Here's what you need to know about the first few hours of Borderlands 4

Borderlands 4 is here, it's huge, and it's pretty damn different from most of the other Borderlands games out there. This general shift is mostly thanks to two things: the game's open world format and the massive improvements to the movement system.

I've played the first few hours of Borderlands 4 already, and consumed a lot of video content to learn more about how the game works. Please allow me to guide you through those opening hours with some tips and things to keep in mind as you play.

Choose your class carefully, but don't freak out about it

I already put out a guide on picking your Vault Hunter — AKA class — but there's something worth reiterating in this guide.

When you choose your Vault Hunter at the beginning of Borderlands 4, you should do so cautiously, as you can't freely switch characters mid campaign. If you decide you actually don't like Amon and want to play Vex instead, for example, you'll need to start the campaign over from scratch.

However, once you complete the main campaign (around level 30), you'll be able to start a new character, instantly skipping the campaign and taking them to level 30. This is a huge quality of life feature for trying new classes. But, even more importantly, it takes a lot of pressure off of your initial pick.

Think carefully about who you want to play the campaign with, but know that even if you end up bored of that character before you hit the max level of 50, you can swap to someone else with no penalty once you finish the campaign.

Pick a class tree and invest in it

Once you have your Vault Hunter locked in, read through their class tree and decide on one to invest in. You can respec your character for a pretty low cost, but ideally you can avoid that by reading ahead.

After you start investing, try to only invest into that one tree until you reach the final skills. The capstone skills are extremely strong, and it will take a long time to reach them — or even be impossible — if you spread your skill points in multiple trees.

Movement is super different

The Borderlands games have always felt a little sluggish compared to something like Destiny, which is fast and offers a ton of verticality. Borderlands 4 fixes that issue, but in the most excessive way possible. Not only do you start with a double jump, you will get a grappling hook and a jetpack that lets you hover/dash within your first 90 minutes of playing.

All of these tools really open the game up vertically, and they make getting around the environment more engaging. With that in mind, resist the urge to stay still behind more traditional cover and dash around the battlefield as much as you can to get better angles and find more unique places to hide.

It's more like Pokemon than you think

Many weapons come with elemental damage types in Borderlands 4, and those damage types are better at dealing with some kinds of enemies than others.

Incendiary damage, for example, is really effective against health, but terrible against armor. To deal with armor, you'll want Corrosive. And you'll want Shock for shields. And so on.

You'll learn these over time, but you can actually check them in-game by inspecting your loot and hovering your cursor over the elemental damage on the left side of your screen.

Fight any world bosses you find

As you explore the open world, you'll come across these translucent bubbles over certain areas. Going inside will spawn a world boss. These bosses give a ton of XP and loot if you can take them down, and they're a great way to boost yourself up quickly.

Just be aware that if you die on one, they appear to despawn for a while. So be cautious when you go in, as not all of them seem to spawn additional enemies for you to get yourself up from Down But Not Out with.

Explore, grab contracts, and unlock areas often

With the game being open world, there's obviously a lot more to explore and discover as you roam around.

There are question marks on the map that will take you to places where you'll find chests or world bosses or side quests. And there are safehouses and balloons for you to unlock, which will give you more fast travel points. You can even pick up contracts to complete in some of these areas, which will net you bonus XP and gear.

Don't let these things pass you by just because they're new. You'll get a lot of bang for your buck if you go out of your way. However ...

Don't forget to get your vehicle first

When you unlock the first safehouse in the campaign, you'll be more or less on your own to get to the next town. This is the natural time to say "well I'll just get a bunch of these side quests done on my way to the next mission." No! Resist that urge.

Instead of dillydallying, you want to move forward to the "Down and Outbound" main story quest as quickly as possible. You'll get your summonable vehicle during the first part of this quest, which is absolutely critical for getting around quickly. It's hard to express how much faster it is than your little legs.

Get the vehicle first, then explore.

Use your ECHO scan constantly

Borderlands 4 is a truly modern video game, by which I mean you can hit a button to scan the area and highlight things you can interact with.

This is super useful for finding stuff in quests where you need to investigate an area, but it'll also draw you a line from where you are to where you need to go next in order to complete your current objective. The cool thing about this is it'll actually highlight any nearby grapple points or ladders for you to climb in green, making it easier to get to where you need to go.

Make sure you're connected to SHIFT

When you first boot up the game, you'll see a place where you can login or make a SHIFT account. (If you've played another Borderlands game on the same platform, it should automatically log you in). This is Gearbox's account system, and it'll allow you to get some extra goodies like Golden Keys that let you open high roll chests and stuff like that.

It's not super important just yet, but it's something Gearbox likes to use to reward players, so just get it set up early.

Upgrade your backpack size ASAP

You'll pick up SDUs as you explore the open world and do various side activities. These SDUs are what you'll use to upgrade your max ammo for different guns, your bank space, your lost loot mailbox, and, most importantly, your backpack.

Because the game is open world, it's a lot easier to go a while without running into a vending machine in Borderlands 4. If you don't want to have to leave loot on the ground, you should level up your backpack size as early and as often as possible. This not only will net you more cash in the long run, it'll make managing your inventory a lot less obnoxious.

for the love of god, enable radar and improve mantling with settings

There are two settings that are inexplicably turned off in Borderlands 4, and you should turn them both on immediately.

The first is the radar, which gives you a top-down view of enemy locations and legendary loot on a tiny mini-map. This works in addition to the compass. You can find it at the very bottom of the gameplay options menu. It's labeled "Toggle Radar Display."

The second option is less critical, but gets rid of a minor annoyance. If you go to the accessibility options menu, swap it to gameplay accessibility, and look at the bottom of the screen, you'll find "Mantle with Forward." Toggle this on to make sure that you climb up on any ledges by just holding forward.

If you're on PC, use the advanced auto detect settings

Borderlands 4 isn't optimized particularly well for PC. It has really high recommended specs, and can even struggle for people with monster machines.

My rig measures up to the recommended with the exception of my processor, which is two generations behind. The game runs OK for me most of the time, but I've had to mess with several settings to get there. The good news is that the "Run Auto-Detect" setting in the advanced visual menu really seems to work nicely. But the best part is that if you're in an area where performance dips, you can open it, run the auto-detect again, and it'll adjust the settings down to help your performance.