{"id":218297,"date":"2025-09-11T13:51:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T13:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/218297\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T13:51:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T13:51:13","slug":"borderlands-4-turns-off-your-brain-and-turns-on-the-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/218297\/","title":{"rendered":"Borderlands 4 turns off your brain and turns on the fun"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love me a stupid-ass action movie. Something where the plot is thin while the muscles and accents on all the henchmen are thick as hell. Think Broken Arrow or Eraser \u2014 movies that were artistically and sometimes commercially terrible but nevertheless thrilling watches that you forgot about almost immediately after leaving the theater.<\/p>\n

Borderlands 4 is the video game equivalent of that movie. Is it artistically creative? No. Profound in its narrative? Nope. Innovative in its gameplay? Not really. Fun? Absolutely. And honestly, that\u2019s all you really need out of a Borderlands game.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re new to the Borderlands series, it\u2019s a looter shooter that allows solo play or up to four-player co-op. In every game, you play a vault hunter \u2014 adventurers who travel to dangerous planets seeking mythical vaults that promise great power and treasure. For B4, that formula\u2019s been changed up a little bit. You\u2019re still a vault hunter searching for the vault on the planet Kairos, but you\u2019re way more interested in settling a score with the planet\u2019s immortal dictator: The Timekeeper.<\/p>\n

To take him down, you can choose one of the game\u2019s four vault hunters, each with their own special abilities. There\u2019s Amon the Forgeknight, who swings a big ax. Rafa the Exo-soldier deals damage with huge shoulder-mounted machine gun turrets and energy blades. Vex the Siren uses magic to project a ghostly and deadly body double, while Harlowe the Gravitar kills things with science by way of her big-ass gravity gun.<\/p>\n

The Borderlands series has always had cool-ass player characters, but I\u2019m a simple girl; I see a Black woman like Harlowe, I pick her. But it speaks to the incredible talent of the Gearbox character designers that I actually hesitated before landing on her.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

I am really grateful that games have started incorporating characters that look almost exactly like me. Unrelatedly, know any good copyright infringement lawyers? Image: Gearbox Software<\/p>\n

No dumb action movie would be complete or even fun without quips, one-liners, and gags, and Borderlands 4 is no different. Early on, Claptrap, a small but mouthy robot who serves as the game\u2019s central quest giver, told me that crazed gang members kept splatting off the walls of a nearby cliff. I had no reaction when I found a body, cartoonishly posed with its legs sticking straight up out of the ground \u2014 that\u2019s the kind of sight gag I expect in Borderlands. But I had a genuine guffaw when I looked up to see a smear of blood that looked just like the messes bugs leave behind on my windshield.<\/p>\n

The series\u2019 earlier entries have suffered for their heavy application of humor (remember Claptrap\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m dancin\u2019! I\u2019m dancin\u2019!\u201d<\/a>), but thankfully B4 exercises restraint with its silliness such that it doesn\u2019t feel oppressive.<\/p>\n

In interviews, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford touted that the game contains over \u201c30 billion guns<\/a>.\u201d While no one\u2019s ever gonna be able to test that, I do very much enjoy Borderlands\u2019 guns and shooting action. My personal problem with shooters is that they\u2019re often so fiddly, requiring near-perfect accuracy and awareness of one\u2019s surroundings to survive an encounter. In firefights I panic, shooting off at the hip and spinning around in circles to see what\u2019s killing me. It\u2019s not great; I often don\u2019t survive.<\/p>\n

But in Borderlands, I was not penalized for being a spray-and-pray-er. My supply of ammo and my health was functionally inexhaustible. No matter how many bullets I took or shot, I just kept going, kinda like Keanu Reeves in John Wick or Daniel Radcliffe in Guns Akimbo.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

This is all you need from a Borderlands game. Image: Gearbox Software<\/p>\n

I also dearly love that the guns themselves have personalities as determined by their manufacturer. When I pick up a Jakobs gun I know I\u2019m gonna get an old-timey piece done up with quaint American cowboy flair. When a Tediore gun runs out of ammo, I don\u2019t reload it; I get to throw it to deal an extra bit of \u201cfuck you\u201d damage.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t played much of Borderlands 4, about 10 hours, some of which was divided across the different characters to get a feel for their play style. I haven\u2019t felt much of what\u2019s supposed to distinguish B4 from its predecessors, aside from the more subtle humor. In older games, transitioning between areas meant spending time on a loading screen. That\u2019s mostly gone, but it\u2019s not a significant change. I also have a grappling hook and a glider, which add a neat wrinkle to exploration, but again, they don\u2019t make the game feel different or better. They feel like things that have been put there because that\u2019s what we expect in our big AAA games now.<\/p>\n

But spamming unholy amounts of bullets like a stormtrooper at a shooting range, that\u2019s what I come to Borderlands for. That hasn\u2019t changed, and the game is better for it. I know it doesn\u2019t sound like a compliment when I say Borderlands 4 is a dumb action movie. But sometimes it\u2019s enough that you know exactly what you\u2019re gonna get with a game, no fuss, no muss, no bullshit. Sometimes I just wanna make things go boom, and Borderlands 4 makes things go boom real good.<\/p>\n

Borderlands 4 will be released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X \/ S on September 12th. It\u2019s coming to Nintendo Switch 2 on October 3rd.<\/p>\n

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