MeinMMO editor Dariusz Müller has Borderlands 4 tested before its release and collected detailed impressions of the loot shooter. Some of the innovations stood out to him particularly positively. They remind him of Destiny 2 and seem like a meaningful addition to the Borderlands formula.
Borderlands 4 has big plans. It comes with a huge open world including world events and capturable outposts, a new villain, countless weapons, and various innovations that meaningfully complement the latest installment of the popular shooter series.
I have gathered around 60 hours of playtime in Borderlands 4 before the official release. During this time, I completed the story, finished a few side missions, completed world events, explored the map, and found a hidden dungeon, including a boss fight. In addition, I did a lot of nonsense while wandering aimlessly. During my story run, I picked Amon as the chosen vault hunter and threw around his elemental axes.
In all these activities, some of the advertised innovations of Borderlands 4 reminded me of Destiny 2 – and that is something positive. I’m not the most active Destiny player, but I still keep coming back to the shooter for years and have fun with the game. These are good signs for Borderlands 4.
Riding through the Badlands on a digital bike
In Borderlands 4, the well-known Catch-a-Ride has received a big upgrade. While in the predecessors I had to walk to the digital car rental to race through Pandora with my four-wheeled steel beast, I can now access the system almost everywhere – the only exception being certain areas within missions.
Moreover, the vehicle control in Borderlands 4 is much more pleasant. You now have a kind of high-tech hoverbike, the so-called Digirunner, which is very easy to maneuver. This hoverbike is not only thinner than the old Catch-a-Ride vehicles but also much more agile. Overall, the Digirunner reminds me of the Sparrow from Destiny.
I don’t want to question the quality of Borderlands 1-3, but if there’s one thing that always bothered me about the predecessors, it was traveling to new mission objectives. I often found that boring. In Borderlands 4, it doesn’t bother me. Although some routes are a bit long due to the vast open world – perhaps too long – the drive itself is really pleasant. This works out significantly better than in Borderlands 2, possibly the best part of the series. The Digirunner is a great improvement for the loot shooter.
Jumping like a Guardian
One of the other major changes that Gearbox Entertainment has introduced for Borderlands 4 is the new movement system. The movement has been enhanced with some modern techniques. I can now elegantly slide behind cover with my Vault Hunter or reach the next higher level with a double jump. Once I’m in the air, I can even hover over my enemies for a few seconds and shot those nasty Rippers and Order Guardians from above – similar to how it’s possible in Destiny 2.
Additionally, the vault hunter can now execute a small dash to evade enemy attacks. This works both in the air while hovering and on the ground and is especially helpful in boss fights. But even in battles against countless smaller enemies, the new movement is a meaningful addition, as it also supports aggressive play styles.
At the beginning of my journey, I relied heavily on long-range weapons, but later I played primarily with SMGs at close range and ruthlessly threw my axes around. The movement allowed me to always stay close to my enemies and pick up my thrown axes again, which reduced their cooldown by 50%.
Overall, the new movement fits perfectly into the gameplay loop. Exploring the map is also more enjoyable for me when I’m not just running but have variety in my movements. Again, I felt a bit reminded of Destiny while playing. There, I can also slide, perform double jumps, and hover.
This is, of course, not gameplay that belongs solely to Destiny, but it hasn’t been possible in the Borderlands series until now. And I firmly believe that it was the right decision to adjust the movement system in Borderlands 4 accordingly.
Borderlands 4 finally has the game world that the predecessors always wanted but couldn’t achieve
In the world of Borderlands 4, I can travel comfortably without loading times from A to B. And if I don’t feel like driving myself, or the route is too long, I use fast travel. To unlock more fast travel stations, I can capture outposts.
This is a meaningful step compared to the predecessors, possibly thanks to the modern technology. In the previous games, I always felt like the world was intended to be an open world, but it technically couldn’t – at least not without ruining the performance completely. That’s why you often stood at transitions between different instances and had to load the new map. This, however, hurt the flow of the game and led to unwanted breaks.
Especially the combination with the old Catch-a-Ride system I found tedious, as I couldn’t take the vehicle into the new instance with me. I’m really not a fan of open worlds and therefore have been avoiding games like the latest Far Cry or Assassin’s Creed, but in Borderlands 4, the open world didn’t really bother me.
The main realization for me was that the inevitable loading times between the biomes are gone. If I had a loading screen, it was because I chose to fast travel.
Lootapalooza or hopeless junk collector
I’m uncertain what to make of the loot and the amount of loot. It is
sometimes just too much. Sure, you also find cool new weapons and most
weapons also differ from each other in some way, but most is marked as junk and
sold. Destroying is not an option. You can either throw the junk away or carry it to the next machine to make a profit.
I’m stingy and greedy and want to leave nothing behind. Unfortunately, that means I spend way too
much time tidying up and sorting my inventory. That annoys my teammates in all games of this type because they all wait for me to have enough space in my backpack – which is again heavily limited and fills up fast in Borderlands 4.
My eyes shine every time countless weapons jump out of a strong enemy or a box, but in some ways I also hate it. I would be fine if I just got a really cool weapon instead. But that’s a misery I experience not just in Borderlands. At least I’m not being overwhelmed with legendary weapons.
Skills that are really fun and strong
I had a lot of fun with the skills of the different vault hunters in Borderlands 4 – perhaps a bit too much. I actually wanted to briefly test each class before completing the story, but then the first vault hunter already brought me so much joy that I stayed with them and caught up on the tests of the other heroes later.
I played Amon with the axes of ice and fire – which conveniently are the elements I have the most fun with in many games. With ice, I can temporarily immobilize my enemies, and with fire, I can deal damage over time through burning. Plus, fire just looks cool. I love fire.
I play Amon exactly this way and easily went through the story.
The bigger problem was rather deciding which vault hunter to play first. There are several skills that I really like. Should I play Vex as a kind of flying vampire and heal myself by dealing damage, or Harlowe with her mini-nuke? Or do I go for Rafa and his blades? The Mantis Blades were a lot of fun for me in Cyberpunk 2077. But the skill tree of Rafa’s shoulder-mounted cannon also looks cool.
And Amon? At some point, I also want to try his shield and the accompanying whip in detail. So far, I’ve only been able to get a brief taste of the various skills of the vault hunters, but I’m sure that each one of them has at least one skill tree that I enjoy. That wasn’t always the case in the past. I even restarted Borderlands 1 from the beginning because I didn’t like my first choice.
Fortunately, in Borderlands 4, we can create a new character directly at level 30 as soon as we complete the story.
We had the good, now comes the bad and ugly
The developers have already announced that it is a known issue and the Day-1 patch is supposed to help, but:
The performance of Borderlands 4 in the review version is simply not good.
I meet the minimum requirements and theoretically also have good FPS (about 60 FPS in WQHD on medium settings), but when entering a new area, I experience brief but severe FPS drops, causing the game to noticeably stutter.
Occasionally, these FPS drops also occur in fights where a lot happens. Everything ran smoothly in boss fights, but the more enemies on the screen, the more likely the drops are.
Some other testers I spoke with confirmed similar experiences.
This was quite frustrating at times and couldn’t be reliably fixed. The best way to completely avoid the drops was to set everything to the lowest settings, play in FHD, and cap the FPS at 40 (!). This way, I had enough power to never drop below 40 FPS – no matter what I do. The crucial part was the capping, as I would have gotten around 90-100 FPS with those settings. But if the FPS then dropped to 40-50, the game stuttered again.
I really hope that the performance improves by the release, because otherwise I had a lot of fun with Borderlands 4.
If you are new to Borderlands or have difficulties in your first hours in Borderlands 4, I have gathered a few tips that hopefully help you and ease your entry into the loot shooter: 15 tips you should know before starting Borderlands 4
