Borderlands 4 is without a doubt the biggest Borderlands game yet, not only boasting a massive open world filled with a multitude of activities and collectibles for players to complete and collect, but also bringing a host of new changes and improvements to the series’ iconic formula. In what often feels more like an MMO than the FPS RPG looter shooter its predecessors have been, Borderlands 4 effectively reboots the franchise and sets it on course toward a brand-new narrative for itself. Unfortunately, despite its actual size and that of its aspirations, it occasionally hits a wall of its own making, sending it careening to the ground below.
Borderlands 4‘s Kairos is not only big, but it’s also beautiful and chock-full of unique gameplay opportunities. In fact, it’s very easy to get distracted while wandering Kairos, simply because Borderlands 4 has, according to Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, “tripled down” on side content. However, another major contributor to that distraction is the world itself, which all but begs for every square foot of it to be explored. The only problem is that many of those square feet can’t even be reached, on account of some invisible walls that often seem to predict what players will attempt as they explore.
Borderlands 4's Invisible Walls Undermine Its Biggest Promise
The Skyrim-Sized Claim That Raised Expectations
What makes this so interesting, though, is that Borderlands 4‘s Kairos was initially touted as a game world where this wouldn’t happen — at least, if Randy Pitchford’s comments on the game’s exploration are interpreted a certain way. Speaking at a PAX East panel on May 9, 2025, Pitchford stated, “You see something anywhere on the screen, a mile away, up in the sky, you will be able to get there.” Now, to the ear, that statement makes Borderlands 4 sound like Skyrim, to a certain extent, and there are implications there that can’t be avoided.
In Skyrim, players can quite literally go almost anywhere they can see, so long as they are willing to try. The very fact that its horses can climb mountains says as much. As such, with Pitchford’s comments on Borderlands 4 echoing Todd Howard’s “That mountain is not just a backdrop” statement during Skyrim‘s marketing phase, one would think the same would be possible in Borderlands 4 — only without horses. However, that is most often not the case, as attempting to cut corners by climbing mountains or other terrain frequently results in players hitting an invisible wall that forces them along a more linear route.
Borderlands 4's Movement System Highlights the Problem
It’s not just Pitchford’s comments raising expectations for Borderlands 4‘s Kairos that matter here either, as the game’s emphasis on movement and traversal coupled with those invisible walls just doesn’t make sense. Giving players more traversal abilities than the series has ever seen and then using invisible walls to prevent them using those abilities is Borderlands 4‘s biggest oxymoron, and it ultimately robs players of the freedom to define their playthrough using creative problem-solving and improvisation.
What hurts even more is that this isn’t something that can just be removed via a patch. Fixing invisible walls isn’t just a matter of flipping a switch in a post-launch update. Those barriers are often tied to how a level is designed, how the engine handles traversal, and what areas are meant to be accessible. With Borderlands 4 often feeling as though it has an abundance of invisible walls, the world clearly wasn’t built with player access in mind, so removing them would mean reworking terrain, collision meshes, or even designing new geometry where players were never supposed to go. That aside, though, at least Borderlands 4‘s seamless world of Kairos is still worth exploring, even with the railing.