BORDERLANDS 4 | REVIEW | PC/STEAM

''VAULTING INTO ACTION''

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Developed: Gearbox

Published: 2K Games

Genre: Looter Shooter

Release Date: Sept 11th,2025

Platforms: PS5/PC/Xbox family/NSW 2/EPIC Games

*Review copy provided by 2K Games and GREEN MAN GAMING

GET BOTH Standard and Deluxe versions on PC now with Green Man Gaming for STEAM or EPIC GAMES! Standard: https://greenmangaming.sjv.io/BL4Standard Deluxe: https://greenmangaming.sjv.io/BL4Deluxe

Borderlands 4 is the newest installment into the wild series known as Borderland and it is developed by Gearbox and published by 2K Games. With 6 years passing between the release of Borderlands 3 and now Borderlands 4 with some controversies in between, Gearbox decided its time to attempt to right the ship and give fans another taste of the world they have a crafted. But, is Borderlands 4 a fun continuation of the previous trilogy? or should they go back to the drawing board and try again later? Only one way to find out, so lets go!

''THE WHOLE SQUAD LAUGHIN''

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GAMEPLAY:

The long wait is finally over and we finally have another entry into the Borderlands series and while I haven't reviewed anything from the franchise other than the Tiny Tina spin offs, I have actually played most of the titles, all except games like Tales From The Borderlands since by that time, I was already over the gameplay style of Telltale Games and moved on from those types of games.. I say as I play games like Life Is Strange for the 500th time. My history with the Borderlands series is pretty much a mixed bag, while I loved both Tiny Tina spin off games and even Borderlands 1 and 2, part 3 really didnt do anything for me, like at all. I don't think it was the bottom of the barrel type of game, that wasn't in, but it just felt so different than the first two main series titles and didn't really have that ''Borderlands'' type of energy or feel to the story or gameplay for me, which might be a hot take depending on who you ask and talked to. But to be fair, I'd rather play Borderlands 3 ANY DAY of the week over being made to watch the actual Borderlands movie again, even bleaching my eyes couldn't remove it from my sight, I'm forever tainted. But if I went into playing this game in a huge crabby mood then I probably wouldn't enjoy it much due to the pre-determined bias, so I chose to put all my feelings aside and go into playing Borderland 4 with a fresh out look and a clear mind and honestly, despite some hiccups here and there, I did have a relatively fun time throughout the journey. Here in Borderlands 4 you take control of... 4 Vault Hunters, because of course you do and as usual you lay waste to mutants, bandits and all other masked crazies that come at you like the time I posted on Twitter that I think Kingdom Hearts might be a tad bit overrated, same thing, just this time in video game form and not social media toxicity. Once again, defeating enemies not only gets your experience points to level, but since this is a looter shooter, you also get goodies from drops of enemies killed to sort through in order to find just the right weapon combination you wish to go with based off strength, fire power, reload speed, accuracy, etc, all of which came into your possession fast and early due to the drop rate of better enhanced weapons and rare drops that are...well... rare. Just like its rare for someone to understand the Kingdom Hearts Story. Ok I'll stop, this isnt even a Square-Enix game, I gotta calm down with the pot shots at the franchise. I mostly stuck with basic handguns and varied machine guns for the most part as I prefer pop shotting enemies for easier headshots and to conserve ammo over just pulling a Rambo and blasting away hundreds of bullets within seconds like a lunatic, and much to my surprise overall, movement, sliding and running has been changed from Borderlands 4 and WAY smoother this go around and it makes the hundreds of shootouts that you get into feel even more chaotic and fast paced as you try not to die, like the 50 times I almost died, which forced to have a ''last stand'' to kill an enemy before my character completely bit the dust, so that I may resurrect immediately and finish the fight. I really need to learn how to use cover by now.

The main baddie this go around is an authoritarian leader who rules the land and Kairos with an iron fist with his power and his followers, that go by the name of The Order. Timekeeper in my opinion is one of the more formidable foes to ever step foot into the light of main series villain in this entire franchise due to how menacing he comes off as from the first time you see or encounter him and in order to take down a villain of such substance as he is, only the mightiest and strongest of Vault Hunters are recruited for the task of bringing him to heel with the expansive variety of skill branches and each Hunter also getting their own Action Skills per Vault Hunter as well, letting you customize each individual one in brand new ways, making each playthrough with one, feel like a fresh new experience. Me personally I chose to play as Vex who's stand out power allows you to summon ghost like allies to your side to fight with you as her special power alongside multitude of ways to use forms of mobility like using a hook shot to grab a far ledge to zoom to an enemy, or if you're in trouble and need a fast get away, hook shot away fast, or even glide through the air to also make a hasty getaway... which honestly was my preferred method. Why? well for one thing, its not something I can actually crash doing for once, even though it did give me PTSD of my times crashing in Pilotwings 64, but still, moving and bobbing and weaving through scatter shot as you get close to your foe, using a hook shot to reign in closer, and melee them to the face and proceed to empty a clip in them, its just so damn satisfying and makes you feel like a total bad ass when you pull it off completely. If you aren't sold on the gliding and sliding and ways to move about just yet, don't worry, once you start actually getting into the exploration of the map itself, you'll definitely become a fan as you use your Digirunner to zoom across areas like Fadefields that has gorgeous beaches, rolling hills and vibrant looking forests, Carcadia with its large scaled canyons, Terminus with its large mountain peaks or Dominion with its heaven reaching monument to the Time Keeper himself, showing his control over the entire area and population, etc. It just leaves you wanting to explore more and more and get even more curious to secrets you may find and uncover and make you want to yell ''NOW THIS IS PODRACING'' as you fly at high speeds on the Digirunner Rover... and yes, to get it out of the way, I did crash it. I'm telling you, I'm cursed, I dont know what else there is to say. Other than the updated game mechanics themselves, exploring is probably my favorite aspect in thie game because you can find so much by just roaming around and see sanctuaries, pick up more quests to take on, find hidden vaults that offer fighting in arena sized battles and seeing huge guardians - its all just awesome to see. My only main gripe is the lack of diversity in the button mapping, especially during highly intense combat because even with ALL THE DAMN BUTTONS on an XBOX controller, that I use when I play on PC, evading, slamming and even ducking, all share the same button, which will make you screw up and die every now and then because of it. Like seriously, all these buttons to choose from, PICK ONE, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING.

The games difficulty system is going to either make a lot of people happy or piss a lot of people off because the more you level up, so to does your enemies, meaning its all scaled to your level and power, so if you were hoping to get super over powered and plow through the entire game, think again because thats just going to work against you and you'll end up fighting dozens of enemies just as strong or stronger than you are at any given moment in time. This can be a tad bit annoying though, at least it was for me, because while level scaling isnt TOO much of a gripe for me, some enemies get buffed up and increased in difficulty the further you get into the game to the point of making some fights almost seem unfair, which makes you have to compensate and find other ways to win, even if its in a very cheap way because leveling yourself to be able to stand toe to toe with them won't make any difference at all, again, due to all enemies scaling alongside your leveling up. By the time you reach the end game after the rather enjoyable story that goes through the usual comedy of the Borderland series with funny quipping, seeing all the different personalities of each Vault Hunter, action packed cutscenes, outside of those, getting to the end game is sort of... a slog. What do I mean by that? well it's a weird middle ground for me, on one hand the game is fun as hell with its gun playing and mobility and great enemy variety, especially big boss battles, but once you start getting into the latter half of the game and enemies scale higher than you, ever bottle feels like an eternity with EVERY enemy becoming nothing more than a meat shield to absorb all your damage and your brawls against bad guys that used to take 3 to 4 minutes at most, will sometimes drag on for over 20 minutes because not only is their health bar absurd and you do less damage, they also have multiple phases of evolutions to take down as well, which in turn makes the game slow down to a snail pace, completely flipping the premise set up for the game in the first place based off mobility and speed. Its like watching me pull through a drive through, hyped up because I'm so dang hungry and know I'm going to get a number 5 combo large with curly fries and then once I hear ''WELCOME TO JACK IN THE BOX HOW CAN I HELP YOU'' I turn into a blabbering relaxed brain zombie like ''UHH...UHHH...UHHH...give me a second''. That's Borderlands 4 in the second half of the game, me at a drive through.

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''ANAKIN SKYWALKER IS A SCRUB''

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OVERALL:

At the end of the day, Borderlands 4 for ended up a way better experience than my time with Borderlands 3 was. Obviously I have my issues with balancing issues with scaled combat leading to meat tank bad guys that makes fights dragon too long, one button on the controller using like 3 or 4 different mechanics, etc, however with fast and intense gameplay overall, varied enemy types, diverse landscapes to explore on your map as you drive your Digirunner, better mobility, Vault Hunters all feeling unique, fun and engaging campaign story with familiar faces returning, seamless drop in play multiplayer that allows you to form groups with friends to go on your own adventures against mobs or titan fights, it all just feels like such an upgrade compared to Borderlands 3 and honestly feels like THIS is the true entry to the third game in the series, not the 4th and I think that's saying something, controversy aside. So with all that having been said, my verdict is clear, GameNChick says BUY NOW

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