Steam Community :: Borderlands® 4

28 people found this review helpful

Not Recommended

182.1 hrs on record

Posted: 28 March

SO You Wanna Hear a Story about Soulless Corporate Trash?

I want to start by saying I have been a Borderlands fan since the very first game released in 2009. I've bought every single game on Xbox, and over the last few years have started playing all over again on PC.

With that out of the way,

Borderlands 4 is by far, the worst game in the series and you should not buy it, not even on sale.

There is so much wrong with this trainwreck that I don't even know where to start. I'm not going to bring the condescending weasel Randy into this. I know he awful, you know he is awful, HE knows he is awful. If you don't know about the crazy stuff he was saying during and after launch, look it up for yourself. I'm just going to focus on the actual game.

Currently, I have over 180 hours in the game, and you might be thinking; surely you wouldn't have played that long if it was bad? Well, not quite.

The Fun Will Start Soon, Right?

The biggest problem Borderlands 4 has the soul of the Borderlands franchise is violently ripped from this game. When I started playing, I was like "This is a decent introduction to this new planet, let's see where it goes." And the short answer, is it goes no where. Every single character, quest, gun, boss, and aspect of the world design is painfully generic, shockingly boring, and just not fun. I kept thinking "Okay, this is going to get better." And it never did, all the way until the credits rolled. I then played the game with several friends to see if that improved the experience, and it did so marginally, but we never had those crazy "Woah! That's insane/hilarious" moments we regularly had playing the other games.

I firmly believe they could have easily called this "Pew Pew Shooter 5" and released it, and no one would ever know it's supposed to be a Borderlands game. The quirky characters from the last few games are mostly gone and are replaced tired stereotypes with nothing new or interesting to say. Almost every character's dialogue is just...droning noise. You don't get attached to anyone and there are no standouts except maybe Zane and Athena

The world is devoid of any kind of personality or fun things to do. You can drop in any of the zones and expect to see 1. robots 2. rippers 3. ratch, and 4. 1 of the common "zone" enemy creatures (like threshers). That's it when it comes to enemy variety. I recently played Borderlands 3 and there's more enemy variety in the first zone than there are in the entire 4th game. Think about that for a second. This means you'll be fighting the same generic enemies in the same generic enviroments throughout your entire playthrough.

i had the same experience with the guns. I mean, Borderlands is a game based around bazillions of guns, so surely they would get this part of it right. Anddd they messed it up. The gunPLAY is fun, but the guns are boring and, like the rest of the game, lack personality. Even at Vault Hunter 5, you'll be getting white and green rarities and basically every world chest you open, as well as most boss chests. When you DO get a legendary it will be something noticeably worse than what you already have, or something that has a trait that's so niche that maybe 10 people will actually get value from it.

Missing Features

Aside from personality and fun, Borderlands 4 is missing so many features that the other games got right. Let's start with the big one;

There is no end game.

Once you beat the story and naturally hit Vault Hunter 5, you'll look around and go..okay, now what? There's nothing left to do. And yeah, that sums it up. They FINALLY added 1 raid boss (Yippee) and the only other things to do is kill whatever random boss they choose each week over and over and over and over. Or you could drive around aimlessly in the open world and hope boss bubbles will appear so you can go in and fight for 2-3 minutes after 15 minutes of driving.

The inventory is the worst in the entire series and navigating it is an absolute nightmare. The only decent thing they did here is allow you to mark something as trash from the world, which means you don't have to mess with their awful interface as much.

Remember the mini-map that helped you get around the other Borderlands games? Yeah, that's gone too. Instead you get a very basic compass map and an echo tracker that works about half the time. More often than not it will just lead you to a wall that you can't climb. And having a real map is SUPER important if you're driving around super fast in a world where vertically is crucial to getting around. You'll have to drive real fast, stop and check your map, drive, stop and check your map, drive, stop and check your map over and and over. It's annoying at best and totally breaks any flow in progress.

There are no fun side activities. Remember playing BL2, 3 with your friends and you would all sit around and play the slot machines in town while you're selling your stuff? Those are gone and there's nothing even close to it. While basic, you have no space to decorate like you did in BL3, which was a fun little diversion. All of these little things at to the personality and charm of the world, and they were ripped out along with the rest of the Borderlands soul.

Who are these quests for?

The main story is so boring that I don't have a lot to say about it. You don't care about what's happening or the people in this world. It's all just noise. The villain is so disconnected from the story that he may as well not exist. The side quests, on the other hand, are the worst offenders. There are over 100 side quests (I did them all, check my achievements) and they are just SO bad. When I heard there was a tonal shift in this one to something more serious, I was intrigued because I liked that about the first two games. However, this is as far from serious as possible.

But every side mission feels pointless and, I would say well over 70%, just lead to weird sex jokes that don't land. Don't get me wrong, I think sexual jokes CAN be hilarious, especially in the right context. But pay attention to the quests, most usually result in someone basically saying "HAH intercourse, right?" and that's just the entire punchline. There's a couple that have shock value (thresher breeding), but most of them just feel utterly devoid of seriousness AND humor.

A Broken Skeleton

I didn't leave a review initially because I know many Borderlands games start off a little rough around the edges and improve over time. But after getting the raid boss, two vault cards, and the first "major" $30, 2.5 hour DLC, I can confidently say that there is no coming back from this.

The skeleton of Borderlands 4 is in pieces, and they just keep slapping tiny chunks of rotting meat on it and telling us it's alive and well.

When the game launched, I bought the Ultimate edition because, as I said, I've been a Borderlands fan since day 1 and wanted to see what it had to offer in the future. Every time I loaded it up when they released a new piece of content, I was disappointed and reminded of just how awful the world around the game is. In this most recent update, the new hunt C4sh IS fun to play as, I just wish he was in a better game with things to actually do.

Bottom Line

For a franchise known for being a cheeky shooter that spits in the face of corporations, it's insane how this entry is blatantly corporate trash and has no hope of improving based on the decisions they've made since launch.

Don't believe their marketing around the DLC (this new one or future content). Don't believe Randy. Don't buy Borderlands 4.

TL:DR Borderlands 4 is generic, unfun, and not worth your time or money. If you have the itch, choose literally any other Borderlands game with the ultimate edition and you'll have a much better time.

FrankenSpear

327 products in account

0

Finished DLC with C4SH - new player - how do I go to campaign/normal mode?

New to game sorry!

4

Blappityflap

1 hour ago

General Discussions

Guide

From Laggy 50 FPS to Solid 120 FPS + Input Fixes

Laggy? Stuttering? Controls feel like they’re underwater? This guide provides fixes to some of the most common issues.

67 ratings

8

J

What do u think its the best leveling action skill for c4sh ?

Title pretty much , i was watching a video comparing the 3 ones and they all look really good so idk.

3

Hellbourne

1 hour ago

General Discussions

Artwork

Award

56

0

《THE POWERPUFF GIRLS》

MiningBoy1989

Artwork

Award

48

2

Heave!

rygy

Shared Progression makes consecutive playthroughs useless!

All most people wanted from shared progression was SDUs holding over for things like bank space, they did not want every single activity in the open world no longer repeatable with new characters! If there was an option to reset the account progression that would be fine but as it is now if you completed all safe houses and propaganda towers they are no longer replay-able on new characters. So what is the point to the open world if all content in it is one and done across your account? Now leveling new c...

78

Mike

21 hours ago

General Discussions

Video

I Played Borderlands 4 For 35 Hours & Here’s My Honest Thoughts...

GmanLives

Screenshot

Award

28

12

The doomed water hole!

SgtFopper™

Screenshot

Award

27

9

The Ultra Phosphene Skin unlocked after 295 gaming hours!

SgtFopper™

Guide

5 Best Vex Builds in Borderlands 4 (2025 UPDATED)

Looking for five Vex builds that work great for different playstyles (subjective)? I’ve sunk silly hours into her and tested every tree. Here’s what’s strong now, why it works, and how to use it.

36 ratings

7

GigaGamer47

Screenshot

Award

21

4

Final Phosphene weapon #67

SgtFopper™

Screenshot

Award

19

0

デカいDLC来たよ。3のDLC2みたいにクトゥルフっぽい感じらしい

Zombine

Video

Borderlands 4 - Official First Look

Borderlands

Screenshot

Award

11

3

Temný pán

Artwork

Award

10

1

"Good Luck, Sugar"

Morpheus6

Video

Borderlands 4 - Steam Deck LCD | SteamOS - Can it play on MicroSD? #2KPartner #VaultNetwork

Christo Gevedjov

Video

BORDERLANDS 4 - All Bosses + True Ending (With Cutscenes) 4K 60FPS UHD PC

CaleoGaming

Artwork

Award

4

7

Finally able to play

小贾_KTXP

Video

ReLearining the game, DEFEATING SPLASHZONE... [PART 1] VEX PLAYTHROUGH.

Hazer

Artwork

Award

1

0

Mad Moxxi

Guide

Incompatible Version Fix Files

Drag and Drop Patch files for easy fix of the Incompatible Version Error

0

𝕿𝔢𝔪𝔭𝔩𝔞𝔯

Guide

5 Beste Amon-Builds in Borderlands 4 (2025 AKTUALISIERT)

Hier, weil du willst, dass Amon sich von Anfang an smooth anfühlt? Diese fünf (subjektiven) Builds decken alles ab – vom frühen Leveln bis zum Endgame-Bossing – mit klaren Skill-Pfaden, Augments und Gear-Tipps, die du direkt nutzen kannst.

0

GigaGamer47