Borderlands 4 - PlayStation 5

After five years of waiting, Borderlands 4 finally landed on Kairos in late 2025. Now that we’ve had a few months to let the "lo-fi" dust settle and see how the endgame holds up in 2026, it's clear that Gearbox took some of the biggest swings in franchise history—most of which connected, even if the landing was a bit technical-glitch-heavy.Here is a detailed breakdown of the state of the Borderlands.The Verdict: A Smarter Kind of MayhemBorderlands 4 feels like the series finally "grew up" without losing its soul. By ditching the planet-hopping of the previous entry for a seamless open world on Kairos, Gearbox traded breadth for depth. It's a tighter, more vertical, and surprisingly darker experience.The GoodMovement is King: The addition of the grappling hook, double-jumping, and gliding has completely redefined combat. You aren't just a turret with legs anymore; you're an aerial menace.The Timekeeper: After the polarizing Calypso Twins, the Timekeeper is a breath of fresh, tyrannical air. He’s calm, calculated, and genuinely intimidating—leaning more toward "Gus Fring" than "Internet Influencer."Endgame Flow: No more quitting to the main menu to farm bosses. The Moxxi’s Encore terminals allow for instant boss respawns, keeping the "one more run" dopamine loop intact.The BadPerformance "Tax": The "seamless" world comes at a price. Texture pop-in is still a frequent visitor, and PC players on high-end rigs have reported inconsistent frame rates during high-chaos encounters.Empty Spaces: While Kairos is beautiful, the "High-tech but lo-fi" landscape can feel a bit sparse between major points of interest.UI Clutter: The new menu system, while trying to be sleek, can feel over-engineered and sluggish compared to the snappiness of the older games.Gameplay & TraversalThe "seamless" world is the headline, but the traversal tools are the real stars.Grappling Hook: You can pull yourself to high ledges or, more importantly, "yoink" explosive barrels and chuck them like grenades.The Ordnance Slot: Heavy weapons (rocket launchers, etc.) finally have their own dedicated slot and run on cooldowns rather than burning through your ammo pool. It makes the "big guns" feel like tactical abilities rather than a luxury.The New Vault HuntersNameClassPlaystyleRafaExo-SoldierHigh-speed melee and arc-knives. The "fastest" feeling hunter yet.HarloweGravitarControls the battlefield with gravity wells. Great for solo players.AmonForgeknightThe tank. Summons stationary and mobile turrets (specters).VexSirenPhase-based crowd control. Can summon "Reapers" to fight alongside her. Narrative: Order vs. Chaos Set six years after the Moonfall incident, the story feels more grounded. Your escape from the Timekeeper’s "Bolt" control devices sets a personal tone that the series has lacked since Borderlands 2. The sacrifice of Arjay early on provides an emotional anchor, and having Claptrap as the sole survivor/leader of the initial resistance is a clever (and predictably annoying) twist. The humor has been "dialed back" from the constant meme-referencing of Borderlands 3. It’s still funny, but the jokes usually land through emergent gameplay—like your Vault Hunter commenting on a particularly ridiculous physics-based kill—rather than long, unskippable dialogue sequences.

When I see people being dismissive of the Borderlands series these days, it confuses me. These games typically score in the 80+ range, and if I was to assign a score, mid 80s is where I'd be. In some ways it's "just more Borderlands" but in some of the most important ways, especially where "just more Borderlands" might be derogatory, it isn't. The world is bigger, and it's a single open world now (with a few "dungeon"-analog stand-alone areas). The writing and humor in previous games tended to be of a love it or hate it style, but here it's more restrained and far less uneven, if a little less edgy. The distinctive art style remains, but it's so detailed at this point that it barely feels cell-shaded. First-person shooting and melee is excellent. Loot and upgrades are great. Loved it.

I have played this series since the initial release and was unsure of picking up the 4th one because I did not like 3. I will say it has improved, but still not my favorite entry. I would pick it up if you are a fan of borderlands though!

This sequel is an improvement over the last game, which was fine. Storytelling is nonlinear but still falls into place and the guns are fun as ever. The entire game is on disc which I truly appreciate.

Not as good as the 2nd one but better than the 3rd