Many issues come to my thoughts after I consider Borderlands. The fascinating gun design. The bizarre but charismatic NPCs. Claptrap. A few of these points have potential, whereas others have aged poorly — I am speaking about you, my loudmouthed, steel good friend. Borderlands 4 is touted as the most important deviation from the Borderlands template but, positioned as a reimagination of kinds of a 15-year-old sequence. Is there nonetheless room for a brand new installment to place a brand new shine on a really established looter shooter method? I bought a glimpse of that reply when going hands-on with Borderlands 4 forward of its launch.
Borderlands 4 is hitting main platforms — PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Collection X — on Sept. 12, with a Nintendo Change 2 launch deliberate for Oct. 3. If you have not misplaced your self within the not-so-conventional world of Borderlands but, you must know that this first-person shooter is all about taking pictures and exploding enemies in quite a lot of methods. You play as a Vault Hunter, a determine recognized within the recreation’s universe for chasing hazard and treasures, a form of job that requires huge weapons and highly effective expertise to outlive.
Sometimes, when making a personality in a Borderlands recreation, you’ll be able to select from one in every of 4 Vault Hunters. That is still the case in Borderlands 4, which stars 4 new Vault Hunters: Vex the Siren, who can use self-cloning magic; Amon the Forgeknight, the roster’s tank; Harlowe the Gravitar, who’s outfitted with gravity-based weapons; and Rafa the Exo-Soldier. I select to play Rafa, as a result of he’s principally a Latino cyborg with vitality blades whose persona revolves round being good-looking.
For this preview, which takes place just a few hours into the sport, I performed solo a section the place we’re invading Fortress Indomita, a mission that consists of traversing a multi-layered base, destroying a ship, and dealing with the ultimate boss of the world, Idolator Sol. Each step on this mission is marked by hectic fight towards troopers working for Sol, actually annoying humanoid machines, and alien-esque creatures. For the report, these final ones kicked my ass.
I’ll be sincere: I wasn’t actually listening to what the characters had been saying by comms, nor did I care concerning the narrative justification behind that infiltration mission. Every so often, Idolator Sol appeared on my display to say he was mad at me or one thing alongside these traces. I am unable to actually keep in mind as a result of I used to be furiously pulling the set off of my SMG, which was imbued with hearth and electrical harm, unloading pleasant streams of ammo on the bottom, and feeling the dopamine rush of seeing a number of purple “Vital!” notifications popping from enemies’ heads. I utterly misplaced myself within the intense motion Borderlands 4 delivered.
Picture: 2K Video games/Gearbox Software program
One of many deserves of the Borderlands sequence, which is much more evident in Borderlands 4, is how simply you’ll be able to slip into the motion of its easy gunplay. I’ve performed different video games within the sequence, and Borderlands 4 looks like coming dwelling — the taking pictures is that good. Whereas I haven’t but seen all kinds of weapons, Gearbox appears to have balanced the facility of our weapons. More often than not, I used to be operating solely unusual and uncommon weapons, and but I might see them being efficient. (In Borderlands, weapons comply with the common color-coded loot system: frequent, unusual, uncommon, epic, and so forth.)
Having enjoyable by taking pictures issues is the mantra in Borderlands 4, and this easy philosophy permeates its character design, which is extra strong than ever. Rafa, the Vault Hunter I selected to play as, can use three specializations, every with their very own most important Motion Talent (an final, principally) and devoted talent bushes. My favourite is the Peacebreak Cannons, which supplies Rafa two shoulder turrets. With the best passive expertise, not solely is my defend replenished as I kill enemies with my turrets, however their up-time extends each time I land vital harm. With talent kits like this, Borderlands 4 solely makes throwing myself at enemies extra enjoyable whereas I search for methods to capitalize on dealing harm and taking dangers. And the dangers are a lot!
Whereas weapons really feel highly effective, shields really feel much less sturdy, breaking extra usually than I believed they need to. I died combating common enemies greater than I did within the boss battle, and, earlier than you begin hitting me with “get good!”, know that Borderlands 4 is extra punitive. Should you do not method fights with good cooldown administration and a strong notion of what you have to be doing, you’ll shortly run out of instruments. This offers enemies sufficient time to assault you again and, let me inform you, they hit onerous. Relying on the state of affairs, the sheer quantity of incoming harm is a problem for a single Vault Hunter to deal with.
The sport provides a grappling hook to characters’ kits, which, theoretically, I like. Uncommon is the sport that hasn’t benefited from together with one. This one can really feel a bit clunky to make use of, although. Throughout fight, all you are able to do is use it to seize capsules and different potential elemental explosives to throw at enemies. They’ll trigger strong harm, however crafting a construct across the hook isn’t precisely viable.
Picture: 2K Video games/Gearbox Software program
It was solely throughout the boss battle towards Idolator Sol that I wanted to make use of the grappling hook. Sol begins with an impenetrable defend. You may’t take away it utilizing your weapons or making use of a particular sort of elemental impact, which is opposite to the entire “simply shoot it till it dies” philosophy of Borderlands. As a substitute, you want to wait till Sol shoots some poles across the area, then search for the only inexperienced one which comprises an explosive, catch the explosive utilizing the grappling hook, and throw it at him to interrupt his armor. It is solely after this course of that you would be able to really shoot the boss. Lotta work that doesn’t contain pulling a set off.
The grappling hook’s potential is held again by merely being a software for exploration and very particular conditions, like within the battle towards Sol, as an alternative of a extra lively asset you should use usually fights. On the identical time, it looks like the dungeon and mission had been designed round creating conditions the place it feels justifiable to make use of the hook, though they by no means felt pure. Did we actually want the grappling hook to climb from one platform to a different? Could not we’ve unlocked the ship from its launching pad by taking pictures the beams as an alternative of pulling them? On the finish of the day, this addition begs the query of how a lot that software really provides to the expertise of taking part in Borderlands 4.
I like the concept that, regardless that that is the fourth numbered title in a protracted sequence of video games, the workforce behind Borderlands 4 is making an attempt new issues. Even so, I do know that I’ll spend hours exploring its world (Kairos) and leveling up my Vault Hunter — not due to any novelty this specific entry within the sequence tries to supply, however due to what Borderlands titles have all the time excelled at: letting you shoot a bunch of weapons at a bunch of enemies. What extra do you want?
