Borderlands 4 Review (PC)

I have to be frank, I didn’t really enjoy the previous Borderlands series. I think I gave up on the first one because I always ended up running out of ammo for some reason and on the last Borderlands (Borderlands 3 – check my review here), I did enjoy it more. For some reason, I really enjoy Borderlands 4 this time. Maybe because I don’t have that annoying ClapTrap following me at all times with its non-stop talking (he’s still there and being annoying, but only within a few quests) or perhaps it’s the more satisfying combat feel?

Or perhaps it’s also because the main storyline is pretty interesting and really thrilling to play through. The missions were good and I felt really satisfied each time I finished the main story missions.

In Borderlands 4, you’ll be presented with a choice of four Vault Hunters, though there are two more Vault Hunters being planned (with C4SH being one of them, announced just recently). The Vault Hunters are Amon, Rafa, Harlowe, and Vex – each with a variety of playstyles and sets of skills. Amon for example, is more like a tanky hero with melee-focused skills. If you like to get close and personal with a big, brute hero, he’s the one. Vex on the other hand, is a Siren summoner who relies on summoning minions to help her tank and damage. She can also become a solo summoner (if you don’t like having pets or minions around) and dish out tons of damage. I’m picking her for my playthrough.

Despite all these different playstyles and skills, each Vault Hunter has access to all weapons in the game: Pistols, Assault Rifles, SMGs, etc. Some Vault Hunters will have skills associated to a specific kind of weapon or elementals, so there are plenty to customise and switch to keep the game fun. You can equip up to four weapons with one heavy ordnance (either a grenade or a bigger gun).

Like in previous Borderlands, weapons from different manufacturers tend to do different things and there are also elementals in the game with rock-paper-scissors kind of gameplay. Shields can be torn down quickly with Shock elemental weapons, Armour with Corrosive weapons, and so on. When you bump up the difficulty (to get better rewards), elemental affinity will have more effect though in my playthrough, I ended up using Kinetic weapons and doesn’t feel like switching between one weapon to the other has that much bigger impact. It’s more apparent in fighting bosses because they have mega big shields or amours.

You can customise your Vault Hunters to a certain degree with skins and head presets that you’ll earn in the game (by completing missions, etc). Apart from these customisation items, there are other collectible and in-game objects you can collect to unlock more stuff. Collecting Vault key fragments unlocks a Vault in that region, granting access to a Vault assault that rewards minor powers after defeating its boss.. Eridium can be looted and used to re-spec your Vault Hunter skills – but you can also use the in-game money.

A Class Mod can be equipped with further grants bonuses and skills related to a specific Vault Hunter.

Bosses can be re-farmed over and over with a fee (which is negligible because you’ll get more by selling the loot after defeating the boss) to gain XP or obtain the boss’s unique/legendary drops. There are guides online that tell you the best boss to farm and what kind of loot they can drop. The Legendary Shield that the first boss (Splashzone) can drop is pretty awesome and and I’ve used it for over 20 levels afterward. On kill, it spawns missiles that home in nearby enemies and those are very deadly, very useful. I did a series of farming run and managed to get the upgraded version from Level 19 to Level 29. Fun stuff.

There are other Legendaries you can collect when you get lucky but there are a few quests where you’ll get a guaranteed Legendary as well. Or, browse around X for some SHIFT codes that will be posted quite frequently for your chance to get a good loot.

About optimisations on the PC, I’m not actually sure what to comment. While the performance have certainly been improved ever since the game was launched, the in-game auto detect system only sets my Graphics quality to Medium (I have an Intel i7 14700K system with overclocked 32GB DDR5 RAM (7200MT/s) from Kingston, and an NVIDIA RTX 3080 Graphics Card). And here I thought I have a beefy PC and Borderlands 4 doesn’t look like it’s too heavy compared to Cyberpunk or the Witcher game, for example. Even I could run Ghost of Tsushima with maximum settings.

The graphics itself is pretty good and similar to the previous Borderlands series, with supposedly upgraded lighting interactions, polygon density, and texture quality but you may or may not notice the difference – possibly due to the distinct Borderland’s game artwork design. Even at Medium settings, it looks good but the gameplay is what matters most here. The combat is pretty satisfying and if you can get some unique gears that do unique stuff, you’ll be smiling wider while going for a kill over and over again.

Borderlands 4 Review Conclusion

Borderlands 4 is definitely the best one in the Borderlands series so far. It has removed all the annoyances in the past that hindered me from enjoying the game to the fullest: customisations, fun and thrilling main story missions, not having to listen to ClapTrap all the time, tons of ammo lying around everywhere on the map, enjoyable side missions, many of which are fun. There are new movement abilities like (the grapple hook, dash)

Sure, there are things that can be improved like inventory management, map navigation, and performance optimisations but overall, this is a really solid Borderlands game. Plus, if you have friends who are playing the game, there is also a cooperative/coop mode.

I’m more than halfway in the game and so far have been having fun with Borderlands 4. Fans of Borderlands Series should definitely pick up Borderlands 4 and for those who are hesitant based on the past experiences should reconsider.

Disclosure: Borderlands 4 review licence code was supplied for reviewing