Hands-on with Borderlands 4: Gearbox impresses with its consistency and a cool hoverbike addition

Borderlands 4 adds a hoverbike, maintaining Gearbox's reputable consistency.

: Borderlands 4 delivers a vast new planet, Kairos, and innovative features like a hoverbike, while keeping the classic essence intact. Gearbox focuses on producing fun movement abilities such as grappling, double jumping, and gliding, enhancing the player's experience. A notable shift from pop culture gags, the humor now aligns closely with the Borderlands universe, providing a grounded experience. The release prioritizes fierce co-op action, engaging shooting mechanics, and continuous looting excitement.

Borderlands 4, developed by Gearbox, continues the series' tradition of expansive FPS adventures while introducing some new elements. The game retains its core co-op experience with a focus on weapon variety and engaging combat mechanics. However, a prime addition is the hoverbike feature, known as the "Digirunner," which players can summon easily to enhance exploration on the new planet Kairos. Tyler Wilde from PC Gamer shares how this hoverbike provides dynamic movement abilities, including strafe and fast turns, albeit requiring finesse to master.

Borderlands 4's adventure kicks off on Kairos, a verdant planet that becomes the new battleground for vault hunters. Following protagonist Lilith's universe-shaking actions from Borderlands 3, players must navigate different terrains such as snow-covered realms and a supposedly majestic fortress city belonging to a villain known as The Timekeeper. The plot promises more integrated and grounded humor, avoiding the excessive pop culture references of its predecessor.

Familiar elements like massive gunfights and treasure hunts return, with notable tweaks to improve balanced gameplay, as Gearbox seems committed to refining their formula. The studio promises to make legendary weapons genuinely rare and valuable, giving regular armaments enhancements to keep the gameplay fresh and engaging.

New traversal options like double-jumps and grapples bring fluidity to combat encounters, allowing players to engage in strategic movements against foes, including "wizard-like" entities and robotic martial artists. These maneuvers further complement the game's trademark mayhem by facilitating thrilling high-speed chases and vertical engagements, ensuring the adrenaline never drops.

This hands-on preview also highlights community concerns around perpetual online services in games, which Borderlands 4 purposefully eschews to maintain its classic single-player and co-op formulas. Emphasizing consistency over radical change, Gearbox appears focused on delivering an experience faithful to its roots yet spiced with just enough novelty to entice old and new players alike.

Sources: PC Gamer, Gearbox, 2K Games

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