Playing with an open world Borderlands game was something I was skeptical about when I first heard of it, but I wound up enjoying the environments and overall design of Borderlands 4 significantly more than I had expected, at least outside of the invisible walls placed everywhere in the mountain range area, which is kind of cruel.
We already saw GiN Reviewer Neal Sayatovich’s take on how Borderlands 4 plays on consoles, and he did run into a lot of bugs. This was to the point that even though he is as diehard of a fan of the series as you will find, he was still disappointed with how the title turned out. I was playing on the PC through Steam, and I had a much better and more fun experience. So, I thought I would give you my take and review on the game, or specifically the PC version of it because I did have a really good time.
Still, though, I found Borderlands 4 to be a bit of a mixed bag overall, but I was able to laugh off most of the more annoying bugs that I encountered simply because I was playing with a friend. That is how Borderlands is meant to be enjoyed: with an irreverent companion who persistently steals your kills to prevent you from using your kill skills. We had activities and side quests that broke, waypoint guidelines that outright refused to work properly, and quite possibly the worst inventory system in the history of looter-shooters.
Sincerely, Borderlands 4’s inventory is an abject failure of design that requires you do multiple clicks to even see the items you’ve picked up, and the game practically necessitates you mark items as junk in order to sell expediently. This “junk” system would be fine and dandy if the inventory UI actually marked the correct items as junk when using the keybinds to do so. You can wind up selling guns you have no intent to get rid of because junking an item in the third row or lower of your inventory can instead junk the item two rows above it. It happens consistently to every single person who plays this game, and that shows a clear lack of appropriate quality assurance (QA) work on top of all of the other bugs and performance issues that players have had to deal with.
That said, even though I had numerous side quests break, challenges and achievements that unlocked without my doing anything, and more, I still had a ton of fun gunning it up in Kairos with my friend. The story is inoffensive this time and a lot more of the satire the series is known for is more subdued, likely an overcorrection after how badly Borderlands 3’s story was received (and for good reason).
The thing is, venturing across Kairos, rapidly collecting new gear, and trying your new weapons out on every single enemy that pops up in front of you is just a fun gameplay loop, and that’s still present here. Borderlands 4 is effectively the gunplay of Borderlands 3, which I consider to be best in the series, without the albatross around its neck that is that game’s story. The Vault Hunters in Borderlands 4 speak a lot more regularly and have more defined personalities this time around too, which is a change that I really enjoy.
My recommendation for Borderlands 4 is that the bones of something decent is there, but maybe wait until Gearbox gets some more patches out of the way before you jump into it. Currently, there’s basically no post-game content, lots of bugs, and performance issues abound. But with the smallest amount of QA and playtesting, Gearbox can easily evolve Borderlands 4 to become one of the best titles in the series.
So, while I enjoyed my time in Borderlands 4 immensely, enough to have 120 hours in the game after just a month, you should probably wait to play until it gets a little bit more development time. Yes, the gameplay loop of Borderlands sank its claws into me in ways that made me continue to play despite being annoyed at least once an evening because loot fell into the floor, the Lost Loot Machine was broken, or because I fell through an elevator or something.
I would still recommend Borderlands 4 to others, but only after looking up what patches the developer makes to the title. Maybe give them a few more weeks to let it cook even more. There is every possibility that it really could become something pretty special.