There is only one type of person who I want reading this article. One. Exactly one position on every development team in the world. At every publisher, gather the lead of UI/UX and bring them in front of the screen. Sit them down, and have them listen to my words very carefully.

If you are designing a game for consoles, do not, under any circumstance, implement a mouse cursor for console games.

There is no bigger pet peeve in gaming. In my eyes, no greater sin than shoving a bad, slow, ill-advised PC mouse cursor on menus for console games. It’s beyond lazy, illogical, and most of all unpleasant. You should actually create a way to navigate the settings and options on a controller like, you know, they’ve been doing for decades.

This trend started with “Destiny,” then gave way to the “Assassin’s Creed” games, then spread to countless AAA games, and now has hit its low point with “Borderlands 4.” I cannot take it anymore. Please, I beg of you, stop it. It’s 2025 — the time for this tomfoolery is over. Whoever at Gearbox is in charge of this needs to examine their life, take a long look in the mirror, and ask themselves “what the hell am I doing?”

My main takeaway from playing “Borderlands 4” is that they really fucked up with the UI and UX. Having to constantly re-choose “manufacturer” when reorganizing weapons to ‘recent’ or ‘level’ or “type” every single time is beyond ridiculous. Just remember what category I want my backpack to be structured by! This shouldn’t be that hard.

My second takeaway is that this game runs poorly. It bounces between a smooth 60 fps all the way down to what feels like the teens. Regularly. Just constantly going from chugging along with lag to having zero issues like every 30 seconds. A poorly optimized game on both PC and consoles, it’s wild to think that 2K MOVED UP the release date of this. Why were they that confident? They should have delayed the game.

With all that said, this is a pretty good game. Perhaps a great one if I could see what was going on through all of the colorful mess constantly being kicked up on-screen. Explosions, clouds, and so much other shit clogging the screen in every battle. It’s very overwhelming visually, and when you add in the amount of junk on the HUD, it borders on impossible to see what’s happening right in front of you.

I also don’t get the need to introduce manual healing injections. I never remember that I have to use it, and it doesn’t feel good as a new core mechanic. The opening of ammo boxes also seems outdated. What what does work is the move to open world design. That part, I enjoy greatly. It’s very fun to just roam around without loading screens.

The game isn’t funny anymore, but at least it’s not trying like “Borderlands 3.” So we went from a cringe worthy story that made me mute every character to a fourth game that strips away all of the personality. I guess I prefer what we have now, but “Borderlands 2” sure was the perfect version of what this game ideally is. Those days are long gone, though.

The instant ‘fast travel’ button that summons a motorcycle on command is a big plus. As is replaying missions and re-rolling boss fights to grind end game loot (if you’re into that). The subtle improvements are going to be more substantial for people in the know, like customizing your character from the jump any time and anywhere, and being able to track both a main and side mission at the same time.

The new top line compass definitely needs the additional mini-map radar in the top right, so enable that as soon as you can. The alerts of where enemies are and where you’re getting shot from are quite bad.

Otherwise, this is more of the same, but a bit remixed. For the better, I think, but it’s not the revolution that this series desperately needed. It’s more of a slow evolution but with some outstandingly dumb decisions.

---

“Borderlands 4” is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Image Credit: “Borderlands 4,” Gearbox