Borderlands takes a straight FPS and wires an action RPG skeleton underneath it. You pick one of four Vault Hunters, each with their own action skill and class fantasy, then get dropped on Pandora with one job: chase the myth of the Vault and survive everything in between.

The core loop is simple and addictive: pick up missions, clear out bandits and wildlife, crack open chests, compare numbers, and slowly turn your character into something dangerous. Skill trees actually matter – you can lean into sniping, close-range aggression, support, or pet-based shenanigans – and your build starts to shape how you read fights, not just how fast the health bars melt.

Loot is the other half of the spine. Borderlands’ procedural weapon system spits out an absurd amount of guns, shields, and gear with different stats, elements, and quirks. You’re constantly scanning drops, weighing trade-offs, and chasing that next upgrade. It turns every mission, chest, and vendor into a small gamble.

Pandora holds it all together: a wasteland of junkyards, rusted outposts, and corporate leftovers, filled with psychos, beasts, and weird little corners of world-building. The tone is scrappy and unpolished, but there’s a charm in how it commits to being a loud, ugly frontier full of broken people and broken tech.

In the Vault, this is the starting point. Borderlands 1 isn’t the most refined entry, but it’s where the “Halo meets Diablo” idea stopped being a pitch and became an actual, playable formula.