my thoughts on borderlands 4

gamescon 2024 happened the other day. they announced borderlands 4. i have opinions about this. 

borderlands has been a MASSIVE interest/ comfort media for me ever since i was a little kid. i've played every game in the series, including the pre-sequel, the tellltale game, and the dlc's. i can confidently say... i am not excited for borderlands 4. 

part of borderlands' success comes from its humor. that's a massive part of the appeal of the series, aside from the general aesthetic of the games and the characters and whatever. borderlands 2 worked so well because it was, at the time, absolutely hilarious. the gameplay was great too, but the humor was a biiiiig part of it. 

they slightly changed their staffing for the pre-sequel, and i believe they've stayed with that team since then. i didn't hate that game, the gameplay was fun enough and the zero gravity schtick made it interesting, so i could excuse some of the jokes that fell flat. 

but borderlands... hasn't been funny since the second game.... because they refuse to change anything about their humor or style. i know pleeenty of people really liked BL3 for example, but it didn't do nearly as well as BL2 both because of its painfully dull gameplay and unfunny dialogue. the movie was absolutely horrific because of how heavily they tried to rely on the charm of BL2, and that came out a matter of months ago. unless the writers of BL4 can finally decide to give up trying to be BL2, it's going to flop. 

but obviously i could be wrong. maybe it'll be fantastic and i'll love it and everyone will be allowed to make fun of me for being such a grumpy asshole about this. i guess we'll just have to see it