Despite the performance issues, annoying jokes, and bugs, I’m still playing and enjoying Borderlands 4. I’m currently working on my second full playthrough with my wife, who is also a big Borderlands fan, and we’re having a great time. Mostly. Everything is going fine right up until we encounter another damn loot capsule. These things are the worst part of the game and are so bad that they truly baffle me.
As you explore the open world of Borderlands 4, you’ll find side activities and quests to complete. Some of these are elaborate, but other stuff is as simple as killing a specific target or activating a safehouse. One of these supposedly simple and fun little side activities involves Loot Capsules. These are small pods that you can stumble upon and then have to carry back to the nearest safehouse to unlock. Doing so opens the capsule, and you get some loot. Sounds fine, right? Wrong!
In Borderlands 4, Gearbox created a new mechanic that lets you pick up objects while fighting. This is used in various ways in the looter shooter, and most of the time, it is a nice way to spice up a combat encounter or make solving a puzzle just a bit more interesting. But when you hold something in Borderlands 4, you can’t mantle or climb up a ladder, drive your hover bike, aim down your sights, throw grenades, or fast travel with that object. It greatly limits your toolbox, and that’s fine when it’s used sparingly as a momentary wrinkle you have to contend with.
Yet that isn’t the case with Loot Capsules, which sometimes require you to walk a very long distance back to the “closest” HQ to get your reward. And you have to walk it. You can’t use your cool bike. You just run back on foot, unable to take most shortcuts because you can’t even use your sick grapple hook when holding an item. It is so fucking tedious. If you get attacked by enemies and have to fight your way out, you’d better hope that nothing happens that dislodges that capsule from your hand, or you could be searching around desperately for it in a moment. Has this happened to me? Yes, why do you think I’m writing this blog? And when you finally get to your HQ, you might have to solve some platforming puzzle that even involves tossing the damn loot pod across gaps. If it lands in an area you can’t enter, like a bottomless gorge that kills you, then it respawns back where you found it. Congratulations, you get to do it all over again.
Oh, and every time you pick it up, Claptrap starts talking. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes, he’ll talk over himself. And there are only so many lines. And they go on and on. I don’t even hate Claptrap like a lot of people do, but I quickly reached my breaking point after just a few capsules.
These damn capsules annoy me so much, and I deal with them so often that I’ve started to overthink how they even work. In a sci-fi universe that lets me digitize dozens of guns and store them on my person easily, why the fuck can’t I just store the capsule, too? Why must I lug it back? Why can’t I collect it like all the various shields, guns, and other loot I stuff into my digital trousers with no issue? Who thought this was fun? I’d love to chat with them because I’m genuinely curious how this was left in the game. Truly, it baffles me.
Here’s the funniest part about all of this: I’d be fine with the bullshit and the capsules if the reward was worth it. In my experience, this is never the case. I’ve opened close to two dozen of these things or more while playing alone and with friends. I’ve never gotten a single legendary weapon. Never. It’s usually the same crappy loot you often find in random chests, which don’t require a tenth of the effort to open. I’ve talked to friends about it and they’ve reported the same thing: Worthless loot that you trash the second you see it.
At this point, I’ve started to ignore them when playing Borderlands 4 alone. And when I do pick one up, I just gnash my teeth the whole time as I hear the same damn Claptrap line again. At least I enjoy the rest of the game. Mostly.