After the second time I was gently encouraged to get back to the main mission and ignore the random side quests that were way above my level, I realised I could find myself really enjoying Borderlands 4.
After the combined hundreds of hours I’d put into Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and The Pre-Sequel, I thought I was done with the series. By the time I’d got to Borderlands 3, I’d gorged on it all too much – completely full-up on ridiculous guns, explosions and butt jokes.
So, it’s no surprise that I came into my time with Borderlands 4 with some misgivings about whether I was ready to dive back into the smorgasbord of chaos. Three hours with the game have changed my mind – dramatically.
It may be partly due to my time apart from the series, but Borderlands 4 feels genuinely new.
Yes, the game inundated me with a bajillion different guns. Ones that fire all sorts of elementally-charged projectiles. Ones that turn into grenades when you reload. Ones that are sniper rifles, but also shotguns. Ones that are actually just throwing knives.
Yes, the same satisfying spray of numbers burst out of every human, creature, or other I fired into. Yes, they explode into a glorious firework of loot that I eagerly scrounge up every single time. And, yes, Claptrap was there making jokes about bazongas.
But, hear this: now there’s a grappling hook too.
Getting it’s hooks in me
That sounds flippant, but the grappling hook is a gamechanger, and emblematic of the approach Gearbox has taken with the fourth mainline game (and seventh in total) to revitalise the series this time around.
The emphasis is on more freedom of movement and traversal mechanics, with non-linear progression and exploration at the forefront. “Less borders; more lands,” is what I’m told in a concise, if admittedly grammatically incorrect, witticism.
The desire to correct it pops from my mind in seconds, though. I merrily swing through an abandoned factory that’s now home to raiders, zipping all around them as I pepper them with bullets, lob a grenade into a separate pack, and double jump over another charging scab, all before activating the ultimate of my character – the Exo-Soldier, Rafa – and charging in with dual energy blades to slash through the stragglers.
It feels good, really good, and gives some new life to the series, where just doing more of the same but with a few more silly guns would’ve felt stale.
The freshness also comes from a new villain, a (only slightly) more-refined tone, and the new planet Kairos, which runs with the idea of freedom and exploration by populating the world with more points of interest to investigate and random events to tackle. It’s the reason I kept getting distracted from the main objective of helping a rebel uprising: be it a crashed ship, an encampment of raiders or the promise of treasure in a monster lair.
And the game is unsurprisingly generous with the loot, too. Of course, there are all the different types of guns, which can be modified with parts from different manufacturers, and tweaked even further with enhancements.
On top of that are shields that have unique bonuses and effects that trigger under certain conditions, as well as new usable health packs that not only heal but also give you temporary buffs.
It’s a gear system that I can see myself grinding and tinkering with for hours to come up with satisfying and synergistic builds.
That sentence had too many syllables – apologize
And that leads me onto what ties all of the above together. The attention is always placed on the guns, but one thing I think Borderlands as a series has always got right is character design. With each iteration, the options for character playstyles and builds have grown impressively, with characters like Gaige and Krieg as particular standouts that offer a variety of fun and inventive ways to play.
Alongside Rafa, I also had the chance to use another vault hunter named Vex, the Siren. This has been my go-to class since the original, so I was keen to see what Gearbox had cooked up for this entry’s version.
What I was presented with was some kind of battlefield commander. The Dead Ringer build on Vex allows you to summon ethereal clones that shoot enemies from afar or draw their attention away from you. So, I would charge into combat, call for my lads (usually one to tank and one to shoot), and then run around causing chaos with my own arsenal.
It feels like a good way to play if you’re a solo player, as having those extra bodies to draw gunfire made things a lot less stressful when getting overwhelmed by enemies. Perhaps experimenting with other builds would be wise when playing with actual human allies, but this setup allowed me to get into a nice rhythm of cycling through weapons, focusing on bigger targets with a rocket launcher, and hoovering up all the loot once the dust settled.
EXPLOSIONS!?
As is often the case with a game, all of these traversal mechanics, character abilities and weapon specialities came together in a final climactic boss fight. I faced down the Primordial Guardian Inceptus, a giant insect-like creature waiting at the end of one of the game’s major Vault missions.
Getting there was enough of a challenge, having to fight through wave after wave of enemies. And the fight itself was a worthy trial, too, requiring reading its attack patterns and using the grappling hook to avoid being splattered on the ground or stuck in pools of acid.
It’s a fun and dynamic fight that felt good to master, with weak points to hit and mechanics to master that elevated it from a tedious bullet sponge that many bosses end up turning into in this type of RPG. My first attempt was shambolic, but I managed to scrabble through. By the third attempt, thanks to a quick and easy feature to fight the boss again, I felt nigh-unstoppable.
And on that last success, when I saw that familiar orange glint of a legendary weapon on the ground when it was defeated, I felt the pang of anticipation as I was ready to see what crazy contraption had been cooked up by Gearbox for me to play with next. And after that, all I knew was I wanted more.
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james.pickard@futurenet.com (James Pickard)
