Borderlands 4 review: Everything you love and hate about Borderlands at once

Borderlands 4 arrives like a loot piñata dropped from orbit: exuberant, excessive, and impossible to ignore. It’s the series at full blast-barrels blazing, tooltips overflowing, and jokes-per-minute ratcheted to the red. It’s also the franchise at its most stubborn, clinging to habits that long-time fans defend as charm and detractors decry as bloat. In one breath, it reminds you why Borderlands helped invent the modern looter-shooter; in the next, it shows why the genre moved on without it.

Fifteen years after the first cel-shaded headshot, Gearbox’s fourth mainline entry doubles down rather than reinvents. The gunplay is tighter, the arsenals more absurd, and buildcrafting deeper; co-op chaos remains a delirious high. Yet the familiar tradeoffs persist: tonal whiplash in the writing, bullet-sponge encounters, quest design that leans on busywork, and an inventory system that still feels like a mini-game you didn’t ask to play.

This review examines where Borderlands 4 polishes the formula and where it calcifies it-combat feel, build variety, campaign pacing, endgame hooks, performance, and the ever-contentious humor. The verdict, in short: it’s everything you love and hate about Borderlands at once, turned up to 11.

Combat and loot tuning finally click with tighter recoil smarter legendary drop rates and fewer dead mods while bullet sponge bosses still drag

The moment-to-moment gunplay finally has bite: recoil is tighter and readable, burst discipline is rewarded, and elemental procs chain without turning the screen into visual oatmeal. Enemies flinch, crit zones matter, and the sound mix gives every trigger pull a satisfying report instead of a numbing drone. Loot follows suit. Legendary drop rates feel smarter, with targeted sources and a soft protection against dupes that nudges you toward new toys rather than the same four oranges. The build layer gets the cleanup it’s begged for-fewer dead mods and more perks that push distinct playstyles instead of +2% footnote math. In practice, that means more time testing synergies, less time sifting trash.

• Predictable recoil patterns make semi-autos and SMGs shine at medium range.
• Target-farmed legendaries drop often enough to chase, rarely enough to cherish.
• Curated mod pools prune junk affixes, letting standout rolls actually stand out.
• Elemental status clarity rewards deliberate priming and detonating instead of blind spam.

But when the campaign crescendos, the old habits lumber back. Bosses too often devolve into bullet sponges padded by immunity breaks and damage-gated phases that stall pacing rather than test execution. The new balance shortens trash encounters and sharpens miniboss duels, only for marquee fights to stretch into attrition checks that overstay their welcome-especially in co-op, where health scaling inflates without adding mechanics. The systems encourage clever builds; the set pieces sometimes refuse to notice.

• Health-gated phases and invulnerability windows sap momentum.
• Co-op scaling adds HP, not interesting counters or team roles.
• Resist stacks dampen elemental play, pushing bland neutral DPS.
• Sparse mechanics mean fewer reads, more magazines emptied into walls of health.

Story pacing and humor deliver classic chaos yet the campaign plays best when you follow main arcs and skip low value errands

The campaign dashes from explosive set piece to sardonic cutaway with a punchline-per-minute cadence, and when the jokes land, they land hard. Sight gags, prop comedy, and aggressively committed voice performances keep the chaos buoyant even as firefights sprawl into fireworks shows. The rhythm works best when you’re riding the central spine: tightly scripted showdowns, villain monologues that double as boss intros, and curated arenas that put your build through its paces. In those stretches, the series’ signature whiplash between mayhem and mockery feels deliberate rather than random, with momentum carrying you from one crescendo to the next.

• Prioritize primary missions that unlock systems, regions, and boss encounters; they’re tuned for the best combat variety and character banter.
• Cherry-pick character-driven side quests with bespoke arenas or unique rewards; skip errands that recycle the same two objectives with thin narrative dressing.
• Watch for reward-to-time ratios: if the payout is XP and blues you’ll outlevel in minutes, move on; save it for co-op downtime or endgame cleanup.
• Lean on fast travel and checkpoints to keep the tempo up; wandering for collectibles mid-campaign punctures the comedic timing.

Structurally, the loot treadmill still showers you with dopamine, but not every detour respects your time. Routine fetches and bounty boards often pay out below your current scaling, and the humor padding those tasks can feel like outtakes rather than scenes. Stick to the narrative backbone and the tone sharpens: boss arenas arrive as punchlines, set pieces escalate smartly, and the satire stays in sync with the gunplay. Completionists won’t miss out-there’s ample room to mop up in the endgame, where surplus errands become palette cleansers between builds, rather than speed bumps on the way to the next great bit.

Co op shines with seamless cross play and shared loot set Mayhem three and enable instanced loot for two player runs

Performance and settings for smooth sixty frames per second choose Performance mode on consoles enable FSR Quality on PC cap frames and disable motion blur and film grain

Borderlands 4 hits its stride when the action feels immediate and the picture stays clean. On PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, the higher-frame-rate preset delivers a near-locked 60 fps, with only modest sacrifices to shadow quality and foliage density-hardly noticeable against the series’ bold art direction. To enhance clarity during chaotic firefights, strip away cosmetic filters that add smear or grain and let the cel-shaded lines speak for themselves; the result is crisper motion, better target tracking, and more consistent input feel.

• Console quick wins: use the performance-focused graphics preset
• Disable Motion Blur and Film Grain for cleaner image stability
• Enable VRR if your TV supports it to smooth out dips
• Consider reducing Camera Shake and Chromatic Aberration for legibility

On PC, the sweet spot is about smart scaling and pacing. The FSR “Quality” preset preserves fine line work while easing GPU load, and a gentle frame cap (just below your monitor’s refresh) tightens frame pacing and reduces spikes. Pair that with a clean image pipeline-ditch blur and grain, keep textures high if VRAM allows, and step heavy post effects down a notch-and the game maintains velocity without erasing its signature look.

• PC tuning tips: set FSR to Quality; cap frames to 60/120 based on your display
• With G-Sync/FreeSync, keep V-Sync off; otherwise use in-game V-Sync for pacing
• Prefer High over Ultra for shadows and volumetrics; keep Textures on High
• Disable Motion Blur and Film Grain for a sharper, more readable image

Borderlands 4 doesn’t reinvent so much as redouble. The gunplay is as loud and elastic as ever, the loot fountains still intoxicating, and the art direction remains singular. So too do the familiar frustrations: a story that can’t always match its spectacle, jokes that swing from sharp to sophomoric, and a campaign that occasionally confuses size for shape. Taken together, it’s the series distilled-brash, maximalist, and relentlessly committed to its own bit.

Play it with friends and the rough edges blur into the barrage of crit numbers and chaos; play it solo and the grind and tonal whiplash feel more pronounced. Quality-of-life tweaks help, endgame systems have teeth, and performance is steadier than some past outings, but the fundamental push-pull is unchanged.

The bottom line: if Borderlands has ever been your brand of mayhem, this is a confident encore. If its excesses have worn thin, Borderlands 4 won’t convert you. It’s everything you love-and everything you don’t-fired from the same very loud gun.