Borderlands 4

As with its predecessors, Borderlands 4 is a first-person looter shooter with elements commonly found in action role-playing games. Gearbox described the game's world as "seamless", and there will not be any loading screens as players explore new areas. New vehicles and traversal tools, such as a grappling hook, are introduced in Borderlands 4. The game can be played solo or cooperatively with up to three other players.

Pandora's moon Elpis, after being teleported away by Lilith using her Siren powers, destroyed the protective barrier of a planet named Kairos. In Borderlands 4, players assume the role of a Vault Hunter who must lead the resistance against a ruthless dictator named the Timekeeper and his army of synthetic followers, while searching for "secret alien treasures".

Among the Vault Hunters that arrive on Kairos are Rafa the Exo-Soldier, Harlowe the Gravitar, Amon the Forgeknight, and Vex the Siren. Returning NPCs include Miss Mad Moxxi and Marcus Kincaid, and previous playable Vault Hunters Zane Flynt, Claptrap, Lilith, and Amara. The first story expansion, "Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned", features the addition of a fifth playable Vault Hunter, C4$H the Rogue, as well as returning NPCs Ellie, Crazy Earl, Mancubus Bloodtooth, and Davis Pickle. The second story expansion, "FL4K and the Last Resort", adds a sixth playable Vault Hunter, Loveless the Hacker, and features FL4K, a playable Vault Hunter from Borderlands 3, as a returning NPC.

Developer Gearbox Software began working on the game prior to the release of Borderlands 3 (2019). Gearbox described Kairos as a "seamless" playable space, in which players can explore various locations of interest without being interrupted by any loading screen. While the team avoided using the term "open world", Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford claimed that Borderlands 4 was "the most open and free" game in the franchise, contrasting Borderlands 3's planet-hopping structure, which resulted in a more "compartmentalized" design. As with its predecessors, Borderlands 4 was envisioned to be a humorous game, though the team wanted to ensure that the humor derived from emergent gameplay, in which the playable Vault Hunters will react to actions performed by players.

As Borderlands 4 was set in a new planet, the game features an all-new cast. It also offered an opportunity for the art team to create landscape distinct from those on Pandora, with art director Adam May describing Kairos as a "high-tech but lo-fi" setting.

Borderlands 4 received "generally favorable" reviews for the Windows and PlayStation 5 versions while the Xbox Series X/S version received "universal acclaim", according to review aggregator website Metacritic. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received strong approval, being recommended by 88% of critics. However, the game received criticism for its performance and optimization issues. In Japan, four critics from Famitsu gave the game a total score of 33 out of 40.

Scott Duwe on Destructoid called the game "A hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage. Borderlands 4 is easily the best in the series when it comes to gameplay-feel and fun factor, and the best overall game in the franchise since Borderlands 2, but some performance issues on PC are cause for concern." The pro and cons of Jesse Lennox's review on Digital Trends praised the game's more balanced tone but added that the humor still misses quite a bit in their criticism.