Borderlands 4 Review: Hyperion Hangover

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Before we get into it, two quick notes. I played Borderlands 4 on PC, and while I didn’t experience any real issues in terms of stuttering or frame rates, I relied on DLSS and frame generation to keep the game running smoothly on my rig, which recently got an RTX 5090. It’s surprising how reliant the game is on DLSS and frame generation to maintain over 90 FPS at 4K. While I didn’t have performance issues, I did encounter numerous crashes after the first post-update patch on September 13. I highly recommend buying the game on Steam to test performance, then decide within the two-hour refund window. I do know one person who barely meets the minimum requirements and has been able to enjoy the game, albeit with lower graphical settings. Painfully, 30 FPS cutscenes in 2025 is a choice.

The other thing to get out of the way is that Randy Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox Software, isn’t doing his team any favors making the comments he has been making since the game’s launch. If you haven’t been following, you’re better off not listening to it. At the end of the day, if you don’t want to support the Borderlands franchise because of what Pitchford has been publicly saying, that’s fair. However, you should consider all the hundreds of people who contributed to this project, which at some points, really shows there are some passionate Borderlands fans behind its development. There are moments in this game that are clearly nods to fans of the franchise, some of which are subtle fourth-wall-breaking “we hear you” statements. If you’ve enjoyed any of the previous Borderlands games, it’s worth giving Borderlands 4 a shot, even if Pitchford continues to insult his very own customer base.

I won’t dismiss the performance issues because I know they exist. Unlike Monster Hunter Wilds, though, I cannot speak about them firsthand because the game ran smoothly for me with DLSS and frame generation enabled. However, I might be in the minority who doesn’t mind using those technologies to get the performance I want. I do agree that it’s not acceptable for a game to ship with such poor performance and be reliant on frame generation, and there are definitely better ways Gearbox Software could have been handling the response.

Psycho Placid

Now that that’s out of the way, I’m going to pretend we live in a world where Randy Pitchford doesn’t exist, and the focus is on the team at Gearbox Software who have spent several years of their lives making Borderlands 4. To preface my review, I was first introduced to the franchise through Borderlands 2 and fell in love with the formula. These days, it’s apparently a hot take, but I do consider Borderlands 2 one of the best games I’ve ever played. From its iconic cast of characters and well-written story, Borderlands 2 managed to strike that balance between deranged humor and a serious tone that seems to have been missing since. I spent over 220 hours with Borderlands 2, over 35 hours playing the original afterwards, and over 45 hours with Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. I also loved Telltale Games’ Tales from the Borderlands, though I skipped New Tales from the Borderlands. Despite all the issues with Borderlands 3, I still managed to log over 90 hours in that entry, while Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands sits at over 50 hours. Combined, I have spent nearly 500 hours with the franchise, having already put in over 60 hours with Borderlands 4.

The thing is, every Borderlands game is full of issues and none of them are close to being a perfect game. If I did do scores, I would say the entire franchise is a quintessential 8 out of 10 with Borderlands 2 maybe getting a solid 8.5 from me. Despite hating nearly all of the characters introduced in Borderlands 3 and the game’s story, I still spent 90 hours with it. Why? Because Borderlands is one of the very few franchises where the group of us manages to create our own fun. Whether it’s farming, theorycrafting, or simply goofing around, every Borderlands entry has created that space for us to act like children but with guns. Pew pew.

All joking aside, Borderlands has and always will be better enjoyed with friends. That is, until Borderlands 4. The latest entry is packed with activities in a giant open world, and I can see people spending over 100 hours exploring it on their own. The main story takes anywhere from 20 to 25 hours to complete if that’s all you focus on, while the side content is easily anywhere from 50 to 75 hours. Even if you have no interest in the endgame and chasing higher Ultimate Vault Hunter Modes, there are nearly 100 side quests to do, some of which are more interesting and better written than the main story. Unlike previous Borderlands games where I felt some of the announced DLC should have been part of the base game, Borderlands 4 ships with an absurd amount of content, honestly.

Guns and Poses

To support the new open world structure, Borderlands 4 introduces several new features related to movement. For starters, players can now double jump, dash in the air, glide, and grapple. The Catch-A-Ride system has also been replaced by the ability to summon a personal one-seater vehicle, much like in Destiny. I did find it a bit disappointing that multi-seater vehicles no longer exist, because I loved being lazy and having someone else drive me to my quest destination. Instead, it’s bumper cars all around, horns blaring like eight-year-olds on a sugar rush as we head to kill Splashzone for the umpteenth time. There’s also customization of the personal Digirunners, letting you select a vehicle, hover drive, and paint job. The hover drive is the most important part, since it determines the performance of the Digirunner. Each hover drive is tied to a weapon manufacturer, so the more you use a weapon from a specific manufacturer, the more hover drives you’ll have access to—and the better they’ll get, since they rank up. It’s a nice system that ties into Borderlands 4’s updated weapon manufacturer system, which sees guns borrowing parts from other manufacturers for different effects.

Going back to the new traversal skills, these all combine to really change the flow of combat. Your Vault Hunter feels a lot more nimble in Borderlands 4, especially with the ability to dash in the air so you can quickly move out of the way. Gliding is also a great addition, letting you cover gaps and introducing more platforming puzzles throughout the world of Kairos. The biggest disappointment was the new grapple mechanic, which really felt like it was tacked on midway through development. In some areas, it feels like a perfect fit, but the entire open world could benefit from a major overhaul with more grapple points, especially given the inexplicable invisible walls all over the place. With these new movement tools, Borderlands 4 introduces much more verticality than previous entries, and I found some elements borrowed from DOOM Eternal when it comes to wall jumping and platforming. I do wish some of the battle arenas incorporated more grapple points, because the few that do use them are quite fun.

What was a huge step backward, though, is Borderlands 4 following in the footsteps of Diablo IV and removing the minimap. I completely disagree with developers who continually say that minimaps ruin immersion. It’s even sillier in Borderlands 4, because you can bring back the radar, but now it only shows enemy locations with red diamonds. What would be so detrimental to the experience if players simply had the option to have a minimap in that same location? It’d be acceptable if the navigation guideline were competent, but Borderlands 4’s implementation is buggy at best and extremely frustrating at worst. About one time in ten, the line sent me off a cliff or straight into a wall; other times, it would take me the longest way possible. Even more frustrating is that there’s a cooldown to draw the path, and sometimes the line entirely fades before you can activate it again. It’s just a frustrating pain point that could have been avoided if a minimap were available when the player chooses to re-enable the radar. Not a single person in our group of six avoided guideline issues, and most found it more annoying than Claptrap at his worst.

Sync or Swim

As I mentioned earlier, my biggest disappointments with Borderlands 3 lay with its cast of characters, the absurd villains, and the entire story with its ridiculous “twists and turns.” What’s interesting, though, is that even if Borderlands 3’s story was memorable for all the wrong reasons, it was still memorable. Borderlands 4, on the other hand, has a pretty forgettable story. It attempts to address all the issues from Borderlands 3 by delivering a more grounded story with a serious tone, but I had a hard time connecting with any of the game’s characters or villains, and the overall narrative felt surprisingly vanilla. Part of me really feels like the team overcorrected and dialed it back way too far, and as a result, Borderlands 4 lost a bit of its soul. I get that the humor of Borderlands 2 hasn’t aged well, especially in 2025, but what everyone seems to forget is that Handsome Jack was a compelling and interesting villain. As annoying as Claptrap may have been in Borderlands 2, he was still interesting to listen to. And let’s not even talk about characters like Scooter, Ellie, and Tannis.

Even more jarring is the tonal gulf between two mid-campaign zones. At one point in the campaign, players can choose which area they want to go to next. One zone features a cast of very serious characters with nary a joke to be heard, while the other zone is packed with silly personalities and a seemingly gender-swapped Tiny Tina replacement that’s terribly done. Combined with the fact that many side quests are written with a humor similar to Borderlands 2, featuring over-the-top characters, there’s a bit of an oil-and-water situation. Instead of trying to figure out that perfect blend that has worked in the past, Borderlands 4 just tries to separate it like church and state. If you like that humor, go play around with the side quests. If you hate it, then don’t engage with the side quests. Weird choice.

That being said, there are some standout side quests among the nearly 100 to choose from. Some got an audible laugh out of me, while others introduced new characters that I wish we could have spent time with in the main campaign. Some fan favorites do make a return in Borderlands 4, but don’t expect any emotional highs with the story. It’s disappointing for me because it feels too safe, with the risks being taken in the side content. It left me wondering: is a horrible-but-memorable story better than a serviceable-but-forgettable one?

Catch-a-Sigh

The good news is that if you couldn’t care less about Borderlands’ characters, story, or world and just want a looter shooter to fill time while Bungie tries to sort out Destiny 2, there’s really no better option than Borderlands 4. The gameplay feels more refined than ever, and the expansion of build trees is very well designed. For the first time in years, I tested every branch of a class tree while leveling because they felt meaningfully different. The addition of a Repkit slot for healing does more than you would think, especially since it further expands potential builds. The grenade slot has also been swapped out for Ordnances, which now include throwing knives and more powerful weapons like rocket launchers. Finally, there’s the new Firmware mechanic, essentially a set bonus. All of this contributes to greater variety of loot and potential game-breaking builds, and one thing Borderlands has always done well is let players create game-breaking builds.

The endgame formula has changed a bit with Borderlands 4. Once you roll credits, unlocking higher tiers of Ultimate Vault Hunter Modes involves doing or repeating a series of different boss battles, and then completing a Wild Card mission, which is basically redoing the final mission for each major Boss with a twist. The Wild Card is an affix applied to all enemies to change things up. For example, ranking up from UVHM 2 to UVHM 3 had me redoing one of the final missions in which every enemy only died to critical hits. Depending on your build, this can either be fun or absurdly annoying, which really captures the very essence of Borderlands. There are also weekly activities, but those aren’t terribly interesting. We do like the fact that we can easily reset boss fights now with Moxxi’s Encore. Finally, Borderlands 4 also has randomly spawning world events that can easily be missed if you’re not paying attention to the map. It’s odd that limited-time world events like the Goredello aren’t persistent, since it’s probably one of the most entertaining forms of endgame.

With over 60 hours spent in the game and currently farming UVHM 5, our group has already discovered numerous items and has come up with our own builds that have been a blast to play. Co-op, oddly, feels like a step backward. We ran into several situations where even the game’s host didn’t get credit for quest completion, and farming bosses in a group of four resulted in some serious lag. Sometimes, resurrecting didn’t happen even when the bar was full, leaving you standing there waiting until the game decided to bring your partner back up. Other times, the loot explosion from defeating a boss wouldn’t occur for five to 10 seconds afterward. These issues frequently reared their ugly heads when we were in a group of four. The worst bug we ran into left two of us completely stuck in an area of the game. We teleported to an endgame activity we hadn’t unlocked yet, and when the host left, we had no way to exit the zone until they returned. Basically, our instance of that zone had no exit because we weren’t supposed to be there yet, and we had no option to fast travel back to the main map.

High Vaultage

As a longtime fan of the Borderlands series, I found the Borderlands 4 experience to be what I expected: crazy fun with a mix of extremely frustrating moments. We’ve played dozens of games together as a group, and very few ever manage to replicate the entertainment we get with Borderlands. This entry may take place in Kairos instead of Pandora, but the playground feels the same. The Borderlands franchise sets the foundation for us to be a little bit silly and a little less serious. It’s the one game where you can be a complete jerk to one of your groupmates by taking away their Fight for Your Life kill and laugh it off like a Psycho as they fade away and have to pay $9 million to resurrect. Moments like that are what make Borderlands special, even when it’s filled with mind-numbing issues.

At this point, it’s clear no Borderlands nails every aspect. Different fans will always demand different things, and try as they might, the team at Gearbox Software can only appeal to so many people at once. It’s just really unfortunate that this time around, there’s a barrier to entry because the game suffers from so many technical issues, at least on PC. For once, there’s a Borderlands entry that’s a lengthy, genuinely solo-friendly experience. It isn’t just about the endgame farm this time around because this open world is begging to be explored, with dozens of activities and nearly 100 side quests to complete.

I’m not really sure if Borderlands 4 is the entry the franchise needed after Borderlands 3, but at this point, I’m not sure it really matters. The series has a formula that hasn’t been replaced, and the proof lies in the all-time concurrent players chart on Steam. Despite its myriad of issues, Borderlands 4 reached an all-time peak of 304,398 players (as of September 16, 2025), putting it within striking distance of Elden Ring Nightreign’s 313,593 and Destiny 2’s 316,750. That number surpasses Team Fortress 2, Payday 2, The Finals, and even Path of Exile. The game may have its issues, but there are still plenty of people enjoying it. At the time of writing, Borderlands 4 has over 189,000 concurrent players on Steam. It may not be a masterpiece and still falls short of Borderlands 2 when it comes to story and characters, but it’s a game I’m eager to go back to for the next hilarious moment when one of us accidentally kills themselves by reloading our favorite Tediore shotgun at our feet.

Borderlands 4 has an official release date of September 12, 2025, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. This review is based on a purchased retail copy of the game on PC. Borderlands 4 is also releasing on Switch 2 on October 3, 2025. While FullCleared does have affiliate partnerships, they do not influence our editorial content. We may, however, earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links.

Borderlands 4 Review Gallery (possible spoilers!)

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