Customer Ratings & Reviews

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.

Fast, Fun, and Full of Loot. The storyline is amazing, the side missions and story’s have been great, I’m having an amazing time. the overall experience is a lot of fun—especially in co-op. Love it!

Great game that stays true to the franchise’s gameplay and humor style.

Was an amazing game would definitely recommend it great series

I got the game 5 day late and the case is damaged because of fedex screwing me over again why fedex why ups is better fedex is the worst delivery service ever ups is better im sick of fedex do better

I want to start of saying that I have played every game in the franchise as split-screen co-op with my friends and brothers as for this title it lands somewhere between the 2 and 3rd game in quality closer to the 3rd in my opinion the gameplay is slightly improved and the story as well but it feels way to open world just for the sake of it and while it’s not as obnoxious with its characters like 3 none of them are memorable or interesting an example of the open world problem is they will give you one objective then you drive 7000meters to get to another objective then drive 4000meters to the next everything just feels spread apart to help pad the runtime the performance is very bad it runs at 20-30 frames on split screen mid game the performance will only get worse as you gain perks and weapons with crazy effects gameplay wise though the movement is very fun if you’ve played cyberpunk 2077 it reminds me a lot of that with a double jump and air dash that keeps your momentum up getting new loot and shooting down big bads will always be fun but that’s all this game has going for it I’d give it a 6/10

This game has improved on a significant number of issues that Borderlands 3 had, opting for an open world with more cohesive writing, toned down (though still ultimately Borderlands-y) humor, and streamlined UI. However, the game feels rushed, filled to the brim with bugs that have made me quit to main menu and reload multiple times. Some of the Vault Hunter abilities feel borderline useless, while others feel overpowered. And ultimately, while the open world is interesting, it segments each area off of each other. I really wish that the world interacted more with each other, instead of feeling like they're off in their own worlds. It's a fun experience with friends, not quite sure if it's worth playing alone.

First time playing Borderlands and it did not disappoint! I bought this game to play split screen with my wife and have been having a blast. The characters are cool and the adult humor is funny. We play on PS5 and it's running pretty good! I would recommend this game especially if you plan to play split screen!

Great game. Similar to the previous ones but updated.

Great game! Fun to play and great graphics. Highly recommended

Fun game. Fast paced. Good solo player game. Enjoy

Decent game, about as good as the other Borderlands games made. The amount of guns available is crazy though. Im not a big gamer and really only like FPS I would recommend if someone wants to pass some time playing something different.

Amazing graphics awesome gameplay cool story and last but not least nice cooperative play

It's an OK game. I play easy levels and I still die a lot, of course I am an older person with limited hand eye coordination. I don't know if there is much of a story line, but I am only 5% done with the game.

Im about 30% of the way done with the game and it doesn’t disapoint. Game looks and plays like a finished game and not the buggy games that have been coming out lately and play like a beta release. If you have enjoyed any previouse releases then this is a must have.

Borderlands has been around for well over a decade, but it hasn't worn out its welcome. Such a fun game!

If you are a fan of the Borderlands franchise this game is more of what you love! GUNS GUNS GUNS! New zany characters you can play to get more guns, new traits to make those guns more valuable, new ways to use those guns to mow down your enemies!