“Borderlands 4” is a first-person shooter game that revolves around a Vault Hunter on the planet of Kairos. The protagonist is seeking to defeat the Timekeeper, a tyrant who uses cybernetic implants to subjugate the entire planet.
The game is classified M18 for strong violence and gore.
Played from a first-person perspective, the player chooses a protagonist to play through the story by completing missions, many of which involve killing enemies (humans, robots and creatures). Defeated enemies drop loot in the form of experience and items, with stronger enemies dropping more valuable loot. In addition, the player may undertake challenges which involve killing a certain number of enemies for additional rewards.
Combat is frenetic as the protagonist fights groups of enemies. Dismemberment and decapitation are frequently depicted as defeated enemies break apart into chunks with copious blood splatter. Some weapons disintegrate the enemy, leaving the severed lower half of the character stumbling around before falling. There are some depictions of violence in the story scenes, such as a man stabbing himself and a character ripping out a bloody device from the back of a woman’s neck. Overall, the game would be more appropriate under a M18 rating where the Classification Guidelines permit “depictions of realistic violence, such as killing, maiming or causing other serious injury to humanoid characters.”
The player may overhear a radio opera which references a romantic relationship between two male characters. There is some use of coarse language, such as the expletive “f**k”.