The release of Borderlands 4 is almost 6 years to the day since the last game in the series, making it the second-longest stretch fans have had to wait between entries. Coincidentally, Borderlands 4 is also arriving at a time when the franchise is at a bit of a crossroads, with Gearbox hoping to pull back in players who were turned off by Borderlands 3 while also iterating upon the successful looter shooter formula that’s kept the IP going strong for more than 15 years. For the most part, Borderlands 4 largely succeeds by focusing on the core elements that have always drawn players back to each new entry, but its attempts to move on from the contentious Borderlands 3 are a mixed bag.
On the one hand, Borderlands 4 is far less grating than Borderlands 3 in terms of its writing, characters, and plot. Tonally, it’s more consistent with the original Borderlands than any other entry in the series, and it’s a better game for it. On the other hand, the attempts to walk back the franchise after Borderlands 3 have resulted in Borderlands 4 losing some of the best endgame content that made its debut in the third entry, though there are some incredible new additions that longtime players will be excited about, especially those who play through each entry multiple times across all the available Vault Hunters.
Ultimately, Borderlands 4 might be the best game in the series since Borderlands 2, and it feels like Gearbox’s “back to basics” approach with the franchise seems to have paid off. The campaign is a tightly-paced experience with an actually interesting story, the best villain in the franchise since Handsome Jack, and the most intuitive (and least frustrating) map system that the Borderlands games have ever had. Its endgame starts strong and loses some steam due to the scant amount of content available at launch, but Gearbox’s plans to flesh out that aspect of the game and keep players entertained for the foreseeable future positions Borderlands 4 as a strong value proposition that fans of the series should be mostly satisfied with.
For Better and For Worse, Borderlands 4 Leaves Borderlands 3 in the Series’ Rearview
If you’re one of the many players who were turned off by the over-the-top humor and cringeworthy characters of Borderlands 3, the good news is that Borderlands 4 does its best to try and act as if that game never happened. While there are references to the events from six years ago, they’re mostly broad strokes that set up how the core cast of characters have found themselves gone from Pandora and marooned on Borderlands 4‘s new setting, Kairos. Accompanying that change in scenery is a surprisingly interesting sci-fi story that connects to the larger Borderlands lore, but is mostly a self-contained affair with a villain who creates real stakes: The Timekeeper.
Millennia before the events of Borderlands 4, The Timekeeper arrived on Kairos and discovered a Vault, which ended up bestowing some time-focused powers to him that granted dominion over the entire planet. The Timekeeper uses this authority to exert his will over every inhabitant of Kairos, turning it into a planet-size panopticonic prison with himself as the warden at its center — the Ascension Tower. When a new gang of Vault Hunters stumbles upon Kairos in hopes of cracking into its fabled Vault, things predictably go awry, leading to the player’s chosen Vault Hunter needing to ally with the people of Kairos in a desperate bid to break The Timekeeper’s Order and get to the center of that tantalizing treasure vault he guards.
Most players will be coming into Borderlands 4 with the sentiment that they don’t play these games for their stories, but that Gearbox has provided us with a surprisingly solid sci-fi plot, some interesting side characters, and the series’ most compelling villain since Handsome Jack is a nice bonus. And when it comes to the love-it-or-hate-it humor the Borderlands series is famous for, things are refreshingly toned down in Borderlands 4 from the series’ tongue-in-cheek peak of Borderlands 3. What was previously eye-roll-inducing in Borderlands 3 can now surprisingly elicit genuine laugh-out-loud moments in Borderlands 4, though you can expect to still find plenty to get exasperated by if the Borderlands series’ humor has never been your cup of tea.
While the changes to story and tonality in Borderlands 4 are a refreshing departure from Borderlands 3, what’s less exciting is the gameplay-centric content that was cut from the series’ last entry. In particular, Borderlands 3 had one of the better endgames in the series, including some of the franchise’s best new activities that made the post-campaign loop the most exciting part of the experience. Borderlands 4 leaves all of that behind in favor of a more streamlined approach to its endgame, and — at least in its immediate launch window — it ultimately ends up being slightly less satisfying because of it. While it’s understandable to want to eschew everything players disliked about Borderlands 3 in an attempt to make Borderlands 4 a “return to form”, it’s a shame that Gearbox threw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater.
The 4 New Vault Hunters and Skill Trees in Borderlands 4 Are Some of the Best Yet
One change that’s consistent with each new entry in the Borderlands series is the addition of 4 (or more) new Vault Hunters for players to get to tackle the game’s campaign and endgame with, and Borderlands 4 immediately impresses with one of the best collections of playable characters since Borderlands 2. There’s Rafa the Exosolider, Vex the Siren, Amon the Forgeknight, and Harlowe the Gravitar, and each of them is as fun to play as the next. While these characters mostly fulfill their typical archetypal roles within the Borderlands gameplay loop, the ways that Borderlands 4 differentiates their kits and gives each three distinct Action Skills open up some truly impressive buildcraft potential, especially once players complete the campaign and crack into the Ultimate Vault Hunter endgame mode.
After trying out the Prologue with each of the initial 4 Vault Hunters, I settled on using Rafa thanks to his feeling like a cross between Borderlands‘ Roland and Borderlands 2‘s Zero. Rafa’s place as an Exosoldier meant that his three Action Skills were each tied to the robotic exoskeleton attached to his body, which meant opting for either the Arc-Knives, Peacebreaker Cannons, or APOPHIS Lance. Each has its merits based on a particular playstyle, but ultimately settling on the Peacebreaker Cannons — shoulder-mounted turrets that have pinpoint accuracy and can last longer after landing critical hits — was a choice I never looked back on. That Rafa gets an inherent bonus to any shock or caustic damage on top of the other bonuses provided by his skill tree presented a clear path to domination on the battlefield that was all too much fun to chase down throughout Borderlands 4‘s campaign.
But that was just one of the potential build paths that could’ve been pursued with Rafa, and for just one of his three action skills. The skill trees in Borderlands 4 are impressive in terms of both their power curve and their flexibility, to the point where you’re rarely ever left feeling like you’ve wasted a skill point or don’t notice an immediate boost in power after allocating one. For the first time in the series, Borderlands 4 even lets players skip the campaign entirely after completing it once, letting you create a new Vault Hunter that jumps to level 30 and hops right into the Ultimate Vault Hunter endgame mode, creating the perfect playground for players looking to create new and exciting builds across all four Vault Hunter classes. Leveling up a Vault Hunter and seeing how their skill trees help shape combat is one of the best parts of the Borderlands series, and it’s something that Borderlands 4 leans into wholeheartedly.
Borderlands 4 Nails the Series’ Formula by Sticking to the Fundamentals
Along with the big, exciting additions that Borderlands 4 makes to the series’ core gameplay loop and progression curve, it surprisingly also brings a lot of smaller quality-of-life changes that are entirely welcome. First and foremost, the map in Borderlands 4 is a vast improvement over Borderlands 3‘s nigh-unreadable layout, which makes the act of hopping from one end of the world to the other so much more enjoyable than it’s been in previous entries. Accompanying this more streamlined navigation is a dramatically improved vehicle and driving system, which makes hopping in and out of vehicles and zooming across the open-world of Kairos way more fun than it’s ever been on Pandora.
The actual looting and shooting also happen to feel fantastic. Guns handle differently from one another — both from type to type and even across different manufacturers — and they drop with such frequency that you’ll rarely ever get bored with one particular weapon. It’s worth noting that, between levels 20-30, I racked up so much purple-colored loot that I had my pick of exciting new weapons to choose from, only for that loot pool to dry up as soon as I hit level 30 and was almost finished with the campaign. But, once I broke into Ultimate Vault Hunter mode and started the endgame in earnest, Legendary loot began dropping with almost reckless abandon.
Put another way, Borderlands 4 places a premium on fun, and it makes sure to shower the player with it at every opportunity like so much rainbow-colored loot. If you’re coming into this latest entry with the intention of playing through the game with friends, I can also report that Borderlands 4‘s co-op feels as great as the series’ always has, reaching the same highs of Borderlands 2‘s multiplayer and having just the right amount of enemy scaling to coincide with the size of the player’s party.
Our time with Borderlands 4 was entirely on PC, where the pre-launch build experienced very few issues. While some have already reported instances of crashing or shoddy performance, our experience was mostly issue-free, save for the occasional slowdown when respawning or when traversing the open world on the back of a vehicle. That said, the rig we played Borderlands 4 on was well above the recommended specs, meaning players should use their best judgment when determining whether their setup can effectively run the game.
Additions to Borderlands 4’s Endgame and Movement Will Make it Harder to Revisit Past Entries
To say that Borderlands 4 will make it almost impossible to go back to older entries in the series is not hyperbole. On top of the aforementioned changes and additions that the newest game in the series brings to the table, Borderlands 4 provides the player with new traversal abilities that make getting from point A to point B in the series’ first “true” open-world just as much fun as the looting and shooting. A grapple hook, double jump, and jetpack are additions that also allowed Borderlands 4‘s level designers to get crazy with the environment’s verticality, and they even have some utility during boss fights that transform those encounters into Destiny 2-style platforming puzzles with some combat sprinkled in. Borderlands 4 takes on a bit of movement shooter DNA, and there’s no going back.
And that’s to say nothing of the ability to skip Borderlands 4‘s campaign, which is an interesting proposition. While it’s great to be able to hop straight into the endgame with a new Vault Hunter, Borderlands 4‘s campaign is so good that it almost feels like you’re missing out on doing so. Still, for anyone who plays through a Borderlands game to get to the endgame loop and focus on a particular build, Borderlands 4 has you covered in ways that will make revisiting a past game harder. Borderlands 4 is ultimately “more Borderlands“, but it understands that assignment so well that it ends up being the best the series has felt in over a decade.
Borderlands 4
Reviewed on PC
8/10
- Released
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September 12, 2025
- ESRB
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Rating Pending
- Engine
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Unreal Engine 5
- A back-to-basics approach to the Borderlands series that focuses on the elements that matter most
- Surprisingly compelling sci-fi plot and interesting characters, including a great villain in The Timekeeper
- Some of the most flexible and rewarding buildcraft of any Borderlands game
- New movement abilities and map design make getting around Borderlands 4’s open world a blast
- A lack of compelling endgame content in comparison to past entries
- Some frustrating losses stemming from Borderlands 4’s attempts to retcon Borderlands 3
Borderlands 4 releases September 12, 2025 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. The Nintendo Switch 2 version is set to release on October 3, 2025. Game Rant was provided a PC code for this review.
