BORDERLANDS 4 Review

At the end of the corresponding review for Borderlands 3 almost exactly 6 years ago (how time flies...), I came to the conclusion that in terms of gameplay it was good, maybe even excellent, but in terms of story and overall writing... let's just say it was lacking. I also wrote that "after the 30+ hours I spent playing it to reach the ending, I felt the need to replay Tales from the Borderlands more than continue to explore the game beyond the needs of the review". At the time of writing these here words, I have logged 70 hours in Borderlands 4 according to Steam and around 60 hours of pure gameplay according to my profile in the game, which is double the time I invested into Borderlands 3. At the same time, the truth is that a little voice in the back of my mind is urging me to log back into the game and do a few more missions despite completing the main story. So, is Borderlands 4 such a universally superior experience compared to 3? The answer is YES... but with some obvious caveats.

In terms of the storyline, the events of Borderlands 4 take place six years after those of BL3. As a result of the actions of our old friend Lilith in the ending of BL3, a previously hidden planet was revealed, which was using some strange orbital shell to conceal itself and remain isolated from the outside world. This planet, called Kairos, is ruled by a mysterious and immortal tyrant called The Timekeeper, who has implanted bolts into the planet's inhabitants that allow him to control them directly like puppets or even to terminate their lives ruthlessly. With the revelation of Kairos to the outside world, it also became known that there are Vaults there... and where there are Vaults, Vault Hunters inevitably appear.

It quickly becomes apparent in BL4 that the plot and the world building in general are much more serious and "mature" than in BL3, a feeling that remains constant from the first moments of the game until its ending. In contrast to the indifferent pursuit of two daft, completely forgettable streamers in BL3, in 4, the presence of the playable Vault Hunter(s) in Kairos takes on the character of an armed rebellion against the tyrannical Timekeeper through the unification of the planet's revolutionary groups and their organization into a unified force.

Each such group inhabits one of the three main biomes of Kairos (there is also a fourth one, which is the planetary capital city and home of the Timekeeper), which feature the expected variety of "greenery, desert, snow-capped mountains." Each biome is the headquarters of a rebel group as well as a corresponding lieutenant of the Timekeeper's Order, so it is expected that, as part of the plot, we will be called upon to help the rebels by killing the lieutenants before we inevitably end up invading the Timekeeper's capital itself to overthrow his regime once and for all.

The twist on the classic Borderlands formula comes in the implementation of the world itself, as we are now talking about a fully open-world game. Unlike previous games in the series, all of BL4's biomes form a single, huge area that we can traverse at will (after completing some initial objectives of the main storyline in the starting area, that is).

This shift to an open-world format leads to the introduction of some expected elements that we see in similar games. Question marks to explore on the map, safehouses to conquer, countless collectibles, mini-dungeons, areas where secondary activities and mini-events take place (apart from the typical side quests), Vaults of course, but also random-generated quests that can be "farmed" for XP and loot.

The open-world activities serve as an incredible incentive for further action and exploration. Many times I found myself playing the game almost as if I were playing Diablo IV or even The Division 2: let's proceed along this path I see on the map, oh a mini-boss to eliminate, let's pursue this question mark, oh it led to an enemy camp, I see on the map that there are 3-4 different collectibles around here, hmm, my backpack is full, let me go back to the nearest safe house to get rid of the junk... and that's how you stray from the main storyline for about 3 hours. It's worth noting that many activities, as well as collectibles, offer points that can be used to upgrade your inventory and ammo capacity, among other things, so there are in-game uses for them beyond the satisfaction of collecting/completing them.

The main flaw that one could find in this open-world system is what we could call... Ubisoft open-world fatigue. When you have a huge map full of question mark icons, collectibles (ENDLESS collectibles), side quests, mini-events, other activities... you get a bit bogged down due to the sheer amount of information. But that quickly passes when you hit the road and just start "cleaning up" everything that comes your way. I was also slightly annoyed by the existence of invisible walls—you see your objective on the map, you find a good vantage point from which you could approach it quickly and easily... but NO, the game doesn't want you to go there, you hit the invisible wall and are forced to go around, along the "right" path.

The open-world element blends harmoniously with the familiar and beloved Borderlands gameplay. The result of this mix is, in my humble opinion, the best Borderlands game we have seen to date in terms of gameplay. The loot is fat and plentiful, the action is fast-paced, the gunplay is varied and highly satisfying, and the four character classes are sufficiently distinct and highly customizable in terms of leveling and configuring their skill points in the respective trees. Fortunately, there is also the option to respec at the proper stations, so you can modify your build according to your preferences or the weapons you get as loot. I modified my Forgeknight character's build quite a few times to adapt it to an exceptional Legendary Item that dropped as loot, which ended up causing significantly more damage than the weapons I had been using until then.

As for the endgame, after successfully completing the Main Story and regardless of our character's level, the Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode is unlocked, offering increased difficulty in exchange for better loot. This has 4 levels, and we can jump to the next level by completing specific Wildcard challenges, such as replaying missions and battles we have already completed in the story at a higher difficulty level.

The ability to earn Specialization points is also unlocked, which work exactly like Paragon levels in Diablo IV, while new weekly missions and other challenges also become available. It is worth noting that, after completing the Main Story for the first time, the game offers the option to create a new character directly at level 30 with Ultimate Vault Hunter mode activated, so if you want to try out the capabilities of the other 3 characters, you can do so directly after the endgame without having to replay the entire story.

So we have a game that fixes the awful writing of BL3 (I'm not one to hold grudges, but I do hope the writers of 3 are unemployed now) and reverses, if not 100% but at least to a respectable degree, its turbo-cringe tryhard humor. It also introduces new gameplay elements to the traditional formula, features the obligatory return of old characters from previous Borderlands games (unfortunately, among whom, unsurprisingly, the ultra-ball-breaking Claptrap), and all of this is combined with a new open-world environment. This will undoubtedly be a GOTY for the ages that will leave its mark on the gaming landscape for years to come, right? Unfortunately, the big "BUT" inevitably comes, which is related to the broader technical aspect of the game.

Leaving aside all the controversy surrounding statements about "premium games for premium gamers" and the initial attempts to price the game at €80, the truth is that the combination of Denuvo DRM and Unreal Engine 5 creates an EXPLOSIVE mixture. The announcement of the game's minimum and recommended specs was a window into what to expect, and the truth is that the recommended GeForce 3080 seems quite unreasonable for a game that is not THAT much different visually from BL3. But the above combination of a game engine that, objectively, is not suitable for open-world games, coupled with a DRM system that consumes system resources like there's no tomorrow, is expected to bring many PCs to their knees.

My system has a GeForce RTX 4070 OC GPU, Intel i5-13600K processor, and 32 GB of RAM, exceeding the recommended settings for playing at 1080p resolution. As I wrote on Discord when I first loaded the game, I thought a garbage truck was parked outside my house working overtime, but it turned out to be just... the sound of my case fans running at 100% trying to keep the temperatures down! Even when I was in the game's main menu, without even starting to play!

To be precise, temperatures seemed to stabilize around 75 degrees celsius while playing at max settings (always at 1080p), and I consistently had 100-120 FPS, with the activation of DLSS sending the FPS to 160+ without me noticing any particular difference in the visual performance of the game. It's worth noting that I tried lowering the settings to the absolute minimum to see if there were any differences in temperatures. The first time I tried this, the game crashed. That's what you call a "premium game"—it doesn't even let you lower the settings to Low like some lowly peasant. I finally managed to change the settings, but I didn't notice any difference in temperatures or fan noise. The game, in its current state, has been designed assuming that Denuvo and the unsuitable Unreal Engine will drain system resources like there's no tomorrow, so premium and non-premium players alike will need to have a PC that can cope with this reality.

Beyond the above, however, the game has various technical issues such as unnecessary crashes, not so frequent in my case but still present, at seemingly random moments. I remember crashing once when exiting a safe house, and another time when attempting to fast travel – apparently there is a memory leak that causes the PC to crash after a certain point. There are also some dumb bugs. Dumb in the sense that they are not game breaking, but, for example, in several cases when I try to flag an item as junk in my backpack to sell it, the game chooses to flag some other unrelated item instead of the one I selected. Go figure.

Overall, Borderlands 4 has aspects that reach the peak as well as a few that reach the bottom. Purely in terms of gameplay, I would describe it as a triumph, as it manages to negate all the flaws I pointed out in BL3 one by one and elevate the whole experience to levels that, unexpectedly I would say, made me completely forget BL2. From a technical standpoint, however, it's borderline dystopian that you'll need an i7 processor and a 3080 card to play a non-optimized, cel-shaded looter shooter game on medium settings. The joke with Denuvo and UE5 in open-world games should end sometime, although unfortunately I don't see that happening. Either way, if you're a fan of BL games and have a PC good enough to handle the technical atrocity, don't miss it.

We would like to thank CD Media for providing us with the review code for the game.

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