Borderlands 4's weapon balance seemingly isn't high on the priority list for developer Gearbox, according to boss and professional magician Randy Pitchford.
We just had a massive Borderlands 4 info blowout courtesy of a State of Play presentation, days after it was announced that the game is releasing over a week earlier than expected (which we all naively assumed was because of GTA 6 releasing near the original date – how naive we were). The upcoming game has changed up how loadouts work and overhauled drop rates and loot to avoid the overabundance of Legendary weapons found in Borderlands 3, and Pitchford is now attempting to ease concerns about weapon balance.
As one fan on Twitter states that their two main concerns about Borderlands 4 are the game's performance and balance, Pitchford quotes their post to offer some reassurance. In his own tweet, the Gearbox CEO says that the game will target 60 fps, and as for balance, he said, "F' balance. Make a sick build with some god drop loot and melt bosses. Be a legend."
Of course, the original user didn't say whether they were in favor of over-the-top weapon balance, but they got an answer regardless.
Borderlands 3 received a lot of flak for its nerfs back in 2019, which naturally has left people skeptical of Pitchford's comments. However, he responds to another user doubting his "F' balance" stance, explaining that it's usually Graeme Timmins, Borderlands 4's creative director, who deals with balance-related matters.
"It is inevitable that with so much loot and so many procedural combinations that there could be game breaking drops that he may not have anticipated or that we may not have discovered yet. I am eager to see how Graeme will handle it," Pitchford says.
"The case would have to be extremely rare and likely very strange for me to usurp his decision or come over the top of his authority. I trust Graeme's justice to be fair and swift even if, at times, it may be merciless," he adds. Which sounds to me like Pitchford is saying that the game will receive balance updates if things end up being too over the top, making the whole "F balance" comment come under question about four hours after he first said it.
Gearbox's Randy Pitchford says "sometimes we're white-knuckling to the landing," but with Borderlands 4 they've never "been in a better spot this far from launch."
