’s fixed Xur location juggling. I acquired a kick out of additional personalizing my construct with the firmware modification system. I’m additionally stoked to listen to that, per the post-launch roadmap, we’ll get a wholly new gear rarity known as Pearlescent, invincible bosses (not actually, however they’ll have insanely excessive well being), and extra are slated for the approaching months. They’re guarantees I’ll be comfortable to return to when the time comes.
Borderlands 4 is nothing if not a wealthy audiovisual expertise. The sequence’ signature comedian e book artwork type is on full show and extra putting than ever. Characters, bosses, gear, and environments all look unimaginable. The sport’s soundtrack is banging, significantly when you’ll be able to really feel it pumping into your ears throughout intense fights. 
I need to make it some extent to significantly name out the sport’s voice work. To every of the voice actors concerned with the sport, congratulations! Borderlands 4 options unimaginable voice work, and the expertise behind the characters has finished a wonderful job bringing Kairos to life. Borderlands wouldn’t be the place it’s as we speak with out top-tier performances, and Borderlands 4 continues that custom. From the Vault Hunters to villains to of us that do psycho battle chirps, it’s all improbable.
Sadly, for every thing Borderlands 4 does proper, it nonetheless feels closely harried by a variety of technical points and a few awkward design choices. After ending main story beats, the sport requires you to journey again to a zone entrance and activate a zone-swap earlier than you’ll be able to fast-travel to the key hub you’ll invariably need to entry. We additionally bumped into some weird situations the place the sport would advocate completely different journey paths to our crew when going to the identical spot, which was significantly weird since it will take a teammate up a mountain path whereas it guided me on a wastefully lengthy loop round the mountain and up the other aspect. Music would often drop throughout boss fights. There are different instances the pathing seemingly doesn’t present up in any respect.
Extra egregiously, in our time enjoying collectively, the GamingTrend crew encountered a bunch of technical points, all enjoying on PC. I had an occasion the place I killed a boss, died instantly, and was spawned in a location the sport refused to let the story acknowledge. This required me to fast-travel elsewhere and manually work my approach again. One in every of our crew members inexplicably misplaced a number of hours of story and character progress when the sport rolled again to a earlier save state in a single day. Unfold from the Japanese US to the West Coast, we skilled a variety of lag points enjoying collectively (and the entire crew was enjoying on gigabit and fiber connections). We even had one occasion the place we did an Final Vault Hunter weekly mission, sat via all of the pointless repeat story dialog, and as quickly as the sport went to reward us, my associate’s recreation crashed, and he was denied his weekly rewards. In a recreation constructed round grinding content material with different individuals to maintain itself, these points are a big turn-off. Gearbox will launch a day-one patch, which is able to, hopefully, tackle these points
Borderlands 4 returns the sequence to its roots. The sport’s sense of fashion is immaculate, the humor hits usually, and the voice appearing is improbable. Whereas the story doesn’t do something to interrupt new floor, it’s a well-written, gratifying narrative that had me exploring Kairos for dozens of hours. The fixed deluge of loot stored me looking out for the subsequent cool factor, every character’s abilities are enjoyable, and there have been loads of choices to customise my construct. Fight feels frenetic in a fascinating approach, and the gunplay feels improbable, making for a fascinating gameplay loop that stored me coming again. Sadly, the sport has some design choices and technical points which have stored it from greatness, however I’m hopeful they’ll be rapidly resolved. In case you’re a fan of Borderlands, looter shooters, or only a good time, Borderlands 4 is one you undoubtedly don’t need to miss.
With improbable visuals, top-tier voice appearing, wonderful comedic writing, and an addictive gameplay loop, Borderlands 4 is simply freaking enjoyable. Whereas not groundbreaking, the story of Kairos and the Timekeeper is well-done and interesting. Regardless of some technical points that may hopefully be resolved rapidly, Gearbox’s newest is a recreation followers gained’t need to miss. It’s good to have Borderlands again.
This assessment relies on an early PC copy supplied by the writer. Borderlands 4 comes out on September 12, 2025.
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