The Good, The Ok, and The Suspect of Borderlands 4 State of the Play

The Good: Just Objectively good things. Bravo GBX.

• Once again GBX has cooked the gunplay. Grapple, Air Gliding, Dashing, Double Jumping, sliding, ground pounding, and fucking swimming!?! Alll looked pretty fluid despite the people playing are at such an early level and they don't seem to be these godlike players. So there's plenty of room for growth and its accesible and I can only assume it's gonna feel crazy if it's anything like BL3. Once again GBX has customization that looks GOOD on VHs. And it's in the base game itself as unlockable content like it was in BL3. Something we were hyper critical of and GBX tool time to show deliberately here.

• The art style actually looks like it's taking place after Borderlands 1 and 2 and it looks good despite it being so far into the future. But above all else the game. The world. The enemies. The story. The guns. All looking FUCKING COOL AND NOT CRINGE. Maintaining the rule of cool is the top priority of this game. It has to sell and for it to do that people need to feel cool playing and buying it again and not cringe like New Tales or BL3 or the The Borderlands Movie. It's gonna be an uphill battle given the aforementioned things and the fact Randy's face is all over the promotion for this game, but there's hope given what we've seen so far. And there's more to come in June. But even the implication that yes we might still have to talk to Lilith and yes we will see a grown up Ava seem to handeld with a measure of grace at least promotionally. That they aren't selling the game based off of them specifically being shown. But rather Amara, Zane, Moxxie, The New Villain, The World, The Ongoing conflict, and the Vaulthunters are selling points. And they all look amazing.

The Ok: These are things I think are potentially good but are obviously a bit different than in BL3. I don't think criticism yet can be critical of these things until further info is provided.

• I think the open world despite it being called open like and people's complaints about BL3s maps looks OK in BL4. The main thing going for it is apparently no load times so being able to like traverse a planet of the size of pandora and fast travel anywhere is pretty good in theory if it all works out. The ad density seems to be a step up from BL3. There's ongoing like random events with like minibosses. DUNGEONS!? And we know there's raidbosses (and hopefully takedown level missions to said bosses) so this is looking good. You can just spawn your vehicles whenever and nearly wherever in the open world and the vehicles look kinda cool. So yeah GBX said fuck it Bungie you don't want to make a Destiny 3? Well do it ourselves. I'm kidding sort of. But the point is it looks OK. Well have to see as we actually play and more gets revealed.

• I think it's okay that Vaulthunters have skill trees in skill trees. More options to make unique builds is a good philosophy and that seems to be what their goal is here. So this forces players to have more agency in their choices for skill points and the skill points look to be standard practice.

• Lastly I think it's okay if the game doesn't have anointments. We have yet to see any indiciation at all of their existence, which compared to Wonderlands and Borderlands 3 is different. Guns can be compelling on their own with BL4s systems and the skill trees look in depth enough for it to matter.

The Suspect: Now if you peeped the title and have somehow read this far into the post. It's a play on the term: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Because there's still not enough for me to just objectively say somethings bad or ugly and Im being optimistic moreso in the good in what I see. So instead the term sus is include things that I think could be bad or ugly.

The weapon part system is a bit suspect from a balancing perspective. Not only can you more or less create your own unique gun with how many manufacture attachments you can add to it, but now that relics aren't a thing, they're instead manufacture bonuses. If we assume that weapon parts like x18 and x25 Jacob's are no longer parts but instead actual individual guns as a whole, then the attachments can then allow you to turn that weapon INTO A TEDIORE GUN ON RELOAD....and one of the Vault Hunters is an Ex-Tediore employee....and there's weapon mods now that replace the function of relics that benefit purely tediore parts and guns or Jacob's guns....or a maliwan gun with elemental bonuses dipping into the aforementioned things. Or it could do none of the things I mentioned in which case it risks being underwhelming compared to previous games. I say this mainly because if only certain manufacturers attachments are strong and others are just useless it'll ultimately affect replayability. But here's the real head scratcher now that grenades are NO longer just an individual thing like rockets were, and are instead classified as ordinances....is a tediore chucking it's gun, chcuking an Ordinance or is it chucking a Weapon? Or both? Or neither? Yeah let that sink in as a shower thought until Borderlands 4 comes out. Godforbid you add in the weapon part system as it existed in BL3 and or Wonderlands into everything I just mentioned. You will be save editing if you want God rolled loot or farm for years legitmately in the game. That's the main no no for GBX to avoid compounding a prexisting problem with something else that could be a problem. But I am doubtful this happens because we haven't seen gun parts to the extent they were in BL3. So worse case scenario I personally see happening is the system feels underwhelming initially but GBX makes buffs and changes that help this.

Reduced Legendary drops. Let me say this. I know why people asked for reduced drops. Legendaries being seen all of the place are a kind of oxymoron to the very word legendary. It should be special or rare or something of legend which are inherently few and far between. But the maim thing that ultimately defines a goods status as legendary isn't JUST how often you see it but what you can do with it once you have it. Something incredibly cool and fun that you can't do with any none-legendary equipment. And importantly as well something that can perform to a higher function in the endgame. I think it's primarily suspect that the drops are reduced because having drop rates was MANDATORY in the past to be high. In the past legendaries had weapon parts to the extent BL3 had them. Missing just one part or affix on a legendary can greatly hinder or affect the ability for the gun to perform. There needed to be a drop system high enough to gain the right parts per the gun to feel and perform legendary in a fair amount of cases. So if the case here is that they don't benefit from the attachment system that like purple weapons do and they dont have parts....Then there would need to be a stronger emphasis on the gun itself being stronger compared purple rarity weapons that can have like multiple different attachments in order for them to be worthwhile using in the endgame. In this case I think it's even potentially good for the drop chance to be reduced. Because now the weapon is more like an exotic gun in Destiny that once you have it it's just instantly performing at a certain level with no need for you to have worry about refarming a roll on it like you would a none legendary or in this case a none exotic. This is with with the hope the gun performs significantly better and or different than any other type of gun you can get in the game. I think it's entirely possible this is the case but there have been cases in the past where this wasn't. The grind for a legendary is at least greatly medicated by the fact that you no longer need to save quit but it'll ultimately come down to how they handle each gun specifically in regards to each vaulthunters toolkit and how they handle diffiuclty in the game now that things like Mayhem levels IN ADDIITON TO MAYHEM SCALING do not exist as a whole. I HOPE they do NOT have weapon parts with affixes that influence the guns ability to perform to the degree that Borderlands 3 and Wonderlands did. What the game needs more of on a first impression is strong reppayability for an engaging world and action oriented gameplay and not necessarily because farming is abysmal. Since these things are what will ultimately keep you farming anything period. So far I haven't seen this objectively which is good....but my spider sense is tingling for something and it is going off...so we'll just have to wait and see hopefully it's a mis-read. Reduced drops chances can be a great addition to this game that makes farming more exciting and meaningful if done properly, which will have to involve a different kind of system seen in BL3. Weapon parts roles if the exist in shaping the function of legendary weapon will have to resemble greatly to how it worked in Destiny/BL1 or BL2/Pre-Sequel if the drops are reduced.

• TLDR So yeah BL4 looks incredibly good overall compared to even Borderlands 3 in terms of its promotion so far, which is so amazing. It's very assuring and really the only things that give me pause are glaring issues involving BL3/Wonderlands that may or may not exist in BL4.