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Borderlands 4 update that aims the nerf cannon at its most broken builds delayed into next week, so enjoy your crit knife until then

News
By Anthony McGlynn published 17 October 2025

Borderlands 4 is clamping down on those crit knife builds

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Borderlands 4
(Image credit: 2K)
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Changes are coming to Borderlands 4, but they're arriving a little later than expected. A patch that’s going to rebalance some aspects of the looter-shooter has been delayed into next week, as Gearbox works to make sure it hits exactly as needed.

A month after Borderlands 4 launched, and there's still some finessing needed in the sci-fi FPS. Now that we’re a few weeks in, it's clear certain builds and weapons are a little overpowered, leading to less diversity in builds overall.

The Day 30 update is expected to help remedy this through nerfing certain weapons and loadouts. It’s likely to be quite large, in keeping with the number of tweaks, and it's been pushed out a few days for further development.

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Hey there, Vault Hunters!Quick update that our Day 30 Update, which includes balance adjustments, performance and stability improvements, and some new quality-of-life features, will be hitting early next week! We took a few extra days to help ensure a great experience for you.…October 16, 2025

"Our Day 30 Update, which includes balance adjustments, performance and stability improvements, and some new quality-of-life features, will be hitting early next week," the official Twitter account says. "We took a few extra days to help ensure a great experience for you."

Frustrating as this may be, it saves Gearbox from having to do hotfixes and other smaller updates if something isn't right. While no details are given, there are some immediate candidates for being de-powered, such as the 'crit knife' - the Vampiric Vivisecting Throwing Knife - which creates temporary critical damage spots on enemies wherever they land.

A power like that is extremely useful when redoing bosses and farming for loot, and that’s exactly what many players are doing. The ultimate goal is to force Vault Hunters away from relying on a shortlist of possible equipment combos. Both Grant Kao, associate creative director at Gearbox, and Graeme Timmins, the creative director on Borderlands 4, have acknowledged this.

"Our intent is always to expand the number of builds, so any adjustment we make is in service of that goal," Timmins posted on Twitter. If you're someone who makes good use of the crit knife, I'd get my fill while you can.

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Gearbox's Randy Pitchford is pretty happy with Borderlands 4 story feedback: "Isn't it weird to ship a game where the biggest complaint isn't how we f***ed up the story?"

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Anthony McGlynn
Anthony McGlynn
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Contributing Writer

Anthony is an Irish entertainment and games journalist, now based in Glasgow. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more. Besides Studio Ghibli, horror movies, and The Muppets, he enjoys action-RPGs, heavy metal, and pro-wrestling. He interviewed Animal once, not that he won’t stop going on about it or anything.

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