Only a few hours in, I didn't have much commentary on BL4 back in Septermber. And then things got a bit busy. Me and J have managed almost-weekly sessions so here in December we've defeated the three area bosses and are knocking on The Timekeeper's door.

And on the daddy-daughter gaming front, Dani and I blasted through Astro Bot and are on to the endgame stuff.


Astro Bot is the feature-length sequel to the platformer demo game that shipped with the PS5, Astro's Playroom. It won 2024 GOTY according to one of the main award-givers, so between the critical acclaim and our enjoyment of Playroom, Dani and I had high expectations.


3D platformers don't really need a story. Astro Bot gets this and only shows brief sequences of an alien breaking apart the PS5 spaceship and scattering bots across the galaxy. The game's quest consists of rescuing the bots and recovering the PS5 hardware components.


The Astro Bot experience is pretty much the same as Playroom: 3D platforming with special items in every world that add a gameplay mechanic like slowing time or deploying climbable platforms.


The first game was a nostalgic experience; each world unlocks a PS1-5 and their associated peripherals. Throughout the levels are little scences of bots playing famous characters like Crash Bandicoot, Lara Croft, and Pyramid Head. In this game the costumed bots are rescuable and, once freed, have their own little diorama at home base. With 300+ bots to rescue, there are many more cameos to discover - Nioh, Persona 5, Katamari, SotC, Gran Turismo, and so forth.


It's upbeat, it's easy, it's lighthearted. It's perfect for playing with an enthusiastic four year old. Dani is still nervous around bad guys so most of the time I held the dual shock while the little one played co-driver. The home base area, however, is large, safe, and has a bunch of stuff to do.


I have to say, it feels like Sackboy got shafted by the GOTY thing -- well not exactly, Sackboy was released in 2020 so the games aren't in direct competition. Sackboy a better 3D platformer than Astro Bot in almost every way (though not by a large margin) but it didn't even get an award nomination.


Borderlands 4 is excellent. It says a lot about the franchise that I can't really say how great it is until I've finished a couple of playthroughs, taken on some raid bosses, and played the DLC. But the way things are going right now, I'd say once all is said and done it'll be the second most enjoyable game in the series (after BL2, of course, and recognizing that BL1 is the only reason we are here).

New Game+ has to not suck. And the DLC has to be as amazing as the previous games. But I'm optimistic.

Me and J have a good chunk of playtime under our belt, we're approaching where the plot indicates that the final confrontation is nigh. The actual final battle is almost certainly a bit farther away but I think we've unlocked most of the game's geography.

Kairos, map, and area bosses

The layout of Borderlands 1 and 2 felt like a hub-and-spoke layout centered around Fyrestone and Sanctuary. B1.5 and BL3 were more of a linear journey with occasional reasons to return to previous areas. The BL4 map changes the formula and offers a sprawling, contiguous donut-shaped outlands surrounding the antagonist's dystopic home city. The donut is partitioned into three domains, each ruled by an area boss. As you might imagine, all three area bosses must be defeated to access the center city. This layout, coupled with the size of the map, means that the BL4 journey is neither linear nor a series of sorties from home base. You sort of drift around the map and make use of the scattered safe houses and ally bases (there is a resistance movement fighting each area boss).

Like its open world kin (Elden Ring, Horizon, Zelda, etc.) Kairos has all of the obligitory biomes; plains, deserts, forests, tundras, and some more science fiction-y environments. While the ample visual variety feels a bit contrived, it's important for a game of this size to not be all desert wasteland.

The story

BL4 doesn't have much story but it has plenty of narrative. That is, you're pretty much just trying to find a way to nonfatally remove your mind control device but wind up running into a lot of good and bad guys along the way. Like with BL3, I'm glad they didn't try to do another Handsome Jack and it's nice that The Timekeeper isn't nearly as annoying as the Calypso twins. Similarly, even if some of the dialogue and subplots are ho-hum, the steady stream of interactions makes for the feeling of being part of a story.

Me	I read some initial speculation that the hand [picking up a psycho mask on Kairos] belongs to an Eridian, possibly The Watcher who appeared at the end of TPS. Does this mean the omegawar mentioned in the TPS epilogue is upon us?

Barring an extensive Act III, I don't imagine we're getting the mysterious galactic conflict that was foretold. Oh well, I just hope BL4 doesn't continue teasing a mysterious galactic conflict that Gearbox don't intend to write.


Despite BL4 taking place on the other end of an interdimensional shift, a few familiar faces that have come looking for the cause of the shift (Lilith).

Gameplay and QoL

BL4 introduces some new movement mechanics: grapple, double jump, and glide. These moves don't especially impact the way the game plays (you don't use them much in combat) but the greater freedom of movement probably means Gearbox had more latitude with level design.

The biggest change to gunplay added with BL4 is knockdown. It's fairly common to send an elite bad guy to the ground, granting a brief opportunity to finish him or find cover. The knockdown mechanic is both tactically helpful an cognitively more reassuring to see an onslaught of exploding stuff occasionally send an enemy to the floor.


On the quality of life front:

• You can digistruct (spawn) vehicles anywhere you can drive them. I'm actually okay with being punished for getting my ride blown up but I can't deny the convenience.
• The GPS track (see the image above with a pod racer-like vehicle) is really useful for getting around the expansive overworld.
• You can send items to your bank from anywhere, freeing up precious backpack slots.
• Boss battles have a replay kiosk where you can spend eridium for some quick farming.
• Low gravity returns for part of the game but without the need for oxygen.

Sidequests, bounties, minigames, distractions...

There is plenty to do in BL4. But is there too much? Is it fresh and fun or diluted with fetch quests? I don't know yet!

• BL4 has tons of sidequests including the classic Face McShooty- and The Bane-style ones. We decided we'd do a few now and catch the rest on the next playthrough.
• Each safe house has bounties and things to retrieve. The bounties can largely be accomplished by wreaking ordinary havoc in the area so they're a bit like passive rewards. Similarly, there are global rewards for doing x, y number of times (e.g. 100, 500, 1000 headshots with a Vladof).
• I guess slot machines have been replaced by Plinko (above)?
• Scattered across the map are vault fragments which may or may not lead to greater amounts of loot down the road.
• The coolest new side activity (see Poison Ivan above) is the introduction of randomly-spawning field bosses. They're not easy and if any player dies or is knocked out of the boss's boundary, the boss despawns and you get nothing.

Weps and builds

Coming up with a neat character build in a game like Baldur's Gate 3 or Slay the Spire is one of the more enjoyable aspects of their respective genres. The Borderlands series has the same CRPG and deckbuilder depth but since it's a FPS you really get to feel how well your build works, or doesn't. BL4 has numerous distinct dimensions along which one can customize their build:

• Weapons: WGBPO guns with damage types, unique manufacturers, and randomly-generated attributes/parts; it's kind of Borderlands's whole thing.
• Skill trees: each character has a set of unique skill trees with a wide variety of abilities and bonuses.
• Action skills: action skills are the Borderlands ult ͥ ability that often does major damage and provides temporary boosts.
• Class mods: class mods provide a unique ability - often related to the character's action skill - and bonus skill points to certain skill tree nodes.
• Enhancements (new): boosts weapon abilities like fire rate or magazine size and, interestingly, has a special modifier for licensed parts (see below).
• Firmware (new): various boosts that increase with more items featuring the same firmware.
• Specializations (new): a bit like badass points from the prior games, you earn spendable points to buff damage, reload speed, etc.

The worry with a scheme like this is that a game is just XP-gating damage and reload speed and that it'd be just as fun without any RPG elements. BL4 has some vanilla buffs like damage and reload speed however they tend to be building blocks for a more sophisticated character customization.

A Maliwan shotty with a shield? Whaaa?

It used to be that if you had a Jakobs sniper rifle, it was always semi-automatic, high damage, and non-elemental. If you had a Maliwan SMG, it was elemental with a mediocre fire rate and magazine size. Borderlands 4 adds the commercial wonder that is IP licensing, so that Jakobs can fire explosive rounds thanks to a deal with Torgue Corporation, the Maliwan might reload via throwing it like a grenade thanks to parts from Tediore.


For someone like myself who is used to the fixed lanes of the Borderlands arms manufacturer system, this feels pleasantly disruptive. It's not always good of course; adding a charge-up or overheat component to an otherwise-good drop is frustrating (for someone who dislikes those mechanics). But the Borderlands experience is shrugging off bad loot and thinking about working the good stuff into your build... or hitting the respec station and changing your build for a particularly promising item.

Moment of zen

After three main games, a pre-sequel, and a bunch of DLCs, BL4 has the first (afaik ͥ ) instance of a loot portapotty that's actually being used. Rude, yes, but not as rude as the the reality-defying odds of opening thousands of doors and never once interrupting someone.

	If you're still alive, grab some ammo. If you're not, THIS MESSAGE IS IRRELEVANT!	�
	From Mr. Torgue in Borderlands 2 (pic unrelated)

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