Borderlands 4

well it's a bad Borderlands game, but it's a decent Firefall sequel. fails to maintain any of the design choices that made the series stand out and satisfying, leaning way too hard into sci-fi aesthetic while somehow losing any feeling of alien exploration as the world has grown dim and uninteresting. Mechanics that were slowly doled out to the player are suddenly thrust upon you, like the game is impatient with it's own delivery, 2 hours in and I have all weapon slots unlocked and multiple traversal techniques and none of it feels interesting or earned. UI elements are cluttered and illegible, skill trees look amateurish, enemies are almost never distinguishable from their environment. Without even touching on performance (don't even get me started, it's actually embarrassing how poor this runs, shame on you) my issues with design choices run deep. The choice to replace stat descriptions with symbols, instead of making information more immediate, requires you to convert the meaning in your head when comparing items instead of the game just telling you. It is the type of choice that you can feel a manager making without understanding the player experience and why things are done they way they are, you have to actually consider the experience instead of the aesthetics. It's genuinely baffling how we got here from what I consider to be my gold standard FPS series from a satisfaction of design standpoint. I wasn't kidding with the Firefall comparison though. Look up gameplay from that old failed MMO and compare to gameplay from previous Borderlands games and tell me this doesn't have more in common with that game. From UI to world design to armor aesthetics to creatures to environment, it's like the copycat became the copied, it's bizarre and disappointing. All in all there is a long line of poor choices that led to the creation of this game obviously, and I'm unsure if the series is salvageable in it's current hands, but I sincerely hope there is reflection and honesty from the studio if there's a chance of them turning around in the future (hey, a boy can dream right?) (Excuse the wall of text, but at least this mountain of dissatisfaction has motivated me even more to commit my ideas to reality and make a better looter shooter than this, coming soon to a Gamestop near you)