Borderlands 4 Review
Release Date: 12/09/2025
Platforms: PS5, XBOX Series X, NS2 and PC
Platform played on: PS5
Hours Played: 160
Score: 8/10
Borderlands 4 doesn’t try to reinvent itself so much as expand on what already works. It’s more Borderlands, but this time stretched across one of the largest open worlds the series has ever seen. If you’re someone who already enjoys the formula, fast-paced combat, goofy humor, and loot that rains like candy, you’ll probably feel right at home.
The vault hunters bring fresh playstyles to the table, at least on paper. Each of the four characters comes with their own flavor, skills and playstyle. But at the time of writting, the reality is that a handful of broken weapons push players toward similar builds regardless of who they pick. It’s not a dealbreaker, and I’m sure it will be fixed soon but it does flatten some of that class diversity.
What really does shake things up is mobility. Double jumps, grapples, and jetpacks don’t just make fights more dynamic, they make the whole game feel snappier. Traversing the world feels smooth and fun, even if the return of vehicles is a bit bittersweet. Driving is still there, but the lack of multi-seat rides is baffling for a game that leans so heavily on co-op.
And co-op is where some frustrations set in. After multiple entries in the series, it’s surprising to see small but impactful oversights remain. Fast travel points don’t always register for non-hosts, meaning they have to exit to their world and then come back in after registering the fast travel in their own worlds. Some collectibles count for players who weren’t even present when they were picked up, while others don’t register at all. It gives the impression of systems that never quite talk to each other. To be fair, there are also real improvements, like being able to teleport directly to your partner, which makes grouping up much easier. This and other quality-of-life additions stand out as a genuine step forward. The Moxxi’s Encore machine that lets you re-fight bosses without the old “save and quit” loop is a blessing for farming. Being able to send loot straight from your inventory to the bank is another feature that feels so natural you’ll wonder how it wasn’t always there.
Unfortunately, performance and bugs are harder to brush off. On PC, performance can swing wildly from smooth to stutter-ridden. PS5 has its own headache with memory leaks that degrade performance the longer you play, forcing resets. Then there are the everyday annoyances: disappearing weapon icons, wrong items flagged as trash, or weapons vanishing from your inventory. Taken individually they’re small, but together they pile up.
Another annoyance worth pointing out is how the game handles unlocking the harder Ultimate Vault Hunter difficulties. Beating specific bosses around the world feels fair enough, but having to replay long story missions every time you want to climb into the next tier gets tedious fast. It’s not the kind of challenge that feels rewarding, more like busywork that drags down momentum.
Boss encounters are plentiful, covering everything from big story climaxes to optional world and side bosses scattered across the map. Their designs are memorable, and a few come with interesting mechanics, though most of those quirks fade into the background once you’re farming them at speed for loot. That’s pretty standard for the genre, but still, the sheer number of bosses gives you plenty of targets to chase down.
Yet, despite all of this, the game still pulled me in. Over 160 hours later, I had collected all 300+ collectibles, farmed almost every legendary, and still felt hooked. There really is a lot to do and see. The side quests deserve special mention here. There are over 90 of them, and while a chunk are filler, some really shine thanks to returning characters and surprisingly compelling side arcs getting me to pay more attention to them than the main story of the game.
The humor in this entry is toned down compared to past games, less chaotic energy, more measured, but it still landed enough good jokes to make me laugh out loud more than once.
In the end, Borderlands 4 feels like a massive, uneven but deeply enjoyable playground. If you’re here for loot, exploration, and hundreds of hours of content, you’ll get your money’s worth out of the $70. It just needs a round of polish to clean up the rough edges.
This is a flawed but fantastic Borderlands entry. With a few fixes, it could easily stand as one of the best in the series.
