Borderlands 4

Borderlands 4 is the fourth mainline entry in Gearbox Software's co-op looter shooter, published by 2K. The formula is the one you know: a first-person shooter built on RPG bones where you shoot, level up and loot a procedurally generated arsenal —millions of gun combinations— with the saga's rowdy humor running underneath. The big change this time is the setting: the adventure leaves Pandora behind and lands on Kairos, a brand-new planet ruled by a tyrant called the Timekeeper.

It introduces four playable Vault Hunters, each with their own skill tree and combat style. But the real gameplay leap is the map: Kairos is a far more open, interconnected world than those of past entries, and for the first time the series leans hard into vertical traversal. A grappling hook, a glide and an instantly summoned vehicle breathe air into a design that had started to feel boxed in, turning exploration into something as enjoyable as the gunplay itself. You can play solo or in co-op for up to four, always around the classic loop of shoot, upgrade and shoot again while chasing a slightly better legendary drop.

Borderlands 4 is a buy-to-play game: you pay once, with no subscription and no mandatory microtransactions to play it through. It launched in three editions —Standard, Deluxe and Super Deluxe—, the last of which bundles the Season Pass. Post-launch content (the Bounty Packs and Story Packs, such as Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned, which adds an extra Vault Hunter) can be bought à la carte or through that pass. You don't need to wait for a sale to jump in, but it's worth knowing it has already cycled through meaningful discounts: toward the end of 2025 it was seen at around 30% off on Steam. It's available on Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store and Nintendo eShop.

The game is live and actively supported. Gearbox published a 2026 roadmap promising more Bounty Packs, the first Story Pack (Mad Ellie) around the first quarter of the year and a new endgame Takedown in a free major update slated for mid-2026, plus quality-of-life improvements and tweaks to the endgame systems. In short: there's content on the way and a visible plan for anyone who wants to stick around.

If you like looter shooters and enjoy hunting for the perfect gun —solo or with friends—, this is probably the best entry point to the saga in years. Critics received it warmly, ranking it near the top of the series, second only to the beloved Borderlands 2. Co-op remains its brightest ground: few games make shoot-shoot-loot with company this much fun. And while the campaign carries weight, the real draw lives in the endgame and the repetition: building characters, squeezing synergies and chasing that legendary roll.

It's not all celebration. The launch was dragged down by serious performance problems on PC and PlayStation 5 —FPS drops and crashes— that clouded its first weeks. Gearbox chipped away at them patch by patch: the major PC December 2025 update (with Profile-Guided Optimization) lifted performance noticeably and cut down on crashes, and another patch in March 2026 kept polishing. If you're on a modest machine, it's worth checking how it runs today before buying. The other thing to weigh is the player base: after peaking above 300,000 concurrent players on Steam at launch, the number fell to a few thousand —normal for a solo/co-op looter shooter with no permanent live-service structure. This isn't a game that depends on full servers —it shines solo or with your own group— but don't expect the massive, perpetual community of an MMO.