Xbox Review | Borderlands 4

In 2025, we welcomed the newest instalment to the well-known mainline Borderlands series – Borderlands 4. Crashing onto the planet of Kairos, the option of four vault hunters presents itself to us, each with unique abilities/skills, and a noticeable hunger for legendary loot and riches beyond their wildest dreams. However, our main protagonist, The Timekeeper, has other plans in mind as they do everything in their power to stop you and maintain domination over the planet of Kairos. Mayhem is coming, and you’d best be ready for anything. Through the years, we’ve been blessed with psycho carnage, fast-paced combat, and plenty of gear to sift through, and the trend continues. Developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games, Borderlands 4 throws us into a brand new world, but continues to do what we know and love. If you’d like to learn more about my thoughts and feelings regarding the game, please continue reading on.

Things I Liked!

• Loot n’ Shoot | Shoot first, obtain loot immediately afterwards. Playing Borderlands is all about obtaining highly sought-after gear, obtained by various means, in an attempt to find the best gear there is, which can work in unison with your build. Gear slots unlock as you progress, and different rarities of gear, ranging from common to legendary, can be equipped. However, that isn’t all you should take into consideration when sifting through that sweet loot. Just because a gun has a higher DPS value or a shield has a higher output doesn’t automatically make it better – you’ve got to look a little more into the finer details. For instance, the manufacturer parts found on weaponry can make a significant difference. I see the main enjoyment of playing Borderlands games is hunting for the perfect loot, and Borderlands 4 is no different. What kind of Vault Hunter would you be if you didn’t want the best there was? You’ve got to keep a lookout for that legendary glow. Or whatever you find the most effective to get the job done.

• Visuals | The ‘concept art style’, often described as a graphic novel style that blends heavy outlines with mostly vivid colours, has been used in every Borderlands game to date and is a key feature you’d expect to see if you know the series. It’s actually one of the main features that attracted me to the series in the beginning. It almost feels like you’re playing in a comic book. The art style is incorporated into every element you find in Borderlands 4, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. With different biomes to explore in both Kairos and off-planet sectors, the visual quality maintains aesthetically pleasing appearances and looks stunning no matter where you find yourself. The textures of the weapons are beautiful, the environments grab your attention, and the enemies showcase altered designs – all of which showcase wonderful attention to detail. My eyeballs had one hell of a time, that’s for sure.

• Brilliant audio | My largest praise for Borderlands 4 is not only the impeccable quality of the music and sound effects, but also the variety which comes with it. Honestly, I couldn’t keep count of the number of times I found myself just vibing to the upbeat music, especially during hectic combat scenarios where everything felt heightened. The introductory theme song, This Land by Des Rocs, really set the tone. The sound effects were also highly satisfying to hear; reloading and shooting weapons, vehicle acceleration and collisions, enemy movement and attacking behaviours – chaotic goodness for all to hear! The voice acting was clear and well-suited to the NPCs, making dialogue and cutscenes a pleasure to witness. I can’t fault the quality of the audio, and I frequently find myself listening to the soundtrack on Spotify, so that speaks volumes (literally).

• Classes and builds | As in true Borderlands fashion, each Vault Hunter comes with several skill trees you can build upon. Each time you level up, up to a current maximum level of 50, you unlock the ability to put a point into your skill trees, unlocking many potential build possibilities. Each skill tree has a specific ability attached to it, but that doesn’t stop you specing into different trees if you see something you like elsewhere. I always enjoy trying out different skills to see which I prefer, and capstone bonuses you get later on, should you put enough points into one tree. It can take some time to build your Vault Hunter in a way that suits your playstyle, but that’s the fun of trial and error. Plus, you don’t have to worry too much about creating the ‘wrong’ build, as there are respec stations located in the main hub areas; it’ll just cost you. The same goes for specialisation points (which are unlocked after level 50), but this will cost you precious eridium. These are additional bonuses and perks you can focus on to make your Vault Hunter even stronger.

• Additional activities | Alongside completing the main missions required to progress the story, there are extra tasks you can find around the map, which vary from, but aren’t limited to, side quests and activities. They’re all worth doing as you can obtain essential fast travel locations, SDU upgrades, experience, and be rewarded with loot and/or cosmetics. It was nice to break off and do these occasionally, as it broke up the gameplay. The side quests were well-balanced and offered different experiences; some were relatively quick, while others were a little longer with multiple parts. A handful or so were hilarious, as you’d expect with Borderlands’ humour. I enjoyed my time with them and recommend completing them. You can also find many collectables around Kairos, but these mostly contain lore, with occasional loot/money for others. Unfortunately, there are no achievements related to collectables, so this is optional.

• Open world format | Borderlands 4 has made quite a significant change to the series by making the game entirely open world, with expansive regions and a fully explorable map for you to peruse at your own pace. By utilising both the glide pack and digirunner vehicle spawn system, as well as on-foot movement, I have found Borderlands 4 much easier to traverse because of the open layout, which comes with far fewer loading screens than prior titles. Although the main map is divided into four large regions, there are sub-regions within these, making it easier to track 100% completion for each area. I definitely approve the change, and I hope this concept is applied to future titles.

• Additional mechanics | Although a short and sweet point, it’s only right to mention that there have been a few additions and improvements related to the gameplay mechanics in Borderlands 4. Firstly, the ability to fly across terrain using the newly introduced glide pack is brilliant, and makes traversing large open areas much easier. Secondly, graple points have been added in otherwise impossible-to-reach places to make regions more accessible. And finally, if you are within range, you can use your grapple to seize elemental canisters and explosives into your palm to throw at enemies. It made the gameplay feel more fluent and provided improved mobility.

Mixed & Disliked!

• Bugs everywhere | I’m sorry to say that Borderlands 4 was riddled with bugs, which greatly impacted my enjoyment of the game. The most notable one, which occurred frequently, was bugs within missions, which would require a restart to get past said bugs, as they would stop progress in its tracks, because the objective would refuse to update. I don’t think I’ve rolled my eyes more at any video game in some time. Another issue was the skill trees. If you are not the host and are playing with others, be prepared for your skill tree to reset repeatedly, requiring you to remember where you spent your points and reassign them at a moment’s notice. There were also audio bugs where there would be no music or vehicle sound, which could only be fixed by restarting the session. Finally, although this has mostly been fixed to the best of my knowledge, at the time of playing Borderlands 4, weapons would continuously fall into dead areas, making them unobtainable to pick up. Far from ideal for such a well-known franchise and developer.

• Difficulty | In true Borderlands fashion, there are difficulty options accessible in Borderlands 4. When playing the game for the first time, there are three difficulties to choose from: easy, normal, or hard, which can be changed for each player in the lobby. These impact enemy damage, enemy resistances, elemental effectiveness, and loot quality. I played on hard, and it didn’t feel difficult in the slightest, and I would have liked more of a challenge. That being said, once you’re post-campaign, you have the option to ascend into the Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, increasing the difficulty further for end-game purposes. These require you to complete ‘Wildcard’ missions, one level at a time, up to a maximum of Level 5. Enemies are tougher, but the rewards increase at the same time, including experience, loot quality, cash and Eridium, making it worth your time. These came across well as they required you to think about your build and weapons in greater detail to successfully conquer what was ahead, but still didn’t feel difficult enough.

• Forgettable story | By far one of the most disappointing elements of Borderlands 4 was the abysmal story. Were there shocks and surprises? Absolutely. Did I feel excitement while progressing? Far from it. It just didn’t live up to the previous titles, although this may be debatable, as I was a huge fan of Borderlands 3. In my opinion: None of the main NPCs stood out, the key enemies and boss fights were neither great nor terrible, the story arc itself was pretty monotonous, and the missions themselves were so-so. I’m hoping the additional content packs and their stories improve in quality because, as it stands, I don’t think I’ll be replaying the main story any time soon for the enjoyment factor, unlike most of the others in the series, impacting the replayability value.

• ECHO navigation | While the ECHO device is mostly great for assisting navigation, it does have its problems. While using the in-game map, you can pinpoint a main location you’d like to get to, and the ECHO will provide you with a faint line in-game that, in theory, if you follow it, you’ll arrive at your destination. Now, 75% of the time, this works with zero issues. However, when I was scouting for collectables, the ECHO wasn’t too keen on helping me reach these. In fact, it struggled immensely. Giving me lines up mountains I clearly couldn’t climb, and passing through areas of terrain I would need to navigate around was far from ideal. It did cause me some stress when I couldn’t work out how to reach where I wanted, even though the ECHO was adamant I should go a certain way. A small quality-of-life update for this alone would be greatly appreciated.

• Dissatisfactory customisation | Borderlands 4, like prior games in the series, allows you to customise some things with colours and styles, such as characters, vehicles, weapons, and your Echo-4 device. I’m someone who will always customise where possible in video games to make the game feel more personalised. However, I was far from impressed with the options on offer, especially with the body and head choices, which were far from imaginative. The colouring should have included saturation and brightness options, the body/head options should have included more variety, and the styles were just mediocre overall, to the point where I couldn’t find one I was particularly fond of (and I tried numerous combinations!) The vehicle selection was decent, and the option to change your hover drive was nice, but that was about it.

• Little to no end-game content | After completing the Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode – Level 5 and getting each playable Vault Hunter to Level 50 (current level cap), there is very little to do once you’ve finished the game and side missions. Yes, you can farm bosses for their specific drops in an attempt to improve your gear and obtain the best there is for possible future content, but other than that, it’s pretty non-existent. Each week on Thursday, there is a ‘Weekly reset’ where the weekly Wildcard mission and Moxxi’s Big Encore change, and the location of Maurice’s Black Market vending machine changes to mix up the content, but it just doesn’t satisfy enough to be classed as end-game content. In December 2025, Bloomreaper, The Invincible, was added for people wanting to utilise and test their Level 50 builds, but this still felt quite mediocre. There is plenty of room for future content, but it should have been given more consideration for those who crave difficult end-game content from release. I would love to see another Takedown-style of gameplay, like Borderlands 3, incorporated in the future, but who knows what Gearbox is cooking up.

How long did I play the review before publishing? 100+ Hours
How long to beat the story? Approximately 25-30 Hours
How many Achievements did I earn before publishing? 33/35 OR 970/1000
How long to achieve 1000G | Approximately 80-100 Hours
You’ll love this game if you like these | Borderlands series

Conlcusion

Score: 62/100

Borderlands 4 largely adheres to the tried and tested formula of prior Borderlands titles. However, I’m sad to say that it ranks at almost the lowest addition to the series for me, with only Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel beating it to the bottom spot. The main story quality and constantly occurring bugs massively detracted from the overall experience, with the audio and visuals being the saving graces. It certainly provides a Borderlands experience, with some welcomed improvements and changes. It’s just not up to the high standards I had anticipated.