Borderlands 4 Shows Co-Op Is Still the Soul of the Series

The year 2009 was when I perfected my particular brand of smack-talk. For a guy who was 31 at the time, you might think that was a little behind schedule. I’d always been fairly good at berating my friends, but the original Borderlands game took it to another level. There’s nothing like seeing your buddy fly across the screen and go down for the fourth time in a fight against Moe and Marley to bring out the best in you.

Borderlands wasn’t the only big gun (pun intended) to come out that year. Major franchises like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Resident Evil 5, and Batman: Arkham Asylum were just a few of the games it was up against. None of them matched the joy of watching tiny midgets explode into pink mist while tossing multiple guns from their bodies like a piñata. Ah, nostalgia.

It All Started With a Gun That Shoots More Guns

When the first Borderlands hit the scene, it gave us something new in the looter-shooter genre. The cel-shaded art was bold, and the humor was unhinged. The loot system spat out more random guns than a magician pulling scarves from his sleeve. Gearbox had found a simple formula that worked: shoot, loot, repeat.

The biggest hook was drop-in, drop-out co-op. For what felt like the first ever, multiplayer wasn’t just a tacked-on feature; it sat at the center of the design. Every fight, every chest, and every side quest worked better with a group. The more people you added, the tougher the enemies became, and the rewards piled up. Even waiting on loading screens felt faster with someone cracking jokes over voice chat.

Borderlands: Where Friends Became Enemies

The first game’s co-op walked a fine line between teamwork and betrayal. Sure, you could mow down bandits with friends, but you also had to share loot. When a legendary dropped, the mood shifted in a heartbeat. Four friends instantly turned into scavengers racing for the same glowing prize. More than one friendship felt the strain when somebody ninja-looted a shotgun (I still know you took that weapon, Jiggy!)

It wasn’t the fairest system, but it created stories people still remember. Loot wasn’t just a prize. People made promises, swore to trade later, or struck side deals in the middle of the fight. Honestly, though, it was rare for someone to follow through with their deal, but the memories stuck.

Flawed or not, the original Borderlands proved that playing together was worth more than the loot itself. You never walked away empty-handed; you at least left with the laughter.

Borderlands 2: More of the Same, but Super-Sized

At this point, Gearbox knew they had something special with their nascent series. When Borderlands 2 arrived in 2012, everything felt turned up. The world was bigger, the story sharper, and the humor cut deeper. Handsome Jack stole the show as one of gaming’s greatest villains, but co-op still held the spotlight (as did Butt Stallion).

The classes seemed to have a synergy to them this time around. Maya could lock enemies down while Axton’s turrets shredded the field. Salvador’s dual-wielding mixed with Zer0’s critical strikes could melt bosses in seconds. Playing solo worked fine, but with a team, the power combinations bordered on absurd.

Loot was still shared in this iteration, and the loot goblin debates never ended. Still, the sheer number of drops made the fights feel less bitter. Most of the time, there was enough purple gear to spread around. And when there wasn’t, at least you could laugh at the friend who swan-dived into lava chasing that Unkempt Harold they’d been after.

Borderlands 2 doubled down on what worked. More guns. More jokes. More chaos. It locked the series in as the preeminent co-op shooter of its generation.

Borderlands 3: The Change That Saved Friendships

Seven years passed before Borderlands 3 saw the light of day. The challenge for Gearbox was to modernize the game without losing the heart of the series. For co-op, it introduced two features that changed everything.

The first was instanced loot; every player now had their own drops. No more screaming “that’s mine,” and no more controller-grabbing arguments. The tone shifted overnight. Instead of fighting, people compared. “Look what I pulled” became the new callout. Flexing your looting skills by dropping your newest legendary for your friends to look at became the new norm.

The second change in Borderlands 3 was the introduction of level scaling. Before this, playing with a friend who wasn’t close to your level usually ended in disaster. Either they were flattened instantly, or you carried them through a dull grind. While this allowed a great way to power-level your alts, it wasn’t the best for overall group play. Borderlands 3 switched it up by having enemies scale to each player. You could now drop in with anyone, at any time, and the fights still felt fair.

Add in smoother fast travel, better online stability, along with other quality-of-life upgrades, and Borderlands 3 became the easiest game in the series to play with friends. The writing and villains may have sparked debate, but the co-op design was a leap forward.

Borderlands 4: Bounties, Beauty, and the Same Old Laughs

Now we’ve arrived at the recently released Borderlands 4. The game exploded out of the gates with a massive map, sharper visuals, and new mechanics to keep things fresh. The bounty system added structure to the chaos, giving squads new reasons to veer off course. Bounties feel like a mini-adventure, and running one with friends captured the same spark the first game had all those years ago.

Instanced loot and level-scaling are still there, and the action is just as ridiculous as ever. Gearbox didn’t tinker with the foundation they laid all those years ago; it’s still shoot, loot, laugh, repeat.

Not everything in BL4 is polished, though. Non-host players can’t keep unlocked fast travel points or map progress when they return to their own world. It’s like helping a buddy rearrange furniture and then going home to do your own apartment by yourself. Gearbox hasn’t explained if these frustrations were intentional or not, so there’s still hope for them to be fixed with a future patch.

Even with these misgivings, Borderlands 4 is still carrying the torch of the original. Joining a friend’s game, chasing bounties, and laughing when someone misses a jump ten times in a row still gives it the one thing single-player never could: shared chaos.

Why “Borderlands” Co-op Still Matters

Borderlands has defined itself through its co-op from the beginning. Most shooters of that era leaned on competition, kill counts, and leaderboards. They were more about bragging rights, while Borderlands walked a different road and asked us to laugh together instead.

The grind was made worth it by the human interactions. Every time you argued over loot, groaned when someone went down in a dumb spot, or laughed until your ribs hurt, you were creating a bond with a friend. At some point, the game stopped being about the guns alone, and it became about the people holding the controllers. Well, the people and the over a BILLION ridiculous guns.

That’s why Borderlands still matters. It turned co-op into more than an afterthought.

Here’s the Legendary Drop

The Borderlands series has always been more than a looter-shooter. Its core is chaos with friends and the laughter that sneaks in, even when you lose.

Borderlands 4 still has its quirks, but when the firefights start and the loot pours in, all that fades. The only thing that matters is that you’re in it together.

Sixteen years in, Borderlands is still proving the same truth. Co-op is the heart of the looter-shooter, and with Borderlands 4, that heart is still beating loud and strong.