Borderlands 4 launches on September 12 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Gearbox’s open-world looter-shooter sequel is a big game with a lot of quests to complete and plenty of endgame content to check out. As such, my review isn’t ready yet. But I’ve played nearly 40 hours so far, and I’ve enjoyed my time. A big reason why is that Gearbox has made some smart changes in Borderlands 4 that make it easier than ever to manage, sell, and collect loot and get around the world.
As a big Borderlands fan who has played all of the games multiple times, I have cataloged a list of changes and improvements in Borderlands 4 that I think both longtime fans and newcomers alike are going to be excited about.
Finally, A Weapon Wheel
For many, many years now, Borderlands fans, myself included, have longed for the franchise to add a real weapon wheel option. Past games have sometimes allowed you to use the d-pad on a controller to hot-swap between four guns, which is fine, I guess. But a true weapon wheel hasn’t been an option until now. Borderlands 4 finally adds a real, honest-to-goodness weapon wheel, and it’s so nice. It makes quickly swapping to a gun easier and faster than ever!
Mark Loot As Junk When Picking Up
In Borderlands 4, like in past games, you’ll spend a lot of time collecting guns that are bad, or just not what you want. In the past, you’d have to manually sell each of these. And yes, you could mark them as loot in the inventory screen and then sell them all at once. But now, in Borderlands 4, you can junk loot as you pick it up. This ties into another great change…
Instantly Sell Junk At Vending Machines
All that loot you mark as junk can now be sold at any vending machine just by walking up and hitting a single button. You don’t even have to go into the store screen. It’s so nice, and this change, as well as the last one, has helped keep my inventory mostly empty and ready for more loot.
The Lost Loot Menu Is So Much Better
Speaking of loot, in some past Borderlands games, players were able to return to a hub area and activate a “Lost Loot” machine that would spit out some of the guns that dropped out in the world that the player didn’t pick up. This wasn’t a very efficient way to handle the process and made using the Lost Loot option annoying. In Borderlands 4, this is now handled through a menu screen that lets you easily trash stuff you don’t want and take stuff you do want. And you can hit a button to take it all without having to grab each item off the floor.
A Warning When Selling Equipped Gear And Guns
Sometimes, when dealing with lots of loot and similar guns, it’s easy to mark an equipped piece of loot as junk and sell it. This has happened to me in past games. Sure, you could favorite stuff you didn’t want to sell, which is still an option in Borderlands 4, but it was always weird how the games just let you sell equipped gear so easily. Not so in Borderlands 4! Now you get a pop-up warning when trying to sell equipped items marked as junk. Nifty!
Legendary Weapons Are Much Rarer To Find, And That’s Good
One of the biggest problems I had with Borderlands 3 was how easily and quickly you found legendary weapons and gear. On a recent playthrough, I was collecting and selling them within a few hours of starting a new character. By the end of the game, I had found well over 100. I lost count, really. This made them feel less special and made non-legendary purple gear less exciting to collect because better stuff was dropping all the time.
Thankfully, this isn’t the case in Borderlands 4. After nearly 40 hours with the game, I’ve only collected 7 legendary weapons and items. And one of those I bought from a vending machine, something I’ve only seen once in my time with the game. Unlike in Borderlands 3, when legendaries drop in Borderlands 4, I get genuinely excited! It’s a rare event, and many of the items have been powerful and memorable.
Customize Your Character Anywhere And Anytime
In the past, if you wanted to put a new skin or hat on your Borderlands character, you’d have to find a specific machine in-game and use it. This was annoying. Now, you can just open up the customization menu whenever you want and freely change your character’s looks.
Upgrading Your Inventory And Ammo Capacity Isn’t A Boring Money Grind
Borderlands 4‘s big open world has a lot of places to explore, things to do, items to collect, and activities to complete. And this time around, Gearbox has decided to tie the open world to upgrading your character. Instead of grinding for money and then going to an in-game store to buy SDU upgrades, which let you carry more stuff and ammo, you now earn SDU credits by exploring and completing activities. And this is all done via a menu that is available at all times. Need more loot space to collect more guns? Well, check to see if you have enough SDU credits to upgrade your inventory space, and if so, do it right then and there. So convenient!
An Optional Hologram Path That Helps You Go The Right Way
I spent far too much time in past Borderlands games running around trying to figure out how to get to a specific place or a quest marker. The in-game maps have been helpful, but sometimes you just want someone to draw a line from where you are now to where you need to go. And good news: Borderlands 4 does that now! At any point, you can hit a button to get an in-game holographic path showing how to reach your destination, which can be a quest or just a random point you marked on the map.
Repkits Offer Healing When You Need It Most
A new piece of loot introduced in Borderlands 4 are repkits. These are small medical devices that players can activate every so often for some instant healing. No more hunting down health drops during tricky boss fights or big skirmishes. Those tiny bits of healing still drop and are still useful, but having a health gun at your side is great. And as with all loot in Borderlands, repkits come in various flavors with all sorts of weird, wacky, and useful bonuses and passive traits. Honestly, going back to any past Borderlands game is going to be hard after getting used to repkits.
Spawn Your Vehicle Whenever You Need It
A big theme when it comes to the changes and improvements made in Borderlands 4 is convenience. And perhaps the best example of this is the removal of Catch-A-Ride stations, which previously were the only way to spawn in a vehicle. Now, every player has their own personal Digirunner (which are basically Sparrows from Destiny), and they are awesome. They move quickly, feel great to drive, and being able to call one in whenever you want is so handy. Plus, combining Digirunners with the new movement controls, like double jumping and gliding, lets you speed across the world in style.
And now, some changes that aren’t so good…
Menus Feel Dark, Finicky, And Removed From The Game World
This is a silly complaint, I’ll admit, but the loading screens in Borderlands 4 are so boring. In past games, which were filled with loading screens, you’d get these wonderful, colorful posters of the location you were loading into at that moment. In Borderlands 4, which has far fewer loading screens thanks to its (mostly) seamless open world, the screens just look like someone took concept art and tossed the location’s name on it. They seem stale, cold, and drab. Thankfully, stuff loads so quickly that you won’t have to look at them long.
Something I really loved about the menus in past Borderlands games was how vibrant they all were and how they existed in the world. When you opened your inventory or skills menu in Borderlands 3, you’d see your character standing in the world, and the menu would be hovering next to and behind them. That’s gone in Borderlands 4. Instead, all the menus and inventory screens exist in dark voids that feel disconnected from the world. And some of these menus are tricky to use or feel overly cluttered. The inventory, in particular, isn’t great to navigate when using a controller. This change doesn’t ruin Borderlands 4, but it does make me sad.
Loading Screens Are Dull
This is a silly complaint, I’ll admit, but the loading screens in Borderlands 4 are so boring. In past games, which were filled with loading screens, you’d get these wonderful, colorful posters of the location you were loading into at that moment. In Borderlands 4, which has far fewer loading screens thanks to its (mostly) seamless open world, the screens just look like someone took concept art and tossed the location’s name on it. They seem stale, cold, and drab. Thankfully, stuff loads so quickly that you won’t have to look at them long.
Rewards For Challenges And Quests Are Hidden In Digital Boxes
When you complete a quest in Borderlands 4 or when you finish an in-game challenge, you are rewarded with various goodies. But these goodies aren’t delivered directly to your inventory. Instead, you have to go into the character menu and open them up. Thankfully, you can open them all at once, but it’s so odd that this system is even in the game.
Sure, it’s nice that guns or loot you earn from a quest aren’t dropped right in your limited inventory. But it’s annoying that cosmetic items are also locked in these chests. The game also does a terrible job of reminding you to check on your rewards. Sometimes I’d open my character screen and see, like, 10 of these chests waiting for me. I’d love an option to get notified every so often when I have more than two or three of these things waiting around to be opened.