Cards on the table: I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy Borderlands 4. Over the last decade I've bounced off Borderlands 3 and the Pre-Sequel, my fondest memories remaining the 60 hours I obsessively sank into Borderlands 2. Then, Borderlands 2 was the cool game to play – all of my friends were tearing Pandora to pieces, cackling at Handsome Jack's every utterance, and bickering over who gets which gun.
In the years since, I've gelled less with Borderlands' sense of humor. But the core shooting formula, blasting skags to smoldering chunks and inexplicably pulling some new type of purple-grade death from its guts, left a gap that's never been filled since 2012. But Borderlands 4 has done exactly that, with a message that cuts through even the most grating of quips: when looter shooters remember the second half of their namesake and let new players in, it becomes damn hard to miss.
