Borderlands 4 does what Destiny couldn't: I'm finally back on the looter shooter train, and it feels like reliving my 60 hours in Borderlands 2

Cards on the table: I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy Borderlands 4. Over the last decade I've bounced off Borderlands 3 and the Pre-Sequel, my fondest memories remaining the 60 hours I obsessively sank into Borderlands 2. Then, Borderlands 2 was the cool game to play – all of my friends were tearing Pandora to pieces, cackling at Handsome Jack's every utterance, and bickering over who gets which gun.

In the years since, I've gelled less with Borderlands' sense of humor. But the core shooting formula, blasting skags to smoldering chunks and inexplicably pulling some new type of purple-grade death from its guts, left a gap that's never been filled since 2012. But Borderlands 4 has done exactly that, with a message that cuts through even the most grating of quips: when looter shooters remember the second half of their namesake and let new players in, it becomes damn hard to miss.

Reloaded

I've tried to get into Destiny 2. I can count at least four serious attempts off the top of my head, with results ranging from bouncing off within an hour to several pretty fun evenings. As someone who missed the boat on Destiny, catching up feels like trying to push through rubber – when you're dropped into a story that's been running since 2014 and have no idea who anyone is, it's as if the game itself is trying to keep you out.

Poor onboarding is only half of the trouble. I've found that the vast majority of looter shooters stray too far from the FPS element – the clinical emphasis on Numbers and Stats taking them willingly into MMO territory – and that just doesn't do it for me. To me, a looter shooter is a shooter first and then the MMO-lite systems come into play. Maybe that's how playing Destiny 2 in full-swing feels, but being unable to work my way in, I wouldn't know.

Considering all of that, Borderlands 4 is the perfect storm. Existing as a series, rather than one long-running entity, lets Gearbox create clean breaks and entry points for new fans. The latest game is set on a planet far from Pandora, and anything carried forward – largely the series' most iconic characters, with a few from Borderlands 3 I wasn't as familiar with – is viewed from your perspective as a fresh-faced Vault Hunter, AKA an excuse to introduce everyone all over again. As the cherry on top, Borderlands' bigger-picture story isn't exactly overwhelming – just roll with being a violent force of nature Vault Hunter – which means there are no real issues from skipping past games.

Borderlands 4's moment-to-moment action is just as important. As I touched on in my Borderlands 4 review, it's the best single-player FPS I've played in a long time. Guns feel legitimately destructive to fire, and the way enemies stagger and eventually crumble under fire is deeply satisfying. Movement is constant – slowing down outside of cover is a death sentence – and during combat you simply cannot afford to stop firing, your own survivability hinges on whether you can beat overwhelming odds before they beat you. It's a thrill.

Then, after surviving all of that, you get to pick through robot circuitry and jellied bandits for more guns. More! Maybe you'll find a flat upgrade to your Jakobs semi-automatic rifle, except this one has a neater reflex sight and a missile launcher instead of a taser. Perhaps it's time to trade in your pistol, which also fires SMG bullets, for an actual SMG that spits acid and explodes every time it's reloaded? These aren't flat statistics, but different guns, ones that change how you approach and play shootouts. Borderlands 4 is an FPS first and foremost – it never loses sight of that – with the MMO-esque gear grind accentuating that pillar, rather than overclouding it.

After 13 years away from Borderlands, it's nice to know that there is still a looter shooter for me. In those years, I'd accepted the genre wasn't for me – writing off Borderlands 2 as a one-off in the face of countless peers I couldn't gel with. But the time I've already sunk into Borderlands 4 suggests I'm just picky, hopelessly adoring of Gearbox's shooter formula even if I've long moved away from its sense of humor. Sure, I'll probably keep trying to worm my way into Destiny – and if Bungie ever rolls out Destiny 3, I'll seize the opportunity to get in while the door's cracked open. But if all other looter shooters fail me, I'll always have Kairos.

Borderlands 4 is out now, so I'm looking back on the 5 best Gearbox games