In terms of gameplay, Borderlands 3 was almost the best instalment in the series, but the plot was unbearably bad.
The writers tried to cram the narrative with as many bad jokes, outdated memes, and loud characters as possible, and the main villains were annoying from the very first minutes.
The developers admitted that they had gone in the wrong direction with the third instalment and promised to make amends in Borderlands 4. Of course, it turned out better than the third part, but new problems arose, which, fortunately, do not greatly spoil the excellent gameplay.
Calm, without cringe
In the fourth game, we leave Pandora behind and set off to explore a completely different place — the planet Kairos. For thousands of years, its existence was kept a closely guarded secret because of the Vault at its centre. Rumour has it that it holds the secret to the immortality of the local tyrant, the Keeper of Time.
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Where there is tyranny, there is opposition. Although at the beginning of the game we are captured by the Keeper of Time, we are quickly rescued by a seeker of the Vault, who tells us about the local Red Resistance — and a few minutes later, Iron Man (yes, that one) appoints us his vice admiral.
Already in the first missions, you notice how much calmer and quieter the dialogues are here compared to the third part. At the same time, although for me this is mostly a plus, at times the ‘plot’ seems too serious. It’s a turnaround of, if not 180 degrees, then at least 120 — people rarely raise their voices here, and the humour is as restrained as possible, as if everyone is afraid of saying something wrong. Because of this change, Borderlands 4 feels less like a fourth instalment and more like a soft reboot — there’s still room for jokes, but for the most part, the writers wanted to tell a normal story with a normal villain.
In addition, with the transition to an open world, the structure of the plot has changed, and the developers clearly used the latest Far Cry games, especially the fifth instalment, as a reference. We see the Time Keeper at the beginning of the story, then he fades into the background, and after the introductory missions, we are asked to visit three regions and defeat three lower-ranking villains. Here, the plot falls apart a little, partly because of the aforementioned seriousness — both the good and evil characters turn out to be faceless.
The leader of the escapees, Rush, is a typical good-natured soldier who cares about his people. Sparks fly between Zane and Levine in the north-west of the map, but Levine is memorable for nothing other than her attractive appearance. We also meet Amara (the siren from Borderlands 3), and although she is pleasant to spend time with, she is mainly just an NPC who helps in battle.
After travelling through three regions, the story picks up speed, but it’s possible that by that point you’ll have forgotten what the plot is about — the main villain is only mentioned a couple of times. The main thing is that, in terms of both narrative and character development, the final episodes of the game turned out to be the best, and ultimately, I found the campaign to be successful: nothing and no one causes irritation, the missions are varied, all regions focus on unique mechanics, and the bosses are each cooler than the last.
The most boring ones were put at the beginning (including the local version of the helicopter boss), and after them, the designers’ ingenuity never ceases to impress.
New planet
However, it should be noted that it will not be possible to quickly run through the plot of Borderlands 4 and then pay attention to the secondary content. By the final third of the campaign (and even earlier), your character’s levelling will be insufficient for a comfortable playthrough of the story — it is assumed that you will, if not thoroughly explore the open world, then at least periodically stray off course.
If you don’t capture launch pits, there will be very few teleportation points. If you ignore all the bunkers and shelters, your inventory will be very small — various actions will earn you capacity increase tokens, allowing you to carry more ammunition. And you can’t level up with missions alone — it’s advisable to take on contracts such as collecting ten items that drop from certain enemies or eliminating specified targets.