Chaos evolves on Kairos with the series’ best gunfeel, wild new movement, and smarter loot—dragged down by PC performance stutters and a story that can’t quite keep pace with the guns.
If Borderlands 2 was a loot geyser and Borderlands 3 was a loot waterpark, Borderlands 4 is the moment Gearbox strapped a jetpack to the waterslide and yelled “parkour!” The fourth mainline entry jets off Pandora and throws you onto Kairos, a new world under the cold bootheel of a tyrant called the Timekeeper. The looter-shooter DNA remains intact—guns still spill like confetti and numbers still go brrrr—but Borderlands 4 adds far more expressive movement, a deeper loot system, and a sleeker open-zone structure that makes the grind feel newly alive. It’s also a technical handful on PC at launch and, narratively, it still treads the thin line between loud and loud-ish.
The Setup: Kairos, the Timekeeper, and a Revolution in Waiting
The premise is straightforward Borderlands: overthrow an overbearing regime, scatter some bandits, and crack a Vault or three. Kairos itself is the real star—a patchwork of faction-held territories and points of interest you can reclaim to loosen the Order’s grip. It’s a framing that supports freeform exploration and naturally occurring side-quests rather than hub-to-hub shuttling. The Timekeeper, a meticulous dictator with an eye for surveillance and control, provides a cleaner antagonist than BL3’s meme-forward villains, even if the game’s one-liners still whiff as often as they land.
Meet Your Four New Agents of Mayhem
Gearbox hands you four fresh playable Vault Hunters, each with three Action Skills and branching trees that encourage distinct builds:
- Vex, the Siren—a Phase-wielding menace who can spawn spectral minions and lean into crowd-control or raw gun damage based on attunement.
- Rafa, the Exo‑Soldier—a kinetic brawler whose Overdrive state juiced by Action Skills turns him into a sprinting blender; yes, Arc‑Knives are very much a thing.
- Amon, the Forgeknight—a tanky, cyber‑enhanced bruiser who manifests axes and shields from Forgedrones and can boomerang a forgeaxe that returns flaming.
- Harlowe, the Gravitar—a status‑savant who “entangles” targets, spreads cryo, and chains radiation explosions with alarming glee.
It’s a strong roster—a bit more archetypal than BL3, but with trees that make it easy to steer toward min-maxed mayhem or comfy co-op utility. Official voice casting (Ray Chase, Kimberly Brooks, Judy Alice Lee, and Alejandro Saab) also gives the quartet welcome personality without drowning them in quips.
Movement: Parkour, But Make It Borderlands
The biggest feel-change isn’t in the loot—it’s in your legs. Borderlands 4 adds double-jumping, gliding, dodging, and grappling, letting you slingshot through arenas, reposition mid‑fight, and chain mobility into damage windows. That nimbleness maps cleanly onto the series’ chaotic combat: leap to a vantage point, hook across cover, slam a skill, and keep the crit parade rolling. Once you acclimate, going back to older entries feels like someone turned off sprint.
The World: “Less Borders, More Lands” (And a Hover Bike)
Rather than a stitched-together set of smaller arenas, Kairos is built for seamless roaming with fewer loads and more diegetic reasons to wander—reclaimable safe houses, faction caches, and silos that double as traversal toys (we’ll let you discover those). Your Digirunner—a summon-anywhere hover bike with swappable drives—makes crossing biomes painless; your ECHO‑4 drone points the way and doubles as a mobile locker. The net effect is that Borderlands’ eternal side-errands feel properly open‑world, not checklist‑y.
Under the hood, Gearbox moved to Unreal Engine 5 and leaned on World Partition, Nanite, and Lumen for bigger zones and flashier lighting/weather. The upside is obvious the moment storms roll across a vista or you watch neon ricochet off chrome; the downside is… well, we’ll get there.
Loot: The “Licensed Parts” Shakeup
Guns are still Borderlands’ headline act, but BL4 subtly rewires how they’re interesting. There are eight manufacturers in play—including new names like Order, Ripper, and Daedalus, alongside stalwarts Jakobs, Tediore, Maliwan, Vladof, and Torgue—and the new Licensed Parts system lets a weapon inherit behaviors from multiple brands. Think a Vladof bullet hose that also Torgue‑splodes on reload, or a Hyperion‑shielded Jakobs hand cannon that ricochets crits. Higher rarities can roll more licensed parts; you can’t hand‑craft them, so the drop chase matters again. It’s smart, it’s silly, and it restores that “what did I just pick up?” dopamine BL2 stans evangelize about.
A quick nod to the revamped kit: Enhancements (artifact‑adjacent items) can buff specific manufacturers or parts, and there’s an Ordnance slot that runs on cooldowns, which means you’ll actually use your heavy toys instead of hoarding rockets “for the boss.” Together, they freshen loadout Tetris without turning the menu into a graduate course.
Gunfeel & Combat: The Best It’s Ever Been
Consensus from early critics is clear: gunplay slaps. Recoil signatures feel chunkier, elemental procs telegraph more cleanly, and mobility makes every fight a playground instead of a shooting lane. Even reviews that ding the story still call BL4 the most mechanically sound entry to date, and the aggregate on day one backed that up with a mid‑80s Metacritic—second only to BL2—before user reviews began dinging performance (more on that below).
Co‑Op & Quality‑of‑Life
Co‑op remains 4‑player online across all platforms, with 2‑player split‑screen on PS5 and Xbox Series and level‑scaling that keeps mixed parties from feeling like carry sessions. Cross‑play uses your SHiFT account, and the overall flow—drop in, do a thing, get a thing—remains the franchise’s secret sauce. Simple, social, satisfying.
The Story: Better Framing, Familiar Foibles
BL4’s tone dials down the “streamer satire” and doubles down on a resistance tale—less smug, more stakes. The Timekeeper works as a central foil and the supporting cast gets solid moments, particularly as you reclaim territories and stab at the Order’s infrastructure. Still, the writing doesn’t always match the excellent combat; punchlines can be paint-by-numbers, and the series’ trademark bombardment of banter is an acquired taste that not everyone will acquire. Critics are split: many praise the ride, several shrug at the script. We land somewhere in the middle.
The (Big) Caveat: Performance, Requirements, and Console Friction
At launch, PC performance is the elephant riding the hover bike. Steam user reviews dipped “mostly negative” early thanks to crashes, stutter, and inconsistent frame pacing, even on high‑end rigs. A ~2.7GB day‑one patch helped stability for some, but didn’t fully tame hitching—likely a side effect of UE5’s CPU‑heavy features. Meanwhile, minimum specs are steeper than your average looter shooter: 8‑core CPU (i7‑9700/Ryzen 7 2700X), 16GB RAM, RTX 2070/RX 5700‑class GPU, and 100GB on an SSD; the recommended bar hits 12th‑gen i7/Ryzen 7 5800X and 32GB RAM. If your PC is below the line, Gearbox (and Randy Pitchford himself) cautioned the experience may be “unplayable.” Ouch.
Consoles fare better, but they’re not spotless: at launch, PS5/Xbox versions lacked an FOV slider and a motion‑blur toggle, and the default FOV (around 70) made some players queasy. Gearbox says fixes are coming; for now, it’s a notable miss in 2025.
If you’re eyeing the Switch 2 port, it lands October 3, 2025—which is a wild sentence to type—and we’ll reserve judgment on performance there until it’s in the wild. But yes, it’s officially on the calendar.
Endgame & Post‑Launch: Reasons to Keep Shooting
BL4 ships with the series staples—challenge ladders, difficulty tweaks, and build‑crafting loops—and Gearbox has already sketched a post‑launch roadmap with two Story Packs (each adds a new Vault Hunter), four Bounty Packs, and a cadence of free updates: “Invincible” bosses, weekly challenges, a returning Pearlescent rarity, and seasonal mini‑events (hello, “Horrors of Kairos”). If you loved BL3’s DLC flow, expect a similar drumbeat here—just more integrated with the open‑zone structure.
Editions, Platforms, and Price—Quick Guide
- Platforms & dates: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC are out now; Switch 2 arrives Oct. 3, 2025.
- Editions: Standard, Deluxe (Bounty Pack Bundle), and Super Deluxe (adds the Vault Hunter Pack with two post‑launch Hunters). GeForce NOW support is also in the mix.
- Co‑op: 4‑player online on all platforms; 2‑player split‑screen on PS5/Xbox Series; cross‑play via SHiFT.
Verdict
Borderlands 4 doesn’t reinvent Borderlands so much as let it breathe. The traversal overhaul is a revelation; the Licensed Parts system restores that “loot surprise” thrill; and encounter design finally embraces verticality and speed. The story is better framed but still uneven, and the PC version’s performance drama is the one big, flashing red flag. If you’re on console and can stomach the launch‑week FOV/motion‑blur omissions, this is an easy recommend. On PC, make sure your hardware clears the unusually high bar—and maybe glance at a couple patch notes before you commit. Still, when everything clicks, this is the most fun Borderlands has felt since 2012.
Scorecard
- Gunplay & Buildcraft: 9/10 — Crunchy recoil, expressive skills, loot that surprises.
- World & Exploration: 8.5/10 — Open‑zone flow and traversal make the grind sing.
- Story & Characters: 7/10 — Cleaner villain, livelier structure, jokes still hit‑and‑miss.
- Performance & Polish: 6/10 (PC at launch), 8/10 (console at launch)—subject to patches.
- Overall: 8.5/10 — Licensed to thrill, stalled by stutter.
What We Loved
- Movement finally matters: grapples, glides, and double‑jumps unlock new combat lines.
- Licensed Parts loot keeps drops exciting far into the endgame.
- Post‑launch plan includes new Vault Hunters and meaty free updates.
What Made Us Grumpy
- PC performance is volatile on a surprising number of rigs—even some monsters.
- Console QoL gaps (no FOV slider/motion‑blur toggle at launch) shouldn’t be a 2025 problem.
- Story spark still flickers under the muzzle flash.
Should You Play It?
- Yes, now if you’re on PS5/Xbox and can live with the missing FOV toggle until patched. The gunplay alone is a weekend‑eater.
- Yes, with caution on PC if you meet (or beat) the 8‑core/16GB/RTX 2070+ baseline—keep expectations measured until further optimization arrives.
- Wait for impressions on Switch 2 (arrives Oct. 3).
