The Borderlands series has always stood out among other gaming projects: frantic shootouts, piles of loot, ridiculous jokes, and a bright style that you recognize from the first frame. And now Gearbox is releasing Borderlands 4, which was supposed to answer a simple question: is the formula invented back in 2009 still able to work in 2025? Has it managed to stay afloat, or is it just a fan service for the series’ veterans for a lot of money? Let’s find out.
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The late 2000s was a time when shooters tried to capture the player’s attention in various ways: Call of Duty captivated with the gloss of a summer blockbuster, Halo with its space pathos, and Gears of War with its masculinity and bloody chainsaws. And then, in 2009, Borderlands appeared, looking as if the artist had forgotten that realism was in fashion and had just taken out markers.
A comic book style with a technique similar to sel-shading in a shooter? Against the backdrop of the trend at the time, it seemed strange, but it was this strangeness that made the game recognizable. The combination of Diablo-like loot with FPS mechanics was so fresh that players did not understand how to digest it at first. However, those who appreciated the concept of “a million unique guns” could not stop.
But in 2012, Borderlands 2 was released, and that’s when the series exploded. Handsome Jack instantly became the antagonist that players loved to hate. He was cynical, funny, and so charismatic that even his monologues overshadowed the entire plot. And while the first game was still balancing between experimentation and chaos, the second had a clear formula: desperate humor, tons of loot, and a story that holds on better than gravity on Pandora. No wonder BL2 is still called the gold standard of the series. Do you agree?
Then in 2014 we experimented with the subtitle The Pre-Sequel. Lunar gravity, Australian accents of NPCs, and oxygen tanks — it all looked like a Marvel comic book series: “What if?” The answer: fun, but not enough for the long term. Pre-Sequel showed that the formula can be bent in different directions, but it still felt more like an add-on on steroids than a full-fledged part.
And then suddenly Telltale Games made a maneuver that no one expected: Tales from the Borderlands. No assault rifles, no chaotic co-op — just story, dialog, and sarcasm. And, strangely enough, it worked. Many fans still consider the Tales story to be stronger than the main games. It turned out that the world of Borderlands is so alive that it can withstand even interactive drama without a single loot box.
The year 2019 brought Borderlands 3, and it was already a blockbuster in the full sense of the word. Unreal Engine 4 tightened the picture, the scale grew, and the weapon generator began to produce absurd combinations again. But there was also a lot of criticism: the humor seemed outdated to some, the optimization was lame at the start, and the plot antagonists did not reach the level of Jack. Still, BL3 sold millions, proving that it was too early to retire the series.
And in 2022, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands will enter the scene. This was the wildest experiment: taking the Borderlands template and dragging it into a fantasy world where slot machines come with dragons. And, surprisingly, it worked. Tina, with its schizophrenic energy, became the perfect bridge between the classic shooter and D&D style. Players got proof that the Borderlands formula is flexible enough to survive even magic spells.
Now we meet Borderlands 4.
The plot in Borderlands has always been secondary. The main thing here is the style, action, and crazy characters who shoot jokes like a machine gun. But this time, the developers decided to give the story a little more weight.
Borderlands 4 is centered around a new round of struggle for vaults, which have now become the object of not only gangster ambitions but also serious corporate and even religious interests. Yes, now we have not just psychopaths with chainsaws, but cults with their philosophy, which makes you think a little before sending them into oblivion with another missile right in the face of a bad neighbor.
In the fourth installment, Gearbox continues the tradition of offering the player four entirely different characters. Now it’s not just about choosing a class but finding the one that matches your playstyle.
Siren Vex is the most mystical hero of the four. Her powers are not limited to the usual astral attacks: she can summon ghostly minions to finish off her enemies and even a giant pussy that literally jumps on targets. In the story, this feels like an element of magic that breaks up the sci-fi setting of Kairos, adding a bit of fantasy savagery.
Amon, on the other hand, personifies a down-to-earth approach. He’s a chopper who’s not afraid to get into the meat grinder. He can withstand tons of damage, but instead throws burning or ice axes at enemies, knocks the wind out of opponents with his fists, and covers his allies with shields. It’s a typical “tank” but with a Borderlandsian emphasis on exaggeration: the heavier the better, the louder the more fun.
Rafa is Kairos’ technical response to the idea of the “universal soldier”. His arsenal includes mechanical upgrades: from a spear that literally explodes in the hands of enemies to shoulder turrets and twin energy blades. His character is ideal for those who like balance: both shooting and getting killed. In terms of plot, he looks like a symbol of the fact that man and machine have long since merged into one. Cyberpunk, in a word.
Harlow is a gravity engineer who plays on the field of control. Her gadgets allow her to lift opponents into the air, squeeze them into gravity bubbles, and heal allies while damaging enemies. She is a bridge between chaos and order: someone who can tame the crowd and bring the battle to a rhythm favorable to the team.
All four surprisingly interesting personalities are integrated into the struggle against the Time Keeper, a tyrant who keeps the population of Kairos in the grip of cybernetic implants. And everything is somehow by default, and I want to shout: “You have a boring face!” and not believe in this bacchanalia.
Dialogues in Borderlands 4 are a joy. They remain as sharp and sarcastic as ever, but now with additional layers of meaning. The jokes are not just funny, but sometimes reveal the characters’ personalities. And yes, crude humor hasn’t disappeared, but sometimes its accuracy is even more impressive than the explosion of another damn robot.
We can’t help but mention the secondary NPCs. Some of them finally stopped being walking quest terminals and got their stories. Some of them are really sorry when the plot makes you say goodbye, and some of them you want to see more often. All of this creates a more holistic picture of the world that lives on even when the player is busy shooting.
The satire of the modern world is frank here. The corporations in Borderlands 4 are caricatured versions of real-life giants: one company specializes in subscriptions even for ammunition, while another launches “revolutionary” and “amazing” products that differ only in the color of their cases. It’s easy to recognize the allusions, and that’s what makes the humor even more relevant.
The atmosphere of the Borderlands 4 has become more contrasting. Yes, there is still a crazy post-apocalypse, but now the locations feel different not only visually but also emotionally. Deserts are filled with black comedy and absurdity, swampy planets are more like a horror with grotesque, and megacities shine with neon. It seems that the developers tried to make each new territory a little satire.
An important point of the Borderlands 4 is the pacing of the story. Borderlands 4 no longer tries to keep the player in a “shoot, hit, explode” state all the time. There are also quieter sections where you can explore the world, talk to NPCs, or just catch your breath.
In Borderlands 4, you run, shoot, and collect loot, but you have to do it right, because Kairos doesn’t forgive foolishness. The gameplay here balances between chaotic shooting and tactical thinking.
The system of skills and specialization trees gives you freedom: you can bend your build to suit your style, distribute active and passive skills, enhance effects after kills, and, if necessary, reassign skills and build a new hero on the fly.
The elements are not just numbers in the description of Borderlands 4 weapons. Ice freezes shields, fire sets armor on fire, electricity makes robots “dance,” and radiation grinds away at enemies’ living tissue. Weapons should be chosen not by their appearance, but by which element is most effective at the moment. One assault rifle shoots exactly like the M-16 in de_dust 2, while another is chaotic but deadly.
In Borderlands 4, the character development system has become even more flexible than before. If in the previous parts the player felt limited in the choice of skills, now the approach is more like an ARPG with variations for a specific style of play. Each level brings points that can be invested in branched skill trees. This allows you to either focus on a narrow area or create hybrid but effective builds.
The basis is the so-called active skills. This is not just a “super strike button” but the foundation around which the entire character strategy is built. For example, a player can rely on explosive attacks with an AoE effect or prefer more sophisticated crowd control options. Each active skill has its own development tree, which opens up new effects, variations, and even changes the mechanics of its use.
A nice bonus: any build in Borderlands 4 can be reconfigured in a faction city. While skills are reset for in-game credits, specializations are reset for eridium, which adds a sense of value to the process. This motivates experimentation but at the same time weighs whether the player is willing to spend a rare resource for a new combination.
New ways of moving diversify the game: glider, Digirunner to cover long distances (the controls, of course, are still in the style of Borda, that is, a little arcade and too simple, but it adds dynamics), hook-hook for jumping and throwing objects at enemies. But the frantic drive that I felt in Doom: The Dark Ages. There is no such thing.
The enemies in Borderlands 4 have improved their cognitive abilities. If earlier most of them ran straight into our machine-gun smile, now the enemies know how to flank, use cover, and combine elements. The gangs work as a well-coordinated team: one distracts, the other throws grenades, and the third pulls up with a shotgun in the back.
Despite the feeling that the player is almost an overpowered Jedi, the local bosses quickly remind you who is really in charge on Kairos. Yes, you have to put an obscene amount of ammo into fat carcasses again. This is no longer a discovery, but rather an old tradition of the series. And if at first it is perceived as a challenge, then somewhere in the second half of the game a feeling of déjà vu can roll in, when another “bag of bullets” begins to annoy rather than delight.
Another Borderlands 4 nuance that will quickly become part of your gaming instinct is the “second wind” system (we saw one of its variations earlier this year in Avowed). When your hero falls, a quick kill of a nearby enemy gives you a chance to get back into the fight. So sometimes it’s worth leaving one weak enemy alive — a kind of “insurance” bandit who will become your pass back into the game if something goes wrong.
It sounds crazy, but in Kairos, the tactic of keeping a target for resuscitation can save you a lot of time and nerves, especially considering that checkpoints are not always conveniently scattered. And in Borderlands, it’s almost a separate genre of humor: the enemy you deliberately feel sorry for becomes your personal first aid kit.
There is one more trick up its sleeve. In Borderlands 4, the ECHO-4 drone acts as a multifunctional companion that helps the player navigate the vast open world of Kairos. It shows the direction to the main goals, marks important objects on the map, and interacts with key elements of the environment, opening new fast travel points and access to merchants. But still not as functional as in Stellar Balde.
In addition, the ECHO-4 can be personalized with cosmetic skins and used to improve its inventory. For example, to increase the amount of ammunition on your vehicle. The drone also makes it easy to change the character’s appearance without visiting special stations.
The world of Kairos does not constantly hold the player’s hand, and exploration is rewarded. Teleporters, shelters, faction cities with skill reassignment points, merchants, quests, and boards with bounties for “heads”. All of this creates a rhythm: fighting, returning, reinforcing, moving forward again. If you move slowly, you’ll get less, but for those who get the hang of it quickly, the world offers opportunities.
Random events in Borderlands 4 add to the feeling that you are constantly in a dangerous casino. Once you come across a mini-boss with an arena dome, another time you come across an ambush where enemies are waiting for you to make a move. And all of this is woven into the main cycle of the exploration: the keys to the vaults are not lying just under your feet, they have to be literally knocked out of the world.
Borderlands 4’s campaign is a good school, but when the Ultimate Vault Hunter mode opens in NG+, the enemies will become stronger and the rewards more generous.
Borderlands 4, as usual, doesn’t even pretend to compete with the conventional Cyberpunk 2077 or Alan Wake 2 in photorealism. It goes its own way — a comic book-style picture where thick contours and acid colors create a unique visual effect. But this time Gearbox artists have significantly updated the palette: less “plasticine” textures, more depth and chiaroscuro. The image looks more contrasty and smooth at the same time, as if the comic book had come to life right on the screen.
The world design of Borderlands 4 is strikingly diverse. If the earlier half of the game took place in deserts, now we get a whole gallery of biomes: urban slums, swamp worlds, alien oases, and even space stations.
As always, the PC version of Borderlands 4 is the most flexible. It has DLSS, FSR, and several manual settings that allow you to customize the game to a specific configuration. Owners of RTX cards can additionally enjoy ray tracing, which adds depth to the lighting. It looks spectacular, but it can seriously overload the system.
And what about the optimization? I was playing on my laptop MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XWHG with a powerful Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX and a pre-top 5070Ti Laptop. In the native resolution of 2560×1600 with the Badass preset, we got the following results: with DLAA without frame generation — about 32 frames per second on average, with DLSS Quality — about 52 frames per second. With MFG enabled, performance jumps above 150+fps in massive battles and reaches 180+fps when exploring the world of Kairos.
The animations in Borderlands 4 have also been improved. Enemies move smoother, combat looks more dynamic, bosses have individual patterns and even facial expressions. However, NPCs in cutscenes are sometimes funny to watch. They still resemble wooden dolls when they try to portray drama. However, in a game with such a level of absurdity, this is more of a style feature than a drawback.
There are no critical crashes in Borderlands 4, and this is already an achievement for a 2025 AAA project.
No Borderlands game would be complete without co-op, and the fourth installment once again puts its main stake on it. You can play with four people online or locally via split-screen, and this is where the real chaos begins. While solo players can still plan their actions and carefully choose their equipment, with friends, the whole process turns into a circus of explosions, screams, and arguments about who gets the legendary rifle.
The network code of Borderlands 4 has been significantly improved. There are fewer disconnects, and the loot synchronization works more fairly: everyone gets their share of trophies, so there are fewer quarrels in the chat about who took my gun. More precisely, there will be none now.
Now everyone gets a piece of the pie: loot is automatically distributed to all players separately, so your friendly party doesn’t turn into a pack of hyenas over a golden slot machine. And if you’re a fan of bosshunting, this is where Moxxi’s Big Encore comes into play. It’s a kind of time machine for shooters: you kill a boss, collect the reward —, and in a few seconds you can call him back to battle.
As a result, the hunt for rare guns or unique mods turns into a comfortable cycle: the boss falls, you get excited, start the replay, and so on until your backpack is full of legendaries.
The adaptive difficulty system in Borderlands 4 makes cooperative play even more interesting. If you play alone — the enemies are less durable, but if your friends come in — their strength is boosted, adding more challenge. Rewards also increase: rare items are now easier to get if teamwork is perfect. This forces you to play in sync, rather than running on your own.
Borderlands 4 crossplay works on all major platforms, and that’s a big plus. Now it doesn’t matter what your friend is playing on, because you can jump right into the adventure without worrying about system compatibility.
This allows you to involve more people in the game and keep the excitement in the team. It’s important that the game’s cooperative mode isn’t just about shooting and looting. There is a synergy of classes here: someone keeps enemies frozen, someone shoots heavy opponents, and someone collects resources and heals the team. It works organically and adds tactical depth.
Borderlands 4 offers three editions so that everyone can choose their own level of immersion in the colorful world of Kairos.
The Basic Edition of Borderlands 4 includes the full game with an open world, standard missions, and loot Price in Ukraine — UAH 2,999.
Deluxe costs 4,299 UAH and includes everything from the base edition and additional bonuses: the Rage of the Firehawk weapon skin, a set of Trophies packs with four new locations, hunting maps, new equipment and vehicles, and cosmetic items for the hunter.
Super Deluxe — the maximum variant for 5,599 UAH, which includes everything from Deluxe and adds the Treasure Hunters set with two new characters, and in the future (after the release of DLC): new regions, additional missions and cosmetics, as well as the Luxury and Style set with looks, heads and bodies for treasure hunters.
The lack of Ukrainian localization in Borderlands 4 is surprising. A project with a budget of more than $300 million and a claim to the AAA level could well afford translation. For comparison — in Cronos: The New Dawn, a game with a budget of only 27 million, was localized, and it was of high quality. Therefore, the arguments about the “small market” look less and less convincing.
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