Conan O'Brien played Borderlands 4 for charity, but somebody should have told him about the Claptrap mute button: 'He's my least favorite trash can'

Borderlands 4 elevator clearance: Claptrap moving towards the camera while holding an empty box out with his left hand. — (Image credit: Gearbox)

Ahead of the release of Borderlands 4 last week, Conan O'Brien returned for a new episode of Clueless Gamer to try out the game in support of the non-profit Next for Autism.

Right out of the gate, O'Brien's eyes seemed to glaze over while listening to the lore behind the game, joking, "Can you just say to people 'these are robots' and they go 'PEW PEW PEW'?"

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After getting through an opening cutscene he compared to a Russian novel, O'Brien met the infamous Claptrap and immediately joined the legions of gamers who hate the peppy little rolling box.

"You know what's great about this little Claptrap guy? He'll never get annoying," O'Brien quipped. After mimicking the robot's voice, he added, "He's my least favorite trash can, and that's really saying something."

The great tragedy is that O'Brien could have muted the memetically hated robot companion thanks to a new option in Borderlands 4's sound menu⁠—you really gotta hand it to Gearbox on that one, it's a great bit. But perhaps for the sake of good content, O'Brien was forced to endure.

O'Brien then managed to take out some kratches and fought for his life during a trip to the Lambent Mines⁠—at least until the game crashed on him after co-host Aaron Bleyaert attempted to change a setting to make the game easier for O'Brien. After getting things back up and running, O'Brien spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to get through a forcefield (including just shooting at it, we've all been there) and took a stab at fighting the boss, "Vile Lictor."

O'Brien managed a victory on the unfortunately-named honcho and closed things out by giving another shoutout to Next for Autism, which builds and runs programs to support people with autism. Of course, he also gives a shoutout to Borderlands 4, which is available now on Steam.

Stevie Bonifield is a freelance tech journalist specializing in mobile tech, gaming gear, and accessories. Outside of writing, Stevie loves indie games, TTRPGs, and building way too many custom keyboards.

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