Borderlands 4 had a great launch, with both critics and fans receiving the game pretty well. Gearbox repeatedly let us know that the writers ensured that the humour in this entry wouldn't be too slapstick, and they managed to honour it by giving us a lot less Claptrap. However, the new open-world formula had the community split.
While it felt great clearing out Far Cry-style strongholds, a lot of the map felt empty, and exploration didn't feel rewarding at all. In fact, it only made the waypoints feel further away. Add to that all the invisible walls, and the open world didn't feel very open at all. It didn't help that the in-game route finder is completely borked too. However, it seems Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford warned us about this a year ago.
While the current issue plaguing the game is the new content feeling pretty dry, it seems Pitchford had already told us that Borderlands 4's world can't be referred to as an "open world". A Reddit post by stradstrad dug up a tweet by Pitchford from December 2024 that could explain why the community is so split on this topic.
Replying to someone's mockup...
