The highly-anticipated Borderlands 4 has finally been released, with reviewers calling it the best game in the franchise since Borderlands 2 (unless you’re a PC gamer).
Good news, Wastelanders, the highly anticipated Borderlands 4 has released today, and seems to be a much-needed return to form for the series.
As of writing, the game is sitting at a score of 84 on Metacritic and 85 on Open Critic. While a smidge below Borderlands 2‘s 89 score, the fourth numbered title does reach higher than its 2019 predecessor, which received a score of 81. However, over time, the opinion of Borderlands 3 and the franchise has soured, with many fans openly sharing discontent with the game’s narrative and juvenile approach to humour.
What also didn’t help the Borderlands franchise was its famously panned movie adaptation, which was released last year to record-low ratings and subpar box office numbers.
With all this in mind, Borderlands 4 had a challenging task ahead of itself. Not only did the game need to stand out in a crowded field of looter shooters (an already dwindling genre with diminishing returns), but it also needed to redeem the franchise and prove it still has gas in the tank.
Fortunately, reviewers seem to think so, with many praising Borderlands 4’s big swings and respecting its restraint in other areas.
Here’s what reviewers had to say about Borderlands 4, and why they believed the game is a considerable return to form.
Borderlands 4 Review Roundup
In the lead-up to Borderlands 4, the consensus was seemingly sceptical. So, it’s a welcome surprise to see the game garnering majority positive reviews, with several glowing with immense praise for the release.
Jesse Norris, who reviewed the game for XboxEra, gave it a perfect score, describing it as the best looter shooter he’s ever played.
“I have no major faults, only a few minor gripes about one character and how long bodies take to disappear when you want to grab the loot underneath ‘em,” writes Norris. “Outside of that, Borderlands 4 is a masterpiece. For all the hours I have already played, I could easily see myself putting in another thousand over the years, loving every second of it.”
Travis Northup of IGN gave Borderlands 4 an 8/10 in their review, calling the game “Exactly the kick in the pants [the series] has needed.
Northrup would write, “Borderlands 4 is a badass open-world evolution of a wonderfully unhinged looter-shooter series that needed to try something new, and it largely nails the biggest swings it takes.”
Paul Tassi of Forbes described the game as “an orange drop among greens”, writing: “There is nothing particularly revolutionary about Borderlands 4, it’s not elbowing its way into the heated 2025 GOTY race for one, but six years of feedback and tinkering have led to a game that has added a number of good things to the series and subtracted a few bad ones.”
A recurring criticism of Borderlands 4 is that a majority of reviewers encountered technical issues stemming from its transition to an open-world format. As of writing, the game has a Mixed rating on Steam with over 4000 reviewers. A majority of these reviews all focus on the game’s questionable performance, with several sharing that technical issues are making the game unplayable.
Nick Evanson of PC Gamer shared that they played the game on an RTX 5090 (one of Nvidia’s most recent and powerful graphics cards on the market) and admitted that they, too, were having significant performance issues with the game.
In their write-up, they revealed that even at the most top-end of PC builds, they were “hitting 40 fps on average in an indoor environment, with little in the way of draw distance or environment detail, is really disappointing. And I haven’t even gone outdoors yet.”
The game has shared a 2.7 GB patch, which users have shared has stopped most of the crash-to-desktop failures they were experiencing. Despite this patch, fans continue to report issues with the game on desktop.
Despite this, reviewers have shared that the game is performing well on console, and for those who managed to play the game on a desktop that could run it, without cranking the settings to the max, have all but praised the game for its immense and impressive scope.
So, if you’ve been itching for a game to scratch that Borderlands 2 itch (and if you’re becoming more disillusioned with Destiny 2), Borderlands 4 appears to be the game to scratch that itch. That is, if you’re a console gamer, at least.
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