I have been a Borderlands fan a long time since I played the first game. I even showed my now ex-wife how to enjoy Borderlands 2 with me through couch cooperative gameplay. One year, I even made her a Borderlands themed gift box that looked like a lootable box from the series. Inside was a Borderlands novel, shirt, and the latest Borderlands title in it. I have played every main Borderlands installment minus Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. When I found out that Borderlands 4 was coming out, and then everyone bullied Gearbox into charging $70 instead of $80, I was waiting with bated breath. I ponied up the money, started the game, and was ready for a fun or even a spectacular experience.
Unfortunately, this was one time when this beloved series let me down.
I also want to warn everyone that there will be a lot of spoilers in this review, so if you have not yet beaten Borderlands 4, I would recommend doing so before you read the rest of this review. Also, my experiences are with the PlayStation 5 version of the game. Apparently console players are subject to a few more bugs and things like that compared with those enjoying the game on the PC. In fact, fellow GiN reviewer Vincent Mahoney, who is playing Borderlands 4 on the PC and apparently enjoying the experience much more than me, will be doing a follow-up review for the PC version. His take on things and his overall score will likely differ quite a bit from mine.
Okay, let’s begin. We should start off with the good parts of Borderlands 4 because there is a lot to appreciate, especially when you first start playing. And for that, we turn to the sound design, which includes the voice acting, music, and effects. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the sound design for Borderlands 4 is the best of the entire series.
For example, when you are falling, the wind drowns out everything else and sounds like when you roll down your car window while speeding down the interstate. The vehicles also sound like they will fall apart at any moment, which goes with the theme of the world and the atmosphere of the adventure. When coming off of a boost, you can hear your engine rattling like it was haphazardly built, protesting and sounding like it will fall apart. The sound really helps pull players into the game, which is nice since even with AAA titles, the sound design is sometimes overlooked. All of the voice acting in Borderlands 4 is also really good, and as Vincent mentioned in his recent column, the voice actors all get a lot more to do now with the Vault Hunters, which is another feather for the title’s cap.
Unfortunately, Borderlands 4 is rife with bugs, at least for console players. These run the gamut from annoying to game-breaking. How many times have you had to reset a game on the console due to lockups or freezes? Because it happens a lot here, which is annoying given that I was just trying to enjoy this new adventure on the PlayStation 5, and I was constantly prevented from doing so for long stretches of time before some bug or error ruined the fun.
The first bug I noticed was more of a soft lock and dealt with the siren character, Vex. I was using a clone build focusing on corrosive damage. One ability shot a little skull out whenever I dealt damage. Sometimes the skull circled me for twenty minutes (instead of going away after dealing damage) while making the loud whooshing noise to the point where I could not hear anything else. This also happened with other effects. Whenever I got shocked, the shock animation at the corners of the screen would sometimes keep doing their electrocution flashes and sounds long after the encounter was over. I could either play through with it or reboot the game. This happened a lot.
Then there were also optimization issues that plagued my playthrough. For example, columnist Vincent Mahoney and I did cross play with him on the PC and me on the PlayStation 5, which was really cool until everything started crashing. We had a great time for about ten minutes before Vincent realized that his gun was not firing fast enough. It was a big enough slowdown to be really noticeable. He was also doing less damage per bullet, like the title could not keep up with his build or something. Eventually, gameplay slowed down too, and then just locked up and crashed. This also happened to me in single player mode sometimes where frame rates would drop and eventually stop, a classic sign of a memory leak where the only solution is to reset your console.
None of those game-breaking bugs should happen with a AAA title on the console. But they do with Borderlands 4, and it’s frustrating because this is a title that I really want to play for more than ten or twenty minutes at a time.
As if all of this was not bad enough, there are also a lot of baffling or frustrating design choices. First and foremost, the menu user interface for consoles was either designed by Satan or the world’s worst organizer. The joysticks move the selector like a curser, while the directional pad moves menu options in a more traditional way. Everything feels like it takes two clicks more than it should to get to where you need to go. When it comes to looking for a weapon or piece of gear, the default sort is manufacturer, which is worthless. It should be rarity, recency, level, or literally anything else that would make sense for the average player.
Players were also promised a much larger world than with previous Borderlands titles, and sure, Borderlands 4 has a very large open world. However, that world is mostly lifeless and empty save for a few random collectibles. Most of them have little impact on the story. And worse, you have to pick them up and carry them. Borderlands 4 introduced a grappling hook system and made it a core traversal mechanic. Certain collectibles require you to pick them up and walk them back to the nearest safe unlocked house. You can’t fast travel there, drive there, or use your grapple hook. Your only option is to try and toss said collectible up a cliff and then try and follow it, which does not always work.
The supply capsules are the worst example of this terrible navigation. Every time you pick up the capsule, CL4P-TP regurgitates one of the same six lines of dialogue. This title feels like its sole purpose is to waste as much of my time as possible. Your Echo-4 can completely digi-struct (save it digitally so you can use it later) entire computer consoles, but it can’t seem to do the same things for a small capsule. This is compounded by the fact your Echo 4’s navigation is temperamental on a good day. There are times where the hint line you are supposed to follow to your next objective just goes straight into a wall or spins you in a circle. On top of all of this, there is a cooldown on using your help line. It is frustrating to have your Echo 4 just send you off a sheer cliff and make you wait to try again.
The plot and story of Borderlands 4 is an upgrade from Borderlands 3 in that it’s at least inoffensive. The main bad guy is The Timekeeper, who occasionally talks to you via audio, but you spend most of Borderlands 4 getting to know his commanders Idolator Sol, Vile Lictor, and Callis the Ripper Queen. For most of the game, The Timekeeper is kind of an afterthought. Eventually, you do the final buildup mission, and they raise the stakes by possessing the people that you helped, which was supposed to build tension but really falls flat. The story twist involving the final boss is pretty interesting and unexpected at least.
After that, there is practically no endgame content other than wandering around grabbing collectibles. I have nearly earned the platinum trophy for completing everything in Borderlands 4 lest you think I gave up on this title too easily, and truthfully, I really wanted to like the latest iteration of this beloved series. True, I played Borderlands 4 for hours, but I was not really having fun much of the time. We need to understand that “hours played” and “fun had” can be mutually exclusive.
To be honest, for me, Borderlands 4 seems just like Far Cry 4. I do not mean Borderlands 4 is like Far Cry 4, but to me it really does seem like it is Far Cry 4. You roam around an open world and climb towers, do quests for factions, spend hours looking for grapple hook points, and deal with stopping propaganda from an overlord you don’t see until the end of the game.
As much as I wanted to enjoy Borderlands 4, it became my biggest gaming disappointment of the year. Maybe some of these flaws can be fixed with patches, but in its current state this is not the Borderlands 4 that its legion of fans deserves.