It’s hard to believe it’s been six years since Borderlands 3, a period of time almost as long as the wait between it and Borderlands 2. And now, a mere week out from the release of Borderlands 4, we’ve got a hands-on preview of Gearbox Software’s latest entry in the bombastic, slapstick, loot-spewing franchise. While I didn’t love the third entry in the series, Borderlands 4 is starting to scratch a part of my brain that makes me want to sew chaos with outraGEOus weapons against equally outrageous enemies.

For the preview period, I was able to go hands-on with one specific mission about four hours into the Borderlands 4 campaign. At this point, the player has joined the Crimson Resistance and is assaulting Fortress Indomita to take down Idolator Sol, one of the Timekeeper’s lieutenants. So, the goal is pretty straightforward: clear out the base and take down the boss. This simplicity let me focus on more important things, like my build, picking through weapons, and killing the enemies that drop them.

I stepped into the robot shoes of Rafa, a Roland-Axton type character with the ability to summon shoulder-mounted cannons, blades on his arms, or just a big ol’ gun. I opted for the shoulder-mounted cannons, leaned into the critical hit modifiers – higher chance, more damage, and cooldown on proc – with the idea being crit more to crit way more!

The first thing I noticed about the combat in Borderlands 4 is the sense of verticality that each section contained. The series has always had elevated platforms, but moving between them was ponderous, with players needing to find ramps or stairs. In this, grapple points litter the area, letting you quickly leap to higher levels or just fling yourself across the play space. I’d grapple up to a ledge, double jump into a dash, and use the same grapple to snag an explosive barrel and toss it at an enemy.

While I was dashing and jumping around, the enemies were just as mobile. Humanoid synths zip and teleport around the area, soldiers run and gun between cover, while other powerful units float through the air, sending out beams and summoning floating turrets. When the fighting kicks off, there is rarely an opportunity to breathe, let alone reload.

It all felt frenetic, especially as I tried to concentrate on jumping across platforms to pull off coupling arms from one of Idolator Sol’s ships to stop it from leaving. With that sorted, I was on to the next area full of enemies, boxes with green lights to open, and weapons to inspect during the downtime.

Because of the build I choose for Rafa, I leaned towards the rapid-fire weapons like the Assault Rifles and Submachine Guns. The faster I could get critical hits, the quicker I could get my shoulder guns back. At one point, a powerful enemy spewed out some weapons, which included a juicy purple Vladof Assault Rifle. This thing had a higher DPS, but lower damage per shot, than my current Assault Rifle, but it featured a higher rate of fire and magazine size, which meant I could get those critical hits more frequently.

All of this came into play during the mission’s boss fight against Idolator Sol. This wasn’t just a straight DPS check, as Gearbox has injected some light mechanics into the fight. The showdown took place in a small, circular arena, with Idolator Sol charging at me like a raging bull, calling down airstrikes, swinging his shielded arm around him, and locking off portions of the arena with parasitic damage. In order to deal damage, I had to bait out the airstrike attack, grab one of the parasite canisters, and huck it at him to remove his armor, exposing grotesque pustules which were big, disgusting crit spots.

After chipping away one of his three health bars, Idolator Sol started to target sections of the arena. Quadrants would be bathed in parasites, forcing me to move into the safe zone, before quickly needing to move again as the parasite spread. It worked well to add a bit of movement to the fight outside of simply dodging bullets and ducking under his shield arm.

With the lumbering Baron Harkonnen wannabe defeated, the mission came to an end, and so too did the preview portion of my play session. Like how Lexi felt during her recent preview, the narrative sort of faded into the background for this mission. The characters only spoke a handful of times over the comms and it didn’t really showcase the humor players loved from the earlier entry in the series.

However, what stood at the foreground, proud and confident, was the combat. I was playing solo, and only on normal, which is to say that if this is the hectic gameplay Gearbox is delivering for this setup, I’m even more excited for the chaos that will ensue when I can ratchet up the difficulty and dive into Borderlands 4 with a few mates.

This preview is based on a Steam code provided by the publisher. Borderlands 4 is available on September 12, 2025, on PC, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5, and will release on Nintendo Switch on October 3.

It’s hard to believe it’s been six years since Borderlands 3, a period of time almost as long as the wait between it and Borderlands 2. And now, a mere week out from the release of Borderlands 4, we’ve got a hands-on preview of Gearbox Software’s latest entry in the bombastic, slapstick, loot-spewing franchise. While I didn’t love the third entry in the series, Borderlands 4 is starting to scratch a part of my brain that makes me want to sew chaos with outraGEOus weapons against equally outrageous enemies.

For the preview period, I was able to go hands-on with one specific mission about four hours into the Borderlands 4 campaign. At this point, the player has joined the Crimson Resistance and is assaulting Fortress Indomita to take down Idolator Sol, one of the Timekeeper’s lieutenants. So, the goal is pretty straightforward: clear out the base and take down the boss. This simplicity let me focus on more important things, like my build, picking through weapons, and killing the enemies that drop them.

I stepped into the robot shoes of Rafa, a Roland-Axton type character with the ability to summon shoulder-mounted cannons, blades on his arms, or just a big ol’ gun. I opted for the shoulder-mounted cannons, leaned into the critical hit modifiers – higher chance, more damage, and cooldown on proc – with the idea being crit more to crit way more!

The first thing I noticed about the combat in Borderlands 4 is the sense of verticality that each section contained. The series has always had elevated platforms, but moving between them was ponderous, with players needing to find ramps or stairs. In this, grapple points litter the area, letting you quickly leap to higher levels or just fling yourself across the play space. I’d grapple up to a ledge, double jump into a dash, and use the same grapple to snag an explosive barrel and toss it at an enemy.

While I was dashing and jumping around, the enemies were just as mobile. Humanoid synths zip and teleport around the area, soldiers run and gun between cover, while other powerful units float through the air, sending out beams and summoning floating turrets. When the fighting kicks off, there is rarely an opportunity to breathe, let alone reload.

It all felt frenetic, especially as I tried to concentrate on jumping across platforms to pull off coupling arms from one of Idolator Sol’s ships to stop it from leaving. With that sorted, I was on to the next area full of enemies, boxes with green lights to open, and weapons to inspect during the downtime.

Because of the build I choose for Rafa, I leaned towards the rapid-fire weapons like the Assault Rifles and Submachine Guns. The faster I could get critical hits, the quicker I could get my shoulder guns back. At one point, a powerful enemy spewed out some weapons, which included a juicy purple Vladof Assault Rifle. This thing had a higher DPS, but lower damage per shot, than my current Assault Rifle, but it featured a higher rate of fire and magazine size, which meant I could get those critical hits more frequently.

All of this came into play during the mission’s boss fight against Idolator Sol. This wasn’t just a straight DPS check, as Gearbox has injected some light mechanics into the fight. The showdown took place in a small, circular arena, with Idolator Sol charging at me like a raging bull, calling down airstrikes, swinging his shielded arm around him, and locking off portions of the arena with parasitic damage. In order to deal damage, I had to bait out the airstrike attack, grab one of the parasite canisters, and huck it at him to remove his armor, exposing grotesque pustules which were big, disgusting crit spots.

After chipping away one of his three health bars, Idolator Sol started to target sections of the arena. Quadrants would be bathed in parasites, forcing me to move into the safe zone, before quickly needing to move again as the parasite spread. It worked well to add a bit of movement to the fight outside of simply dodging bullets and ducking under his shield arm.

With the lumbering Baron Harkonnen wannabe defeated, the mission came to an end, and so too did the preview portion of my play session. Like how Lexi felt during her recent preview, the narrative sort of faded into the background for this mission. The characters only spoke a handful of times over the comms and it didn’t really showcase the humor players loved from the earlier entry in the series.

However, what stood at the foreground, proud and confident, was the combat. I was playing solo, and only on normal, which is to say that if this is the hectic gameplay Gearbox is delivering for this setup, I’m even more excited for the chaos that will ensue when I can ratchet up the difficulty and dive into Borderlands 4 with a few mates.

This preview is based on a Steam code provided by the publisher. Borderlands 4 is available on September 12, 2025, on PC, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5, and will release on Nintendo Switch on October 3.