The work on Borderlands 4 isn't over quite yet, as Gearbox reveals the final Vault Hunter to come this September as part of the looter shooter's optional Story Pack 2 DLC – and she is downright stunning, to be fair.

Her name is Loveless, as per her short teaser from Gearbox, and she's "an ex-Anshin hacker turned assassin," according to the developers. "Equipped with the highest-end cybernetics, Loveless also shares her mind with a digital virus of her own creation, which can digistruct into a physical form that acts as a deadly extension of her shared, perfection-seeking will."

She sounds absolutely badass – and straight out of Cyberpunk 2077, honestly.

I'm not alone in thinking so, either. The top comment also likens her to a Cyberpunk hacker, reading, "We got a netrunner in Borderlands." Another further down exclaims, "She looks like a netrunner from Cyberpunk" – and yes, yes she does.

There are some other interesting comparisons in fans' replies, with some even citing Ciri from The Witcher 3, and others asserting that "she looks like an Aldar from Warhammer 40k."

Overall, the community seems thrilled with Loveless' design – and, I mean, how could they not be? From her long white hair done up in a high ponytail to her gold piercings and cat-like expression, she's drop-dead gorgeous. If looks could kill, and all that… Not to mention the tech-savvy queen's description from Gearbox.

The whole "digital virus" bit is intriguing, to say the least, and I'm personally excited to see how it affects her in-game.

If you're as sold on Loveless as I am, you can grab the Vault Hunter Pack now on Steam for $49.99. It includes both Story Pack 1 and 2, along with Rogue – and soon, Loveless. If you bought the Super Deluxe Edition of Borderlands 4, however, you don't need to purchase any DLC for extra money, as it'll all land automatically in your copy.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a teaser to rewatch… and a game to redownload.

Gearbox head Randy Pitchford says Borderlands maker won't use AI for "any work that could ever be seen" after posting ChatGPT-generated image of a Gearbox employee.

At the 11th hour, the original Borderlands underwent a massive artistic revamp to shed the dour color palette already seen in many an Xbox 360 shooter and put on its now-familiar cel-shaded look. That last-minute change ended up costing parent company Take-Two $50 million.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said as much in a recent interview with David Senra, which you can see below, where he recalled how the company were gearing up to release Borderlands, a game that was due to finish development two months later - until another executive walked into Zelnick's office and said, "We screwed up and the art style is not appropriate and it's not differentiated, so we want to remake the game."

Borderlands first reared its head in 2007 with a style that wasn't too dissimilar to the grimy worlds of Gears of War or Fallout. It then disappeared from public view entirely until being re-announced with a whole new look in 2008, eventually came out in 2009, and then went on to spawn a best-selling franchise from then on.

Zelnick remembers the decision to take a knife to the looter shooter's whole look cost Take-Two a mere $50 million and pushed back its release schedule by more than a year.

"I dug in and did my homework," Zelnick says. "In the end of it, I supported the decision. And that title became Borderlands. Had we not done that, Borderlands wouldn't have been a hit. And that was a nonobvious decision. And I pretty much can assure you no one else in the business would have done it."

While Borderlands' risky pivot seems like the obvious choice in hindsight, Zelnick's not convinced any other major publisher would've pulled the gun because "it was insane" and a different executive might have said, "The game is done, put out the game, move on to the next thing - I'm not spending $50 million bucks to remake the goddamn thing in another art style." The new look wouldn't have been a sure thing, either, he adds.

Gearbox head Randy Pitchford says Borderlands maker won't use AI for "any work that could ever be seen" after posting ChatGPT-generated image of a Gearbox employee

An odd Twitter post from Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has once again spiraled out of control and prompted messaging on the company's policies, with generative AI at the center of the latest grease fire.

On May 3, Pitchford posted a ChatGPT-generated image depicting, per a May 4 clarification, "a picture of yourself as if you worked at my company, Gearbox Software." That is the prompt Pitchford gave the AI tool.

"My friends I was with for lunch earlier produced some funny things with similar prompts for themselves and I wanted to see what bullshit it would generate as an idea of a self identity because the idea of an AI even having an identity is nonsense," Pitchford says.

With that prompt, ChatGPT spit out an image of a middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper beard sitting in a dark-lit room with an oddly strict black-and-wood motif. In the background rests a whiteboard scrawled with words like "Borderlands 4," "players first," and, quite ironically, "creative autonomy."

That whiteboard also notably mentions "new IP," fueling speculation that Pitchford's ChatGPT history may have bled into this output. He says, "ChatGPT has no information from me about anything from my work."

Pitchford using AI at all, even just to make and share something he calls "embarrassingly hilarious," triggered alarm bells among Borderlands fans, especially on the heels of Borderlands 4 patch notes which some players thought veered close to AI-generated text in style and grammar. Several large game studios have publicly and privately experimented with AI in a variety of disciplines, especially for QA and adjacent roles.

As a result, Gearbox is now the latest major game studio to proactively head off gen-AI accusations.

"I don’t use AI for work and our policy is no AI in any work that could ever be seen by any customer," Pitchford continues. "I’m using my personal phone and not my work computer (which is isolated from personal systems). It got whatever it generated from whatever public knowledge of Gearbox it has access to (hence my very clear disclaimer) and the timing or content of this has exactly zero to do with whatever feelings you’ve spun yourself up about with patch notes."

As a major studio under Take-Two, which also owns GTA 6 maker Rockstar Games, Gearbox's stance on gen AI use is under more scrutiny than some others. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has called gen AI "the future of technology," but also dismissed claims it will "reduce employment" or "create hits."

Just this March, Zelnick laughed off claims that AI could or will one day generate something on the scale or complexity of GTA 6.

Pitchford himself, meanwhile, was described by Zelnick last year as "one of the all-time great game makers," though his "big personality" can cause flare-ups much like this.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 studio insists AI used in "early stages of production" only, dodges questions about translator allegedly replaced by AI but says "we do not see AI as a substitute for human work."

Update: A statement sent to GamesRadar+ by the Zynga communications team sheds some light on the nature of this apparent Borderlands Mobile shadow drop. The short version is that Gearbox was lightly involved in its development, this isn't a full release, and it's actually not even called Borderlands Mobile. Here's the company's statement in full:

"We are always exploring ways to introduce Borderlands to new audiences. Zynga’s NaturalMotion studio is currently conducting a limited-time test for an untitled Borderlands mobile project, with Gearbox providing creative guidance on the franchise’s design, history, and lore. We hope that players enjoy this new Borderlands experience and look forward to their feedback."

Original story:

A new Borderlands game aptly titled Borderlands Mobile surprise-launched on iOS today, bringing what looks like a reimagined Borderlands 3 to phones.

The App Store listing says Borderlands Mobile is the work of Zynga, the mobile game titan that Take-Two Interactive, parent company of series creator Gearbox, absorbed years ago. Gearbox's role in the game is unclear; the studio hasn't said anything about the game online, but really, neither has anyone else.

It seems probable Gearbox contributed in an oversight capacity, and the company is mentioned in the App Store page – perhaps purely out of legal obligation for the house of Borderlands. But the page lists Zynga as developer and, curiously, also mentions NaturalMotion, the creator of now-defunct mobile arena game Star Wars Hunters.

Early walkthroughs of Borderlands Mobile, which appears to have soft-launched with a staggered regional rollout, are already popping up online. (I've seen people speculate that this launch was a mistake, but unannounced launches for mobile spinoffs aren't unheard of.) Sure enough, it's a first-person shooter where you pick a Vault Hunter, grab a gun, shoot bandits, and try not to kill Claptrap. Classic.

The intro animation, featuring Borderlands 3's Calypso Twins and a missing Lilith, puts the game squarely around the third mainline game in the series. Borderlands Mobile's narrative broadly gestures at a fight against corporate greed and a thirst for "secret alien treasure," which feels like a Greatest Hits of Borderlands storytelling.

Impressive is a stretch given how little we've seen, but Borderlands Mobile looks pretty convincing at the very least. If you told me it was a modified cloud version of an older game in the series, I wouldn't immediately call you a liar.

Borderlands Mobile features and descriptions shared online reveal some interesting tidbits in the game. There's a full campaign, a Tiny Tina-run Tower of Terror mode that unlocks "Ship Parts" (any Gummi Ship enjoyers?), raid bosses, faction wars, and both free and paid versions of a battle pass.

There's a whiff of Destiny Rising about this one: a solid-looking mobile version of a beloved series, packing features that fans of the main games might love, but with mobile trappings potentially spoiling the experience for those same fans.

The approach to the game and the mobile space as a whole is perhaps best summed up by this slide on the App Store: "Your attention span is short. So are our missions!"

Borderlands 4 performance issues have been "pretty stressful," admits dev, but Gearbox has done "a pretty good job" fixing them.

It feels a little weird that, six months on from launch, we're still talking about Borderlands 4's notorious PC performance issues, but to be fair, it's been developer Gearbox itself dredging up the issue in recent days. Just this week, the studio admitted it still has more work to do on PC optimization, and now, one of the game's developers is opening up about the toll it's taken on a personal level.

"I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little stressful, but at the same time, I feel like that's part of what our jobs are," managing producer Eli Luna tells IGN. "When you're organizing these groups of people and nothing's really done in an assembly line, we don't wait for one part to be done, then we hand it off to the next part. Everybody's working simultaneously. And so trying to balance all that as we're moving along is always going to be a real challenge no matter what."

That said, Gearbox has genuinely put in the work with regards to PC performance, having released several targeted patches in the months since launch, and that's something Luna isn't shy to point out.

"I feel like we did a pretty good job, as looking at the 200 days [since launch]. We roughly got about 20% increase in FPS on just our rec spec," Luna says. "So I feel like we have done a pretty good job of taking the feedback, seeing what's there, trying to address it as best as we can."

Still, Luna echoes recent Gearbox comments that the job isn't finished, saying the devs still have "plenty of work to still do that we're doing throughout the rest of the year because we have more content coming out."

Specifically, Gearbox recently predicted this week's Borderlands 4 patch, which launched alongside the new Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned DLC, would result in a "20% gain in average frame rates across different PC specs," a 50% reduction in crash rates, and "improvements to greatly improve UI efficiency."

Here are the best first-person shooters you can play right now.

Borderlands 4 developer Gearbox knows the looter shooter launched in September with a swarm of PC issues attached to it, but it's already made some major performance changes – and it's prepared to make even more.

"A lot of our optimization work for PC players has centered on providing meaningful improvements in frame rate without noticeable sacrifices to the game, including visual fidelity, that are fundamental to the artistic intent of Gearbox's developers," Gearbox explains in a PC performance update post on its website released alongside a DevCast video on the same topic, which you can watch below.

Gearbox continues in its update, "Over the past several months, these optimizations have improved average FPS by approximately 20% across the board, including on our minimum and recommended specifications. But this is just the start." The developer acknowledges "we have more to do," but, "We're in it for the long haul!"

Managing producer Eli Luna notes in Gearbox's DevCast that Borderlands 4 is "our first game on Unreal 5 technology" – a notoriously buggy engine – so "there were a lot of things that we needed to look at as part of this launch on how we made our content and how we can make it more efficient."

According to Gearbox's post, compared to performance at launch, the next Borderlands 4 patch arriving March 26 with new DLC Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned created an approximately "20% gain in average frame rates across different PC specs," "nearly halved the crash rate, from 0.63% of all sessions to 0.38%," and "made backend code improvements to greatly improve UI efficiency."

But even with all those changes piling up over the last few months, Luna reiterates on video, "We still have a lot of work to do, and we're not stopping anytime soon."

Take a trip to Unreal Engines past with the best Borderlands games.

Borderlands 4 player, I hope you're ready to have your hands full. Gearbox's latest looter shooter is about to get a ton of stuff.

It begins on February 26 – with Bounty Pack 2: Legend of the Stone Demon, the first paid Borderlands 4 DLC, plus what Gearbox calls in an announcement a "major update" bringing the new Pearlescent rarity tier. Later, in March, Borderlands 4 is set to receive its first Story Pack, Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned, which will introduce the new playable Vault Hunter C4SH.

Yeah, that's a lot of stuff, no matter how you break it down. And it'll cost… more money, no matter how you break it down. The Borderlands 4 Bounty Pack Bundle, which encompasses Bounty Pack 2 through 5, is $40 ($20 less than the price of the base game), though Gearbox says you can also buy each Pack individually. Story Pack 1 does not yet have a price tag, but you can wishlist it now on Steam, Epic, and the Xbox store.

"As a quick refresher," says Gearbox, "Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned will introduce an all-new region of Kairos, new story missions, and the first new Vault Hunter for Borderlands 4." This Hunter, C4SH, was a casino dealer bot before he started Indiana Jones-ing for cursed artifacts. Still, his Action Skills revolve around the high-stakes unpredictability he became accustomed to in his gambling days, and Gearbox says to anticipate "good fortunes like buffing himself and allies, dealing devastating damage, sapping the strength from foes, and more."

If your fortune would prefer to stay in your bank account, however, the Borderlands 4 update bringing Pearlescent tier – which is better than Legendary – will be available to everyone.

Borderlands 4 will continue to be supported says Gearbox owner, and "we still are very optimistic about that title" despite launch being a "bit softer than we would've liked."

Borderlands 4 will continue to be supported by Gearbox Software, says parent company Take-Two Interactive, which is still "very optimistic" about the looter shooter, five months after a launch it originally admitted was a "bit softer than we would've liked."

In a new interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says that "we're still supporting Borderlands." He continues: "We'll have new content coming, we have updates coming and we still are very optimistic about that title.

"We think we'll continue to have strong sell-through of titles like that."

This echoes a statement made in the company's latest financial earnings call by Take-Two president Karl Slatoff. "Gearbox Software will continue to support Borderlands 4 with new content and updates, and we expect the title to achieve strong sell-through over its lifetime," he says.

This optimism from the parent company comes despite things not being entirely smooth sailing for the game since its release. Back in November, just under two months on from its initial launch, Zelnick said that "the release was a bit softer than we would have liked," pointing to the PC performance woes the looter shooter was up against at launch. Even so, it set a number of sales records in the US, including being the fastest-selling game in the series' history.

And then there's the ongoing situation with the indefinitely delayed Switch 2 release. Despite featuring in the first big Switch 2 reveal Direct, then later being given an October release date, it was eventually delayed due to needing "additional development and polish time."

Now, it's been revealed that Take-Two has "made the difficult decision to pause development on that SKU," which doesn't sound particularly promising. Instead, Take-Two spokesperson Alan Lewis says, "Our focus continues to be delivering quality post-launch content for players on the ongoing improvements to optimize the game."

Be sure to take a look at our Borderlands 4 review if you're yet to pick up the game, as well as our top Borderlands 4 tips to get you started.

Borderlands 4 might never come to Switch 2 after all, as Gearbox parent company Take-Two Interactive has now confirmed development on the port has been paused.

Gearbox delayed Borderlands 4 on Switch 2 indefinitely back in September, saying at the time that it needed "additional development and polish," but Take-Two is now confirming much more decisively that the port is probably not happening at all, at least not anytime soon.

In an interview with Variety, Take-Two spokesperson Alan Lewis revealed: "We made the difficult decision to pause development on that SKU," referring to Borderlands 4 on Switch 2.

This is of course a stinging blow to Borderlands fans who've been waiting months to play the game on Switch 2. It's wild to think back on a story I wrote in July about Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford announcing the Switch 2 release date for October, from a literal throne, and hailing Nintendo's new console as "a fricking awesome platform," now knowing that the port would never - and likely will never - surface.

"Our focus continues to be delivering quality post-launch content for players on the ongoing improvements to optimize the game," added Lewis. "We're continuing to collaborate closely with our friends at Nintendo. We have 'PGA Tour 2K25' coming out and 'WWE 2K26' [for Switch 2], and we're incredibly excited about bringing more of our titles to that platform in the future."

Considering Borderlands 4's rough performance on much more powerful hardware, it's not a huge surprise that Gearbox struggled to make it work on Switch 2, but with pre-orders having previously been open - not to mention Pitchford's antics hyping up the release - the whiplash from that to this is dizzying.

While you won't find Borderlands 4 on our list of the best Switch 2 games, you will find some other gems worth checking out.

Gearbox giveth, and Gearbox taketh away. Those higher drop rates in Borderlands 4 are being temporarily rolled back, according to the developer, and fans aren’t pleased about the fluctuation after getting used to the greater riches.

On Twitter, a player responds to the latest patch notes from the official Borderlands account asking if they can "conclude that the increased drop rates are staying?" Sadly not, as confirmed in a reply from Gearbox. "The drop rates are back to their pre-holiday event percentages!" says the post.

"That said, the team saw the positive reception and are investigating a longer-term increase," Gearbox adds. Despite the second part indicating this is not the last we'll see of more forgiving drops, this isn't going down well.

"'Positive reception' then takes it away. Way to keep the game alive guys," says one reply on Twitter. "I'm sad to understand that the drop rates went back to their original state. The increased drop rates felt really good and rewarding," says another.

The general sentiment is quite negative, as it seems counter-intuitive to introduce something to make vault hunting more pleasurable, only to then roll it back for whatever reason. From Gearbox's words, it sounds like the rates aren't where the devs would like them to be, and things are being reverted in order to roll-out the change in a way that works for the overall complexion of the shooter.

Ki11er Six, a noted Borderlands streamer and YouTuber, expresses their frustration in pointed fashion. "This is a massive fumble," they state. "These people really need to do better for all those people who don't have the time to spend 400 hours playing this damn game," adds a top response. Gearbox may want to try get this longer-term plan sorted sooner rather than later.

Borderlands boss Randy Pitchford says the games industry is "just getting started": "We haven't even had our Citizen Kane yet, let alone Jurassic Park or Star Wars. We're just figuring this s**t out."

So you just got Borderlands 4 and want to know how to turn the robot off. I'm just kidding, you can't. He's there for the duration. What I can help you with is this guide that collects together everything four different writers learned while playing. So now you can benefit from their combined know how, with help on characters, combat and just some good old fashioned tips to point you in the right direction.

The basics

If you haven't even started yet, or barely pulled a trigger, then our Borderlands 4 tips will help you settle in. That covers a wide range of combat tips, exploration help, and should get you comfortable with the new world of Kairos super quick.

Depending on your tastes you might want to fiddle with the Borderlands 4 FOV to get things just how you like, and if you're on PC you can look into Borderlands 4 cheats to really mess about with the game.

And, finally, don't forget to check out the Borderlands 4 Shift Codes for free loot you can claim.

Characters

Obviously the different Borderlands 4 characters you can play as are a big part of the game. There are four in total, offering a range of abilities and skills that will shape the game depending on who you pick. Vex, Amon, Rafa, and Harlowe are, very roughly, magic, tank, soldier and gadgets respectively. There's a lot more to it than that obviously, with the series having a history of uniquely unusual takes on the traditional character classes.

We've got specific breakdowns for each below that go into far more detail on their specific skills, and how best to use them:

While you can't change your character once you've selected them the Borderlands 4 respec option lets you freely redo your skill choices as much as you like. So you can tweak and change for as long as you're playing.

Missions

If you're curious about how long Borderlands 4 is then our Borderlands 4 mission list will give you a good idea. There's a complete breakdown of all 21 main mission across the game's four regions. And if you think that doesn't sound like much there are 98 side missions to keep you busy as well.

We've not got guides for everything for obvious reasons but these three early missions seemed to have caused the most problems for people just getting started:

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

One of the most frustrating things about Borderlands 4's loot system is the way class mods seem to almost never roll in your favor, leaving you with mods that aren't applicable to your class and thus are 100% useless to you – unless you have another character who's the right class. Thankfully, it seems Gearbox has heard from enough players saying the same, as there's a new patch out now that seems to address this very problem.

"Class Mods have been adjusted to drop more for your current character," reads a line under the recent patch notes's "notable changes" section. It's such a small line amongst a massive list of bug fixes and other quality of life stuff, but it really should make a big, positive difference to loot and progression, which is pretty much the whole point of Borderlands 4.

Speaking of which, the patch also adds a new "legendary loot indicator" to your combat radar so it's easier to spot those super rare drops, and your loot feed will now show you how much money you have after you buy something, or pick up cash.

In terms of new content, you can also access the game's first Bounty Pack for free, thanks to Gearbox's festive spirit this time of year. Bounty Pack 1 will add new holiday-themed missions, cosmetics, a new boss, and of course, the thing we're all here for, new legendary loot.

Borderlands 4's "most insane glitch" yet lets you break every character's skill tree and changes "the build meta for every build," swiftly catching the attention of Gearbox: "We're on it"

A brand new Borderlands 4 glitch has been discovered that allows players to completely break any character's skill tree – but it's clear that it won't be sticking around, as the looter shooter's creative director says, "we're on it."

Yesterday, Borderlands content creator JoltzDude139 took to Twitter with a rather ominous message. "Uh oh… someone just found the most insane glitch in Borderlands 4," he wrote. "This will change the build meta for every build." Not long after, he posted a video (below) showing the glitch in action, which, in simple terms, means we can "grab any skill we want in our builds lol."

In Borderlands 4, players only have a limited number of skill points to play with in their skill trees. However, as demonstrated by JoltzDude139, there's currently a bug that allows you to refund skill points without removing access to skills unlocked later down the tree. For example, in the video, we see the content creator invest enough points to unlock Amon's Electrical Fire skill – one found right at the bottom of the Vault Hunter's skill tree, and one that would usually require 26 skill points to access.

After unlocking the skill normally, JoltzDude139 then begins a rather slow process of investing just one more point into the skills behind it in the skill tree, specifically using the button to invest all points. Then, after pressing the undo button, for some reason, two skill points are returned. Following this, the process is repeated – JoltzDude139 invests "all" into a skill he doesn't want, and then presses the undo button.

Eventually, all skill points are removed from the unwanted skill, but this doesn't cut off access to the "target" skill at the bottom of the skill tree – despite the fact that in normal play, you'd need the skills before it to unlock it.

It's slightly complicated, and well worth watching JoltzDude139's video if you want to try and replicate the glitch yourself, but basically all you need to know is that it can be used on any character to unlock all of the skills you want on their respective trees – even those right at the very bottom – without having to worry about investing in any prior skills you're not interested in. This allows for combinations that weren't previously possible – as JoltzDude139 said, breaking the build meta.

As you'd imagine, it's so broken that Gearbox has wasted absolutely no time setting its sights on it. Responding directly to JoltzDude139's video on Twitter, Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins has a short message – a warning, perhaps, to tell folks not to get too attached to the bug. "We're on it," he writes.

While it's not clear how long this could take to fix, it's clear it won't be sticking around. So, if you want to give it a go, be sure to do so sooner rather than later.

If you've not picked up Gearbox's latest game yet, be sure to take a look at our Borderlands 4 review, or our Borderlands 4 tips to get you started.

As players continue to enjoy Borderlands 4 and all its new content, one dedicated modder is still embarking on his journey to revive the long-dead Borderlands MMO as a brand-new project: Borderlands Online.

If you've not already heard of it, Borderlands Online is an in-progress recreation (or, attempt at one) of the Borderlands MMO that was axed after 2K China was shut down back in 2015. Its creator, modder EpicNNG, previously unveiled the passion project as his way of making sure "the community gets to experience this game one way or another." He went on to reveal he actually "successfully obtained a build" of the real Chinese game, too.

It hasn't been an easy process, however – EpicNNG later turned to the community for help to bring the dead Borderlands MMO to life, before dubbing it his "biggest challenger ever" as a dedicated modder. Some time has passed since then, and there haven't been too many updates on Borderlands Online – until now, that is. In a new post, EpicNNG assures fans that some "significant progress" has been made on the project.

"After a long hiatus, we're slowly getting back into continuing our efforts to get the game playable," he begins. "One of the biggest struggles right now is basically server code, and a whole bunch of other technical talk I won't get into. The good news is we have recently made significant progress not only in what we can play, but also in the version of the client. We are now on what we believe to be one of the latest, if not final, builds of the game."

EpicNNG continues, sharing that the future seems bright for Borderlands Online: "This helps tremendously and gives a great deal of hope for continued progress going forward. While I won't be sharing gameplay of this new build for the foreseeable future, I will follow up soon with some new details about BLOL, some of which were previously unknown to most." He thanks supporters, joking, "billionaire overlords, don't C&D us."

The modder concludes that he and other players working on Borderlands online are "just dedicated fans who want Borderlands to continue being delivered into the hands of loyal fans," leaving an email address for any interested developers who'd like to join the effort. All in all, the update on Borderlands Online is a refreshing one – and it appears that fellow stans of the official Gearbox games are already offering to help.

Here's hoping that Borderlands Online finally does come to fruition one day, and proves to be the project hopefuls wanted out of the canceled MMO – it certainly sounds like EpicNNG is doing his best to ensure it does, and is, anyway.

Playing through the latest Gearbox action RPG yourself? Be sure to check our Borderlands 4 tips for a smooth start in Kairos, or read our Borderlands 4 review to learn what we think.

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick says Borderlands 4 didn't achieve the launch numbers the company was hoping for, partially due to PC issues, but it's still proud of Gearbox for its accomplishment regardless.

"While we experienced some challenges with optimization of performance on PC, Gearbox has been addressing these issues and releasing updates to improve gameplay," Zelnick said in the latest Take-Two investor presentation. "We're confident that Borderlands 4 will achieve strong unit sales over its lifetime."

Zelnick added that Take-Two is "immensely proud of Gearbox" and is looking forward "to robust post-launch content offerings that will support the game in the months ahead."

Later on in the call, during the Q&A portion, Zelnick expanded on this idea, hope, belief, whatever, that Borderlands 4 will have a longer tail than its initial launch figures might suggest.

"The release was a bit softer than we would have liked for the reasons that you said," Zelnick said in response to an investor who mentioned the game's notorious PC performance issues as a possible contributing factor to the drag in launch sales.

"Gearbox has been addressing the PC challenges. And I think in retrospect, we feel that there are things that we could have done better, but we intend to do better in the future. In the fullness of time, we think the unit sales on this title will be very solid, and the the economic results will be in line with our expectations," said Zelnick.

Borderlands 4 hasn't exactly been a commercial disappointment - setting multiple US records for Gearbox as the fastest-selling game in the series, the first to debut as the best-selling game of its month, and becoming the third-best seller of 2025 - but I suppose Take-Two was hoping for a little more success right out the gate.

Otherwise excellent Borderlands 4 patch accidentally brings back the infamous crit knife: "How does this go through testing?"

Borderlands 4 developer Gearbox has had its eye on player feedback, previously admitting it has "seen the discourse" about OP builds and promising "more options are coming soon" as the crit knife build dominated the meta.

Just last week, the team released a hefty patch addressing said crit knife, with "major balance tuning" and a plethora of much-needed nerfs… However, days later, the now-infamous crit knife, which has been dubbed "broken" and "overpowered" by fans, is back yet again. The latest update from Gearbox sees its return, as disappointed players confirm online. "100% CRIT KNIFE IS BACK," exclaims one in a recent post. Attached is a video of the knife in action.

"Silly, but yeah. lmao. This damn knife, dude." Another fan follows up with their own thread, pondering how the overpowered build managed to make its way back into Borderlands 4. "Gearbox just brought back the OG crit knife," they write. "How does this go through testing? We just see if the initial problem was fixed and don't check for any downsides? Genuinely confused as to how this made it to pass." They do make a good point, I suppose.

Thankfully, though, the update boasts plenty to be excited about, too – including a Weekly Wildcard Mission change that has the community thrilled. That's because the guaranteed Legendary drop this time around is beloved shotgun Bod. The Weekly Big Encore Boss has also swapped to a tougher variant of Primordial Guardian Origo with a more rewarding loot pool to boot. Maurice's Black Market Vending Machine is now easier to get to as well.

It's safe to say that, despite the crit knife hiccup, players are grateful for the update's other, more intentional tweaks. As one content fan writes in a post covering the changes, "Small patch, but they cooked." A separate Reddit thread showcases similarly happy voices, with commenters stating, "It's Bod season boyo!" While plenty point to the Bod drop and Origo as their highlights, some are evidently just ready for it all: "Hell yeah, perfect!"

Here's hoping the changes continue to impress – and a quick fix comes for the crit knife. Our own Borderlands 4 review describes the game as "undeniably an excellent looter shooter," so it's safe to say that it may just stand as one of the best Borderlands games.

Playing through the new action RPG yourself? Be sure to check our Borderlands 4 tips for a smooth start in Kairos.

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford reckons the games industry still hasn't kicked into high gear yet despite how much work went into Borderlands 4.

Citizen Kane is often used as the shorthand for "the best thing in a given medium" and while that may not exactly be truthful in Citizen Kane's case when the likes of 12 Angry Men, Harakiri, and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie exist, but "the Citizen Kane of X" is a common phrase. And while some argue the Citizen Kane of games may be something like Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, Chrono Trigger, or Super Mario 64, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford reckons games still haven't had a Citizen Kane

In the Shacknews documentary 24 'Til Launch: The Making of Borderlands 4, Pitchford spoke about the process of creating games, and how in the modern era, it's become riskier, and requires everyone to give it their all. "The budgets of our big video games now are larger than the budgets of blockbuster movies. You can't easily make that decision to commit those kinds of resources towards a thing" Pitchford said, adding "It can only happen if everybody in that loop believes that what is being imagined has more value to exist in the world than what it takes to to create it, which means you both need the idea of what it takes to create it, the belief in what it takes to create it, and a sense of what it might be worth if it was created."

However despite the gaming industry being a powerhouse, and gaming budgets rivalling films, Pitchford says "I love that we're just getting started," in reference to the entire games industry. He adds "we haven't even had our Citizen Kane yet, let alone Jurassic Park or Star Wars. We're just figuring this shit out. But it's fun."

The first feature film is typically agreed to be 1906's "The Story of the Kelly Gang" and Citizen Kane came out 35 years later in 1941, meanwhile 1958's Tennis for Two Is considered to be the first computer game, with 35 years later being 1993, which just so happened to be the year Daytona USA first appeared in Japanese arcades, affirming my long-time belief that Daytona USA is the Citizen Kane of games.

Borderlands 4's Halloween event is being torn apart by disappointed players who call it a "huge step down" and one of the "worst" content drops in the looter shooter series

It's Halloween, the most wonderful time of year, filled with horror movies, pumpkin carving, and spooky events across many of our favorite games. Borderlands 4 is getting in on the fun, carrying on the series tradition of seasonal treats, except this year's offerings feel more trick than treat.

Getting into the scary spirit is something Borderlands has done since the second installment, where the TK Baha's Bloody Harvest DLC brought a new area, missions, and, of course, some lovely loot. The equivalent in the third, Bloody Harvest, was free and had Vault Hunters bustin' ghosts while dealing with undead enemies in search of four legendary weapons.

Borderlands 4 has the Horrors of Kairos, another free addition, but despite the low price of nothing, it's not going down well. The offerings are smaller than usual, with an environmental blood rain effect rather than an actually fresh area, and only two legendary weapons. The execution is lackluster, as the red storm is restricted to a single corner of the map, and players have been voicing their discontent.

"I know it's free and free is good, but this isn't it," Borderlands content creator JoltzDude139 says on Twitter. "Driving circles for 20 minutes just to get one rift bubble and not get a new drop feels bad. It's a Knoxx DLC driving simulator."

Feedback is much the same across the board. "I know it's just a mini-event but compared to what we had in Borderlands 3 it's a huge step down," Moxsy, another video creator, posts. "BL3 added a new unique area, unique boss, and new loot and anointments. This event is over in two seconds, no unique enemies and underwhelming loot."

Borderlands modder and dataminer EpicNNG is even more emphatic. "I legitimately think it may be a top five worst content drop of all time in this franchise," they state on Twitter. "Free or not, it does not give it a pass on criticism. Legit what else have they released that is worse than this event?"

Credit where it's due, Gearbox's work here is horrifying, just not in the way the team would like. Horrors of Kairos runs until November 6, if you dare.

Borderlands 4 set multiple US records for Gearbox as the fastest-selling game in the series, the first to debut as the best-selling game of its month, and becoming the third-best seller of 2025, analyst says

Borderlands 4 finally has its long-awaited nerf-heavy update after a couple of delays, and a little bit like going to the dentist, it's not as bad as you'd imagined. While there are some nerfs that are the result of Gearbox's admitted overtuning, most of the tweaks are aimed at taking down broken builds instead of simply making them less powerful for the sake of it.

With the game's first major balance update, Gearbox reiterates in the patch notes that the intent has always been "to provide you the greatest number of viable builds."

In addition to nerfs and buffs, which we'll go over shortly, the patch also fixes and balances various elements of progression, loot, and rewards. Some of the highlights here include a reduction in the cost it takes to respec your skills and specialzations from 5000 Eridium all the way down to just 1500, an increase in the amount of cash loot enemies drop, and "a certain boss fight that was not dropping loot" will now do so as intended.

In the "gameplay and missions" category of fixes and updates, this is where you'll find most of the bug fixes and quality of life stuff. Gearbox says "Maurice’s Black Market Vending Machine is able to be interacted with reliably in multiplayer," "Legendary Vending Machine no longer closes unexpectedly during Vend of the Line," and there are some "general improvements to prevent enemies from getting stuck when spawning, and addressed various reported spawn point issues."

All good stuff, for sure, but this being an online looter shooter, I know what you're here for. The dreaded nerfs, the exciting buffs, and everything in-between. Actually, there isn't a whole lot in-between. It's just nerfs and buffs, and somewhat surprisingly, there's a good mix of both here.

Just ripping this particular band-aid off quickly, the infamous crit knife has been rightfully shanked. "It had to happen, you knew it was going to happen!" Gearbox writes in the dev notes. But it's actually not so bad! The throwing knife, which has so far dominated build meta with its 100% critical hit rate, has had that crit rate reduced down to 30%. That's still a pretty badass weapon, it's just not utterly broken anymore.

Elsewhere in gear balancing, the San Saba Songbird pistol doesn't stack infinitely when swapping weapons, and using a Jakobs shotgun with torque sticky projectiles and the knife launcher underbarrel doesn't deal knife damage after switching fire modes anymore.

Meanwhile, the Vladof flamethrower underbarrel doesn't deal infinite damage or bypass bio armor anymore, and gadgets no longer reset to maximum uses after gaining second wind.

Assault rifles are having a good day with numerous buffs, with the Star Helix's fire rate increasing by 33%, Bonnie and Clyde's base damage increasing by 40%, Bugbear's base damage increasing by 40%, and Rowan's Charge base fire rate increasing by 100%.

Over in heavy weapons, the Gamma Void is having a field day with a buff to base damage of 450%, though that's somewhat offset by its singularity duration being reduced from 10 seconds down to 6 seconds and its cooldown increased by 100%.

Class mods across the board have been buffed "to make them more desirable," with melee damage and action skill damage on level 50 class mods increasing to 60% and skill damage on level 50 class mods increasing to 45%. Furthermore, Siren class mods, Forgeknight class mods, and Gravitar class mods have had their own unique buffs as detailed in the patch notes.

As for vault hunter-specific nerfs and buffs, welp, brace yourself, because all vault hunters have been tweaked to varying degrees. starting with Harlowe the Gravitar, who's had a number of bug fixes. Her Neutron Capture "now converts all gun damage into radiation and now only applies to gun shots, and not all instances of gun damage."

This is because, in Gearbox's words, "during testing, we found that this was erroneously applying to all instances of Gun Damage and was able to scale in unanticipated ways as a result. This new change will still see Neutron Capture being one of the best (if not the best) damage scalars in the game, but the power level will be much more in line with our expectations."

Up next is Amon the Forgeknight, whose Seeing Red skill will no longer increase in duration restored per point invested, and is now 4 seconds no matter the rank. Per Gearbox: "Seeing Red was always meant to have huge damage scaling potential, but was always meant to be hard to maintain. We didn't want to nerf this passive's power, but we're making the effect harder to maintain."

Amon's Blackout passive was also "overperforming a bit," per Gearbox, so it's now 15% per point instead of 21% per point.

Vex the Siren's bleed effect from Bloodletter, which has been exploited for "unintended damage loops," has been fixed so that it can't be used to recursively trigger itself. Otherwise, the Siren has been treated pretty well in the update, with her double trouble skill's illusion damage multiplayer increasing from 50% to 75%, its duration increasing from 5 seconds to 8 seconds, and her Apex Beast's damage increasing from 10% to 15%.

Rafa the Exo-Soldier has hardly been touched, and in fact technically hasn't really been nerfed or buffed. Gearbox says the "free grenade from Filantropo class mod now deals appropriate damage even when no grenade is equipped," and Rafa's APOPHIS lance has been "changed to penalize Gun Accuracy instead of Gun Handling, resulting in projectile speed being unaffected," and it'll now benefit "from cooldown reduction effects."

All of this is in addition to bug fixes and minor quality of life tweaks for each vault hunter, which should make things feel more polished, functional, and balanced overall. With Borderlands 4 setting multiple US records for Gearbox as the fastest selling game in the series, you can expect the studio to continue investing in these big, sweeping balance and performance patches as feedback continues rolling in.

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?"

Vault hunting has never been more popular, it seems. We're just over one month removed from the launch of Borderlands 4, and Gearbox’s newest looter-shooter has set a franchise record according to new sales data, leaving the previous installment in the dust.

Arriving six years after Borderlands 3, such a gap only allowed anticipation to grow for the fourth game in the series. Players were ready to load up and start blasting their way through Kairos for more precious loot, by the looks of things.

Data shared by Mat Piscatella, senior director of consumer analytics firm Circana, shows Borderlands 4 setting a number of benchmarks for the property in the United States. The sequel outdid the third game by 30% in its first month of sales, an impressive leap by any estimation.

Content - Borderlands 4 generated the highest launch month dollar sales of any title in franchise history, nearly 30% higher than the previous best, Borderlands 3. Borderlands 4 was the first Borderlands title to launch as the best-selling game of its release month.

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-10-22T14:50:09.812Z

Then, Borderlands 4 was the top-selling game of September, outdoing NBA 2K26, EA Sports FC 26, and Ghost of Yotei, the first time any installment has held the number one spot in a given month. These sales place it third in the overall charts for the year so far.

The space-based action-RPG is a hit, is what’s being said here, both for Borderlands and within the wider industry. Gearbox has been hard at work providing updates and rebalancing different weapons and bosses, since players are already rinsing everything the release has to offer.

In a year with both Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Borderlands 4 is providing the more colorful, absurd, treasure-driven experience, and people are resonating with it. By the looks of things, we’ll be vault hunting for some time to come, too.

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?"

Borderlands 4 developer Gearbox Software has confirmed that its upcoming nerf-heavy update that'll banish the looter shooter's most broken builds to the shadow realm has escaped from its already delayed release window of early this week, and it's now set to arrive tomorrow, instead.

Gearbox acknowledged the so-called "unintended interactions" that certain broken Borderlands 4 builds (and the infamous crit knife) rely on back in September, but it wasn't until earlier this month that creative director Graeme Timmins gave fans a week's notice that the devs were finally fixing them. However, that week has now become two, as the patch was delayed to "early" this week, but it's still not been launched. Thankfully, that will change very soon.

Acknowledging the fact that the patch has escaped its new launch window on Twitter, the official Borderlands account writes: "Glad you're excited for the update! We have a few things we're tidying up right now, and it'll be rolling out with the Horrors of Kairos mini-event. We can't wait for you to see what we've been brewing."

On the Borderlands 4 post-launch roadmap, the Horrors of Kairos event is slated to run between October 23 and November 6, meaning that unless there's a third delay, the patch should arrive tomorrow. As Borderlands content creator EpicNNG responds, the update could potentially "result in a loss of casuals due to nerfs/fixes," so therefore perhaps Gearbox considered that "it's not worth dropping it prior to the first content drop when they can instead play the long game."

Rest assured that even with these upcoming changes, Gearbox isn't simply out to ruin anyone's fun, however. Timmins previously explained: "Our intent is always to expand the number of builds, so any adjustment we make is in service of that goal."

Be sure to check out our Borderlands 4 review if you've still not given Gearbox's new looter shooter a try, or our Borderlands 4 tips to get you started.

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.

"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.

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?"

Borderlands 4 developer Gearbox is keeping an eye on player feedback, previously admitting the team has "seen the discourse" about OP builds – especially surrounding the infamous "crit knife" – and will soon be "adjusting" things.

Players have been flagging the "broken" and "overpowered" crit knife build for weeks now, with a recent online thread shedding light on just why it's such a problem – and it basically boils down to lack of diversity (and lack of incentive to play literally any other way when the knife is so strong). "It's 100% flat crit chance, absolute," as the post's author explains. "There is nothing in the game that will ever be able to compete with that."

The fan continues, using a fellow player as an example, saying he "has 90% on Rafa, but to do that, he has to take a specific skill setup, and *still* he is not getting more than the knife. It's insane." They go on to state, "The condition for 100% crit chance shouldn't be if you can aim and press a button," with another user chiming in to actually defend the crit knife – and ping associate creative director Grant Kao and creative director Graeme Timmins in.

According to the devs, the crit knife debacle is very much on their minds – and changes are underway. "We will be adjusting it," writes Kao. "The crit knife's potential output diminishes playstyle variety. The gun builds that use the crit knife have other options and will have more options coming soon." Timmins also responds: "Our intent is always to expand the number of builds, so any adjustment we make is in service of that goal."

It seems then that Gearbox has an update or two up its sleeve – and yes, the team will likely address the crit knife controversy in them. Fans sound content, too, with one replying, "This is a great answer. I love using the knife because it’s a fun gameplay loop, but more options are awesome." The devs haven't yet clarified what the new options coming will actually be, but it's safe to say the community is excited just to learn they're in the works.

Here's hoping the changes prove fruitful to fans – and allow for more diverse playstyles. Our own Borderlands 4 review describes the game as "undeniably an excellent looter shooter," so it's safe to say that it may just stand as one of the best Borderlands games.

Playing through the new action RPG yourself? Be sure to check our Borderlands 4 tips for a smooth start in Kairos.

Gearbox has apparently been getting some positive feedback on Borderlands 4's story, and as he is wont to do, CEO Randy Pitchford is sharing is thoughts on the game's launch.

Appearing at a panel for PAX Australia 2025, Pitchford, Gearbox global creative executive officer Andrew Reiner, and narrative director Sam Winkler reflected on the launch of Borderlands 4 and, specifically, feedback relating to the game's story, which indeed has largely been positive.

"It's been great. It's been really good, I'll be honest, I'm really happy with it," said Winkler.

"Isn't it weird to ship a game where the biggest complaint isn't how we fucked up the story?" asked an incredulous Pitchford.

"Yeah, it's a relief, for sure," Winkler agreed.

What followed is a fairly indecipherable stream of consciousness from Pitchford in which he seemed to express some degree of surprised comfort in the fact that most of the negative feedback from Borderlands 4 players is about technical performance, which definitely seems like the biggest pain point so far, particularly for PC players.

"Everyone's like, 'Nah, story's awesome, characters, we love it, and gameplay's great.' And we're like, 'God, I know there's gotta be, you know, OK, let's get technical.' Cool. That's cool. I'm happy to live in that world," Pitchford said. Pitchford's suggestions that PC problems could seem overblown may not have helped this world, but Gearbox has been patching away.

I don't want to presume too much based on these limited comments, but it's safe to assume Pitchford and co. are commenting on Borderlands 4's story from within the context of Borderlands 3's story being pretty uniformly lambasted.

Personally, I play these games to catch up with friends who live far away while pew pewing pinheads left, right, and center, but I suppose there are fans of the series who like knowing what's going on, and thankfully, Borderlands 4 seems to deliver on that front more so than past entries.

"You and the team just crushed it on the storytelling," Pitchford said to Winkler.

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford said we'd have to wait at least 5 years to see Borderlands 4 get a major discount, but we've only had to wait 1 month for its first smaller discount as it's already 20% off on Steam.

Just over a month after launching, Borderlands 4 is on sale on Steam. While it might not be the deep discount Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford said you'd have to wait five years for, it's still one of your first chances to get the looter shooter for less on PC.

Back in June, the Gearbox CEO responded to Borderlands 3 getting a huge 95% price cut after five years by stating it would "take even longer" for the fourth installment to follow suit. His claim included joining a subscription service such as Xbox Game Pass or PlayStation Plus.

Jump forward just four months, and you can now save 20% on the cost price of Borderlands 4 on Valve’s marketplace. The offer runs through to October 20. This applies to all three versions: standard, Deluxe Edition, and Super Deluxe Edition. Oh.

To be fair, Pitchford made his claim before anyone saw what kind of performance problems would emerge. This price cut may at least partially stem from the slightly negative reception on PC, as players there are having a hard time jumping in with the Vault Hunters due to recurring hurdles, finding the game to be a stuttering mess in some instances.

Steam reviews are sitting at "Mixed," with over 34,000 submitted. Not the most appealing bit of store page advertising for one of the biggest releases of the year on the largest marketplace for PC. Discounts help sweeten the deal a little for prospective customers, even more so when it's a fifth off mere weeks from launch. If your friends are already playing, you'll be getting it cheaper than them, making it worth a try, right?

While this will possibly cause a bump in sales, addressing some of the bugs to retain the players who’re booting it up is where true longevity lies. But who knows when Gearbox will get around to acquiring that particular loot.

Borderlands 4 butcher slaughters 3,000 bosses over 150 hours to prove just how bad the shooter's drop rates are: "I am pretty much done."

Despite the initial success of Borderlands 4, a sense of discontent is gradually growing within the community. Browse the game's subreddit, and you'll notice multiple posts discussing just how bad its dedicated drop rates - the chance that you'll see a specific item from a specific kill - seem to be. Now, one player has used their playthrough for science, proving once and for all that things might actually be as bad as they appear.

In a post on Reddit, Borderlands 4 loot scientist ForeignLettuce977 has documented their drop rate data across 3,000 boss kills - a feat that took them 150 hours in total. Playing as Vex on the game's highest difficulty level, they eventually concluded that the "dedicated drop rate for any individual item is about 5%."

That varies slightly: the data is very favorable around the Inceptus boss, which is slightly bugged and dragged that dedicated figure up to 30%; elsewhere, the Rippa Roadbirds also appear to drop more than they're supposed to, and ForeignLettuce recommends players "take advantage of that while you can because I expect it to be fixed."

Gearbox doesn't tend to advertise its drop rates, but now that the 5% figure has been deduced, our Borderlands data scientist is advocating for a change. They believe drop rates should be doubled up to 10%. Part of that is to match the rate in Borderlands 2, which they note "is the gold standard for most people," but there's also a mathematical answer behind that decision.

Talking to IGN, they say that adjusting the drop rate from 5% to 10% "isn't just doubling the chance, it's reducing the worst possible outlier outcomes." In their example, they explain that while farming Fractis, it took 96 attempts to get a single grenade drop. At a 5% rate, the odds of that happening are "about 1 in 137," but at a 10% rate those odds would shrink dramatically, to almost 1 in 25,000, "reducing the worst possible outlier outcomes by a factor of 180." They argue that it's those outliers that cause people to quit the game out of frustration, suggesting that limiting them is good for the overall health of the game.

Broadly, they admit that there's an element of preference. While some players are intent to play for hundreds or thousands of hours just to look for the one 'perfect' weapon, that's not an approach that many others are interested in chasing. ForeignLettuce says that based on their findings, they are "pretty much done with the game for now" from a solo farming perspective, at least until a major update drops. While other players might be prepared to commit to a deep weapons grind, the discourse about drop rates so far - and the revelation that they're far below the 10 or even 15% rates that were initially hoped for - means that the majority might be quicker to move on than expected.

Boost your odds with these Borderlands 4 Shift Codes.

Borderlands 4 boss Randy Pitchford says Gearbox doesn't have "good competitors" in the looter-shooter genre because other developers don't spend enough time thinking about the mechanics of the loot grind.

Speaking to the BBC, Pitchford argued that the Borderlands series' core mechanic - the choice about whether to stick with your current piece of loot or swap for a new one - "is a very compelling, fundamental, both need and skill that our brains have."

Gearbox, he says, has "reduced" that need "to this simple moment with this interface in this system. It's a gratifying loop. It's a gratifying decision. Our brains need to do it, and our brains like doing it."

Pitchford's neuroscientific explanation continues: "The more we exercise that muscle, not just in the video game but literally in life - this is what separates our species from a lot of others, and how we developed language and how we developed all kinds of high levels of consciousness and cognition that allow us to analyze the world. Most of what our prefrontal cortex is for - why that adaptation exists and what it's used for - is that skill, or versions of it."

Working out whether your existing tool is better than your new tool, "and managing the cognition between the objective, almost scientific analysis of that choice, versus the emotional impact on that choice, is very interesting, and dare I say it addictive," Pitchford posits. But he also suggests that other developers don't really think about the loot grind with this kind of attention.

"If other game designers that were trying to get in on the action" understood the neuroscience behind Gearbox's decision making, Pitchford claims "we'd have more competitors, or we'd have good competitors. But we haven't so far. It's weird. The kinds of people that just want to go after it, they're not thinking about it on that level. They're just putting into motion something because of market analysis. It's not a designer or creator's drive that's doing it. It's either a business drive or a wishing to be something that you're not kind of drive."

Pitchford says that he "fully expected" a whole wave "of other games imitating and aping" Borderlands after the release of the first game. If that had happened, he says, "we'd be dead, because we [couldn't] compete with a lot of other folks, especially back then."

Given that Borderlands 4 is likely to push the Borderlands franchise over 100 million sales, it is admittedly strange that so few meaningful competitors have attempted to muscle in on the genre. Destiny remains the only major loot-shooter alternative, although games like Mycopunk have, more recently, made their own attempts. And while I don't entirely follow Pitchford's suggestion that playing Borderlands is good for developing your frontal lobe, his claim that simply chasing trends without thinking about good design is a bad business strategy does hold significantly more water. It probably also helps if you've got someone to take away your Twitter account occasionally, too.

Borderlands 4 lead gives fans "7 days notice" as Gearbox aims the nerf cannon at broken builds with fixes to "unintended interactions in certain Vault Hunter skills" arriving next week.

Randy Pitchford wants to channel his inner Hideo Kojima (famous for scanning real life people, and maybe even a ghost, into his games) by putting a real-life fan into Borderlands 4.

The Gearbox Software boss recently took to social media to share the story of when he was "in Australia going through security at the airport" and "the guy at the body scanner stopped me and said, 'Has anyone ever told you that you look like Randy Pitchford?'"

He then asked online peeps for help in tracking the worker: "It was at Cairnes airport at around 8:20am on October 10 Australia time at the body scanner. If anyone can find the guy and prompt him to reach out to me." Why? Because he wants "to make an NPC or a gun or a side quest after him" since he "made my day."

"I wish I was quicker on my feet and said something like, 'Look at my shirt!?!' But I just said, 'I am Randy Pitchford,'" he continued. "He asked to shake my hand, then made me walk through the scanner again because it didn't like my shirt."

Borderlands 4 is of course littered with references and deep cuts and Easter eggs - one might even be throwing shade at Gearbox's former corporate owners - but having a real person involved with the creation of their in-game counterpart is a Kojima-brained move, since he frequently puts his favorite celebs, game makers, and VTubers into his own games.

Borderlands 4 lead gives fans "7 days notice" as Gearbox aims the nerf cannon at broken builds with fixes to "unintended interactions in certain Vault Hunter skills" arriving next week

Borderlands 4 just got a smaller patch with some tweaks and adjustments to gear, but be warned – the looter shooter's creative director has given us our "seven days notice" that those completely broken builds are seemingly about to be banished.

Last month, creative director Graeme Timmins acknowledged that developer Gearbox had "seen the discourse about builds that use unintended interactions and/or the knife," but at that time, dealing with them wasn't the focus, with more buffs on the table instead. However, as the game's first major patch rolled out, Gearbox confirmed that it was planning fixes for these things since the "exploits prevent us from creating meaningful build diversity as they trivialize content that is otherwise meant to challenge players," and it sounds like these changes are almost ready.

In a new post on Twitter, Timmins confirms that next week's update will be "a larger one," with upcoming changes to "specific gear and those unintended interactions." He adds, with a wink: "This is your seven-day notice." This was posted last night, so we're down to six days now – time is ticking.

This week's patch notes also mention the upcoming changes to "unintended interactions in certain Vault Hunter skills," while adding that there are other nerfs coming, too, with "adjustments to overperforming gear" on the way.

Other adjustments will be more generous, however, and "focus on Class Mods, Repkits, Shields, and Firmware being tuned to provide greater viability for melee builds, and account for deficiencies in other specific Vault Hunter builds." On top of that, we can expect "a host of improvements to stability, performance, and some highly requested quality-of-life changes!"

As for the current patch, changes include Ruby's Grasp being buffed with a 50% damage increase and 25% fire rate boost, and Queen's Rest getting a 50% fire rate buff alongside a spawn chance increase (it's now 50% instead of 30%). Additionally, all Pets now "properly gain Critical Hit Chance from Passives and Gear," and Vex's Bleed now counts as status effect damage.

Borderlands 4 creative director says "It's way more involved and riskier than it appears" as fans call for a popular dialog skip mod to become official, warns it may "lead to broken mission states that might not be recoverable."

Borderlands 4 has been out for just under one month, and players are already finding ways to make replaying sections more streamlined. As such, a mod to skip dialogue is gaining traction among the community, with calls for Gearbox to officially integrate the option; however, achieving this is easier said than done.

The 'Dialog Skipper' is available on Nexus Mods from users Yeti and itzSmugg, and it adds a button to skip over any current exposition, as well as an option to turn all of it off and to fast-forward longer animations. It's a handy little toolkit, whether you're a fledgling speedrunner or just want to tighten up your re-runs.

Borderlands streamer and video creator JoltzDude139 posted a clip of him using the mod, espousing its positives. This resulted in a call for the developers to formally include it in the sci-fi looter-shooter, but creative director Graeme Timmins was quick to ask everyone to slow down.

"I'd be cautious using this mod; skipping dialog could lead to broken mission states that might not be recoverable," he says on Twitter. "This request is way more involved and riskier than it appears on the surface with how dialog is integrated within our mission system."

A couple of fans have doubled down in his replies, while one points out they're saving regularly as they play with the mod in use. Ultimately, what Timmins is saying is that games often have complex structures that don't lend themselves to simple edits.

Giving players the option to just bypass dialog could lead to all sorts of hidden ramifications. Objectives and different facets of any given mission are often tied directly to characters speaking. If those lines are glossed over without being massaged out, things could get messy.

But never say never. Nonetheless, it's a fun add-on if you’re already keen to do a little speedrunning. As we’re still early in the lifespan of Borderlands 4, don’t expect any official patch off this to be a priority any time soon.

"Feels like I'm shooting pebbles": Gearbox is planning Borderlands 4 patches to buff legendary pistols, help assault rifles, and improve the beloved Hellwalker

Borderlands 4 has been out for the better part of a month now, which means it's time for the most important part of the post-launch cycle – waiting for balance patches to fix your favorite pieces of loot. Gearbox is teasing a handful of items on the immediate to-do list, and it's looking like a good time if you like legendary pistols, assault rifles, or the beloved Hellwalker.

Creative director Graeme Timmins and associate creative director Grant Kao "have a plan of attack for the next couple weeks of changes," according to a tweet from the latter dev. "We have a big patch coming soon that will address the recursive behaviors of a few passives which will impact a few builds."

In response to content creator Moxsy's note that Star Helix "genuinely needs a buff, feels like I’m shooting pebbles," Kao says that "this week we're going to tune some pistols and put in a damage increase for the hellwalker that we didn't get in time when we converted it to fire. ARs will come next!"

The Hellwalker was a favorite in Borderlands 3, and it should be – after all, it's a tribute to Doom's Super shotgun, one of the greatest weapons in video game history. But while it returned in Borderlands 4, it didn't deliver quite the same punch in the new game. Hopefully the next round of buffs will give it that ol' deadly feeling once more.

Kao says that the team's goal "has always been to increase and enhance the build variety of classes and gear to tackle the game now and challenges we have lined up in the future." With that in mind, they aim to start "increasing the value of some legendary pistols" in the immediate future before they "look at increasing the opportunity for ARs to shine." Hopefully that means those bullets won't feel like pebbles much longer.

If you're looking for more loot, check out all the Borderlands 4 Shift Codes we've dug up so far.

Players of Borderlands 4 have been busy. Not just blasting through vaults or completing the game's story, but defeating a lot of bosses over and over. This past weekend, one character, Amon, saw a lot of action in particular, as part of a Community Challenge.

The goal was simple: use Amon to get 300,000 cumulative boss kills. That's collectively across the whole playerbase, not just for any one person or region. Sounds like a lot, and it is, hence it being a 'challenge', but perhaps Gerbox underestimated how much people enjoy playing as the Forgeknight and just how many monsters they’d be burning up and freezing.

Over the few days, Borderlands 4 diehards managed to rack up 839,225 boss heads using Amon, stopping just short off three times the original goal. What an outstanding display of brutality.

Everyone "crushed" it, as the official account puts it. No further breakdown has been given, but what other data is needed? Amon went on a rampage, earning all sorts of spoils for Vault Hunters around the world.

The resulting prize is a code for a new skin - what else? - based on his appearance in the ‘Demons’ short film. That video was released on YouTube some weeks ago, leading up to the release of Borderlands 4, and it gives us some added lore about Amon and his place in the universe.

Said short ends with Amon revealing you can turn a man's head into a diamond if you squeeze it hard enough. I wonder how many players pulled that off.

Borderlands 4 datamine suggests Ava was replaced in Gearbox's new looter shooter, and now fans want the divisive character back: "We were robbed of a generational story"

Despite her relatively large role in Borderlands 3, Ava's gotten the Jar-Jar Binks treatment in Borderlands 4, wherein she's almost totally sidelined. Amara, another returning character from the third mainline game, is drafted in to pet-sit for Ava, who's been off gallivanting for months prior to the plot starting.

Where is Ava? We don't know. She's just elsewhere, resulting in all sorts of speculation about Gearbox's thought process and what this might indicate. There's a growing belief Amara's positioning is more than narrative convenience, and she's actually been placed into Ava's mold within the story.

Warning: Spoilers ahead. The central example, per a post on Twitter, is a scene in Borderlands 4 where Amara utilizes a shield around the other protagonists, just like Ava did in the prior game. The same power, fulfilling the same purpose, but not from a different character. It definitely seems convenient.

Some buzz around this conversation led to Borderlands content creator and dataminer EpicNNG revealing evidence Eva was once in the new looter-shooter, but has since been taken out. A selection of assets still present in the code include Ava's name, and they suggest she'd be sharing scenes with Zane, and using her bubble maneuver – the one remarkably close to what Amara deploys.

EpicNNG states no other references to Ava exist, but speculates these files could point towards her involvement in DLC, though whether that's true is impossible to tell right now. Ava's been a lightning round within the Borderlands fanbase since the third came out due to certain choices surrounding her character.

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford put up a poll on Twitter asking about whether the devs should bring back the crew from Borderlands 3 for 4, introduce an all-new cast, or have a mix. A mix won, and when he asked about Ava in particular, he got an impassioned response.

The audience is split on whether she deserves redemption, and the camp who would rather forget about her have been assuaged here. But given the possible revelation Ava was written out at some point during development, fans have expressed disappointment at not getting her full arc, with the glimmer of possibility in DLC. YouTuber and avid Borderlands fan SpeakingLions boldly states: "Ava deserved a narrative arc. Characters are allowed to grow, SHOULD be allowed to mature, misstep, AND exist outside of the whims of an angry internet mob. I love Amara. If it's true, I genuinely feel we were robbed of a generational story."

"Hopefully she comes back in a DLC, where she can show that she's grown since 3," another says. "Tho honestly her being a main character in the base story would've worked better (but I also love Amara so I'm torn)."

All of which is to say, it seems like maybe Ava had a bigger role in Borderlands 4 before being cut down. If you'd like to see her reappear, you may need to tell Gearbox about it.

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford can only say "well, s***" after learning a bug is blocking some Borderlands 4 players from sharing loot the way he recommended, but the devs are on it

Randy Pitchford is never one to not voice his opinion on Twitter, but after recommending a fan game the system he was left speechless.

Borderlands 4 was a pretty big success for Gearbox, with the game smashing series records in its first 24 hours, but if you took a look at the companies CEO Randy Pitchford on Twitter, you wouldn't really have known. Pitchford spent the early days of Borderlands 4's release having what could be best described as a Twitter crashout, which resulted in some gems like saying performance isn't bad, your expectations are just too high, "I bet you have emotions and expectations that you feel aren’t sufficiently attended to," and the classic "please get a refund from Steam if you aren't happy."

Part of his Tweeting spree has included giving tech support to players, even if that ended up making things worse at times. And he was back at it again, when a player asked for Maurice's Black Market to be retuned so that it's easier for players to get more items from it, given that each player has a different Black Market inventory.

Randy responded to the fan, urging them to "game that shit," giving the advice to "get in a group of people who post their rolls every week and jump into each other’s games to get the gear you want." However, when a different user pointed out to Pitchford that there's currently a bug locking players from accessing the machines while in a multiplayer game, Pitchford was left speechless, simply responding "well, shit."

He did however return the following day to confirm that the issue was a "Confirmed known bug" and that it is "Fixed and will be in an upcoming patch within the next two weeks." So at the very least if you're having this issue, you'll be able to scrape together loot from all your friends relatively soon.

Borderlands 4 launch "not as explosive as its predecessors," analyst reports, but "strong" Steam start and "steady console sales" make it "positioned for long legs" - especially once the discounts start flowing.

Borderlands 4 might not have achieved the "explosive" initial success of past Borderlands releases, but one analyst reckons it could be positioned for a long tail of sustained success.

Alinea market analysis head Rhys Elliott broke down September's most-downloaded games in a new Substack post, with Skate 4 taking the top spot. Hollow Knight: Silksong, meanwhile, is absolutely crushing the original Hollow Knight with six million downloads after just four weeks, which isn't surprising to me as it's a sequel releasing after many years of anticipation.

As for Borderlands 4, Elliott noted Gearbox's sequel managed to crack the top five most downloaded games of the month with 3.1 million downloads across all platforms.

"While not as explosive as its predecessors, Borderlands 4's strong Steam uptake and steady console sales suggest it's positioned for long legs – once the discounts start coming in, that is," said Elliott.

Borderlands games are notoriously discount friendly, often getting heavy price cuts within just months on the market. In fact, a pre-release Reddit poll showed most respondents were willing to wait for a discount instead of paying the $70 base price to play at launch.

If there is a sizable chunk of Borderlands 4's player base still waiting for a discount, especially if sales come in increasingly tempting waves, that could help fuel a consistent, long-term stable of batches of new players every so often. Ideally, though, Borderlands 4 just has a robust enough endgame and roster of post-launch content to keep its most loyal base satisfied.

Borderlands 4 mercifully ditches most of Borderlands 3 potty humor, but Gearbox gives itself a treat and references Dark Souls meme from Twitter in hidden sidequest

Gearbox has finally released the first major Borderlands 4 buff patch, improving all four Vault Hunters in the name of "greater build diversity." My eyes have admittedly glazed over a bit under the heft of these patch notes, but I'm pleased to report there isn't a single nerf in sight, at least for now.

"Our high level goal for Borderlands 4 is to always provide players with the tools and means to build their perfect Vault Hunter," Gearbox says of its "first significant balance patch."

"Through the combination of gear, Firmware, Skill and Specialization trees, we want players to experiment and craft theories, then put them to the test in combat."

This update focuses on "adjusting underperforming skills," with particular emphasis on Amon, who's been brought "closer in line with the general power level of the other Vault Hunters."

Vex summons and Rafa's melee skills were also adjusted to bump them up "in the late endgame," while Harlowe received the fewest tweaks just to ensure "Stasis is getting value for players."

You can read the full, chunky patch notes here. Amusingly, Harlow has just two lines in the patch: Stasis Slam Damage increased by 30%, and Stasis Immune Damage increased by 14.7%.

Rafa has a bit more going on with buffs to his Apophis Lance action skill (10% damage), People Person Capstones, Arc-Knives action skill (12% melee damage, 5% dash damage), and several passives.

The Vex changes, meanwhile, buff more than just her summons. Energy Vampire damage was increased alongside Eldritch Blast damage and Phase Explosion damage, giving her action skill more oomph along with some Capstone buffs for the Vexcalation tree in particular. Another standout: Phase Familiar health was increased by 10%, with damage increased by 21.9%.

Amon is the big winner. Half of the patch is just Amon: The Essay. Action skills, augments, capstones, and passives for all three of his skill trees have been buffed significantly.

Fellfrost damage was boosted by a whopping 71%, while Fulminating Fist damage has gone up 69%. Eternal Winter Massive Forgewave deals a full 100% more damage. Cooldowns were shortened, scalings improved, restoration went up – it's a good day to be Amon.

"Looking to the future, we're investigating stats and behaviors on Class Mods, Rep Kits, Shields, and Firmware to make sure they are providing avenues to greater build diversity," Gearbox says. Here comes the other shoe.

"We are also planning to fix a number of unintended interactions," Gearbox affirms. "These exploits prevent us from creating meaningful build diversity as they trivialize content that is otherwise meant to challenge players."

Just last night I was talking to my co-op buddy about how Borderlands 4 feels split between intentionally and unintentionally game-breaking guns, with the latter one-tapping anything like it's nothing. It sounds like Gearbox wants to rein those in without actually nerfing the stuff that's meant to feel overpowered.

Borderlands 4 players "CRUSHED" one of the looter shooter's toughest challenges yet as Rafa, so Gearbox is rewarding them with a special Shift code that doesn't expire until 2030.

The loot drop lottery can be an inscrutable thing in a game like Borderlands 4. You can go from feeling like the luckiest Vault Hunter in the galaxy, to believing you'll never get another worthwhile prize again.

The drop rates for certain parts of Borderlands 4 are unpredictable to the point players are starting to breed conspiracy theories. Popular Borderlands content creator Ki11er Six posted on Twitter about some strange rewards on repeated goes against the Foundry Freaks.

"15 runs (still going) in UVHM 5 – 1 dedicated drop. 25 runs with UVHM Off – Not a single dedicated drop," their post reads. "Meanwhile I have FIVE WORLD DROPS. WTF?" Replies indicate others having the same issues, leading to the assertion that doing boss reruns will gleam diminishing returns over time. Anecdotal stats indicate there to be some truth to this.

Eventually, Graeme Timmins, the creative director of Borderlands 4, was tagged in. He dispels any and all theorizing and states it's all just the ebb of flow of RNG. "RNGesus is a spiteful god at times, there aren't any penalties or anything behind the scenes," he says.

This has assuaged concerns, as players thank him for the reply. Getting the balance on loot right is one of the more difficult aspects of projects akin to Borderlands 4. You want players to feel rewarded but always be striving for the greatest treasure, and you want a community that lasts well beyond launch, requiring a clear difficulty curve.

Nobody gets it right 100% of the time. Rebalances and tweaks are inevitable. Whether this all gets looked at in the next Borderlands 4 update remains to be seen, but for now, it's all part of Gearbox’s masterplan as the RNGesus du jour.

Gearbox pushes Borderlands 4 patch full of Vault Hunter buffs to Thursday to "tweak a few more things" and fit in "proper QA testing," Amon mains assemble a wishlist

The Borderlands 4 patch filled with so many Vault Hunter buffs that Gearbox had to give it its own dedicated update is still coming this week, but a little later than originally planned.

Last week, Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins teased "too many Vault Hunter buffs" for a patch coming early this week. Gearbox is now targeting a bit later this week, specifically Thursday, October 2.

The main Borderlands Twitter account teased "the Vault Hunter buffs in our Thursday update," and Timmins added a bit of context in a post of his own.

"We wanted to tweak a few more things at the end of last week, so we moved our balance patch to our regular Thursday schedule to allow for proper QA testing," he wrote.

It seems the buffs were able to squeeze into the normal update cycle after all. Previously, Timmins revealed that "we broke [them up] into their own balance update." It's also sounding more and more like the patch is not just buff-first, but perhaps buff-only, though there's still a non-zero chance that some nails get hammered down.

A scan of the replies to his post, and the main Borderlands post, reveals an especially large group of Amon mains jonesing for buffs, particularly for some of the Forgeknight's less popular weapons and creations. As a Vex main, I'm already eating pretty well, but I wouldn't turn down some new toys. (After all, Vex was featured in the original post.)

Today, Timmins said Gearbox isn't releasing pre-update patch notes or teasers for these buffs "because we may change items based on QA's findings."

Timmins did, however, share a few other specifics orbiting this and future updates, including things that won't be coming this Thursday. The bug affecting the inventory "mark as trash" feature is "fixed in a future patch," he said, but "didn't make this week's update unfortunately."

Lost loot machines failing to prioritize high-rarity loot "will be part of a future major patch" as well, Timmins said in a separate reply.

Borderlands 4 players "CRUSHED" one of the looter shooter's toughest challenges yet as Rafa, so Gearbox is rewarding them with a special Shift code that doesn't expire until 2030.

Borderlands 4 has been out in the wild for a couple of weeks now, and fans have been tearing their way through the looter shooter – and on the way, one of Gearbox's tough Community Challenges, too.

The studio first announced "Yolt," as developers dubbed the Community Challenge, in an online post last Friday. Telling fans that they had until September 28 to rack up a whopping 20 million Seconds Winds – a resurrection of sorts, granted if a vault hunter takes down an enemy while dying in the "Fight For Your Life" mode – as Rafa, Gearbox promised a special addition to the ever-growing list of Borderlands 4 Shift codes as a reward.

Two days have passed now since the official end of the Yolt Community Challenge period, and thankfully, players were able to pull off more than 20 million Second Winds as Rafa. "¡Qué bacán! You guys CRUSHED our Community Challenge and got more than 23.4M Second Winds as Rafa this weekend," as Gearbox reveals in a new announcement – and as the team promised, devs are rewarding dedicated fans with a Shift code.

"Enjoy this Shift code for his Savings Savior skin, inspired by his character short 'Yolt,'" writes the studio, pasting the following key: TZXT3-XJXCB-CXBJW-BTTJT-9SK6B. As the devs explain, it unlocks a unique skin for Rafa based on his short story clip (available to watch via YouTube). Players don't need to worry about rushing to input the Shift code, either, as it's not set to expire until December 31, 2030. Yes, the 2030 that's five years away.

Gearbox concludes, "We'll have more Community Challenges in the weeks to come" – an exciting statement that implies that even more fun challenges are in the works, with potential rewards underway, too. Here's hoping new Shift codes drop soon. Our own Borderlands 4 review describes the game as "undeniably an excellent looter shooter," so it's safe to say that such rewards are just the cherry on top of one of the best Borderlands games.

Playing through the new action RPG yourself? Be sure to check our Borderlands 4 tips for a smooth start in Kairos.

Whether or not the Borderlands games are funny comes down to your tolerance level for concepts such as "toilet prison" and Rickrolling, but as fans of the 2009 franchise grow older and more world-weary, its le epic memes become less impressive. This is why Borderlands 4 players seem to be glad the latest installment of the looter shooter ditches the series' crudest humor.

But "crude humor," Gearbox devs argue, doesn't exclude a Dark Souls joke from 2022 making an appearance as a self-referential, secret sidequest. So they made a Dark Souls joke from 2022 into a self-referential, secret sidequest – first noticed by our friends at PC Gamer.

The unmarked Forgive Me quest refers to a self-described FromSoftware "meme" Gearbox narrative director Sam Winkler infamously shared to Twitter three years ago, writing, "Dark Souls revolutionized games, in the sense that instead of a story now you can just have some guy with a big sword named Myrmidon of Loss who gasps 'Zanzibart… forgive me' when he dies and then twenty YouTubers will make an hour long video about how deep your lore is."

Its corresponding Borderlands 4 quest sees players attacked by an enemy who drops a Desecrated Bolt that ekes out the line about Zanzibart. Once you hear it, you're instructed to find Zanzibart's grave, where you'll encounter a spirt named Cursed Myrmidon of the Cruel Dawn.

Winkler teased all of this before Borderlands 4 released, telling IGN that, while he wanted to reign in the game's goofiness, he also felt like adding "a specific meme in this game, and I feel justified putting it in because I accidentally created it."

"It does not involve a Skibidi Toilet," Winkler added at the time.

Gearbox Software unveils the first Borderlands 4 DLC Vault Hunter, coming in early 2026 alongside some story expansions for the FPS.

Gearbox Software has officially shown off the first post-launch playable character coming to Borderlands 4 called C4SH, and he kind of looks like the love child of a random cowboy and the Grim Reaper.

Revealed during Tokyo Game Show 2025, C4SH will be included in the game's first story pack, Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned, set to come out early next year. There's no word yet as to how much the DLC might cost individually, but for now, it's also included in the game's Super Deluxe Edition. Here's a little teaser.

"A roll of the dice, a flip of a card, a spin of the bullets in a chamber—these are among the random chances that fascinate C4SH, the first of two new Vault Hunters coming to Borderlands 4," the video's description reads. "This Story Pack is one of many additions outlined in our Post-Launch Roadmap, and features multiple main and side missions set in a new zone of Kairos, the brand-new Vault Hunter C4SH, new gear to earn, and a bunch of new cosmetics to collect."

Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins jumped on social media to say "I love this guy’s kit and can’t wait to share more!"

Elsewhere, Gearbox recently said it had "too many Vault Hunter buffs" in the pipeline, so it's aiming to release another update in the coming week.

Gearbox knows some Borderlands 4 players "are experiencing reduced stability" after the new update, but says "stuttering issues should resolve over time" and just tough it out for 15 minutes and see if it goes away

Borderlands 4 got a chunky new patch today that added a console FOV slider and performance tweaks, but Gearbox says it's receiving complaints about stability and has some advice for those players.

Despite the critical success of Borderlands 4, players far and wide have been griping about performance issues, particularly on PC, since the game's launch. Today's update was partially intended as yet another measure to address some of those problems, but as PC Gamer reports, apparently it just made them worse for some people.

You don't have to spend a long time in Borderlands communities on Steam, Reddit, and X to find reports from players seeing a reduction in frame rate and increase in stuttering after today's update, which was enough to get a response from Gearbox, who wrote on X:

"We've received reports that some players are experiencing reduced stability after downloading today's update."

Gearbox advised, "stuttering issues should resolve over time as the shaders continue to compile in the background while playing. If you're still experiencing issues after 15 minutes of continuous play, you can also clear your shader cache via your video card manufacturer's approved method."

Of course, since Gearbox seems to be referencing PC gamers specifically here, there's about a million variables at play that could be entirely hardware-related, but personally, 15 minutes seems like a long time to have to deal with stuttering and frame rate dips depending on the intensity.

Regardless, Gearbox says "if you continue to experience issues," just submit a support ticket here and they'll help you troubleshoot.

Meanwhile, Gearbox has "too many Vault Hunter buffs" planned for Borderlands 4, creative director says, so a separate update is "targeting" next week

On the heels of today's big Borderlands 4 patch, which brought a console FOV slider and myriad performance fixes, creative director Graeme Timmins teased an upcoming patch filled with buffs.

"As a note, we had too many Vault Hunter buffs to safely fit into today's big update," Timmins said on Twitter. "Instead, we broke [them up] into their own balance update that we're targeting to release early next week instead."

Assuming the timing holds, "early next week" would put this patch around September 28 - October 1 or so.

It's exciting to hear that "too many" buffs to safely be contained in one patch are on the way, as I know fans of all four Vault Hunters are hoping to see several skill tree branches and play styles brought closer to the level of the dominant meta builds. There will always be a best option, but a tighter range means more options that feel powerful.

That being said, while Timmins also previously committed to preserving the fun of ridiculous builds on the grounds that "looters are made to be broken," we can't necessarily rule out some nerfs coming in this patch as well. It sounds like it's buff-first, if nothing else, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few standout skills or synergies are toned down to compensate for this apparent truckload of buffs.

Borderlands 4 Siren Vex, for instance, was dubbed "the strongest Vault Hunter in the entire series" by some as a result of a strange bleed damage interaction. I wouldn't be surprised if that kind of thing is reined in a bit. (And as a Vex main, as long as bleed stays relevant, I wouldn't complain.) But hey, maybe it is just a shot of buffs and nothing else.

Speaking of which: Borderlands 4 player accidentally finds busted Torgue gun that obliterates enemy health bars so fast it triggers "total existence failure" – "Every instance of damage goes up to 300,000."

A new Borderlands 4 update is rolling out today, bringing a highly requested FOV slider for PS5 and Xbox Series X players as well as miscellaneous bug and performance fixes for everyone.

The update is a staggering 11.2GB on PC, and from the patch notes, it sounds like consoles have gotten some hefty downloads of their own.

The PS5 and Xbox Series X FOV slider is the headliner, though Gearbox is quick to warn that "increasing the FOV past the default could cause some dips in performance."

Increasing FOV may hurt a game's performance; it remains to be seen how heavily an expanded FOV may impact Borderlands 4's frame rate. It doesn't need a massive FOV bump on console, for my money, but I don't think anyone wants to pit frames and FOV against each other when plenty of other games give you both.

Additionally, "Vehicle Field of View settings will now be changed for both users when playing in splitscreen."

The good news is that Gearbox says it has "addressed various instances of hitching, low FPS, and crashes" and made various "improvements to stability and performance." Once again, we are lacking specifics here and still need to see the real-world performance.

"We are continuing to investigate and will make further improvements to stability and performance," Gearbox adds, affirming that the battle is not yet over.

Creative director Graeme Timmins separately addressed the highly disruptive memory leak seen on console. Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford's suggested workaround of regularly restarting the game shockingly didn't suit everyone.

"We believe we've made significant improvements there, but we're still investigating data to make sure any remaining issues continue to be resolved," he said on Twitter. "We're confident that today's update makes a big difference though, and we're excited to get feedback/data on it."

With this being a weekly update, the encore boss, black market vending machine, and wildcard mission have been rotated, serving up new loot for players who hunt them down.

A few balance changes were thrown in, too, and everyone can let out that breath because it seems nobody has been majorly nerfed. A few abilities, like Harlowe's Ground State capstone and Amon's Firewall skill, have been "corrected" to ensure intended behavior, but that seems to be it.

The balance changes are mostly bug fixes, like one that stops Harlowe from healing the enemies or another targeting inconsistent buff uptime on Vex. Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins said Gearbox is monitoring balance discourse, but isn't looking to patch out anyone's busted build right now, and so far players are free to go hog-wild with guns that deal so much damage the game can't even quantify it.

In fact, there's a blanket buff to specific weapons in this patch. Tediore weapons received 10% more damage and magazine size, suggesting players weren't really vibing with them.

Under visual fixes, Gearbox confirmed that "carryable objects" for various quest objectives should stop "disappearing or appearing in the wrong location after being picked up." Personally, I'm waiting for a fix to the 'all your guns are invisible now and enemies don't have health bars' problem that I've run into many, many times on PC.

Here are all the Borderlands 4 Shift Codes and how to redeem them for Golden Keys.

This can't be right, but: a Borderlands 4 player has somehow discovered an astronomically overpowered weapon that dissolves enemies faster than you can say "please don't patch this."

It was an accident, says YouTuber NickTew, who was having inconsequential fun trying to optimize his Vex, the Borderlands 4 Siren, when he "stumbled across an interaction that allows you to effectively just one-shot any boss" while taking advantage of a Torgue gun's sticky round mode.

"My damage was so high," NickTew says in his guide video for a "BROKEN Infinite Damage Build," which you can watch below, "that I, for the first time ever, saw the damage proc 'TOTAL EXISTENCE FAILURE!'"

According to NickTew, there's no specific gun you need to summon the criminal strength he discovered, but whatever you use will need to allow Torgue sticky mode and a Taser as its Alt Fire.

Guns manufactured by Torgue have sticky capability, which lets you glue bullets to enemies in bulk, giving you a huge damage boost once you detonate them all upon reloading, or after a timer runs out. Then, the Taser seems to increase sticky mode's effectiveness when used on "any fast-firing weapon," says NickTew, like an SMG.

He demonstrates, emptying a sticky magazine onto enemies before switching to his Taser, reloading, and "boom," he says, "every instance of damage goes up to 300,000. We even got one that went up to the 600,000 mark there."

This has to be a bug, right?

"I don't see a world where this isn't a bug," says a comment with over 200 likes on NickTew's video. Yeah, that tracks.

Borderlands 4 devs have "seen the discourse" about OP builds, but they're "looking at our first round of buffs" instead of nerfs – and fans are thrilled: "Looters are made to be broken."

Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins says the recently announced Switch 2 version delay was "the right decision."

This comes as Borderlands 4 players continue to deal with performance issues, particularly on PC, with Timmins promising more updates following a meaty 758MB patch aimed largely at addressing these issues.

To be clear, the official reasoning for the delay is still that Gearbox simply needs more time to polish the game and "align this release with the addition of cross saves," but it's worth noting the above for context.

Replying to Gearbox's delay announcement on X, Timmins said: "A tough decision, but ultimately the right decision. Quality matters and a delay is the appropriate call."

While neither Timmins nor Gearbox official have linked the delay to performance issues on other consoles and PC, it's natural to side-eye the Switch 2 version when other, more powerful platforms are already struggling with stability.

The Switch 2 version of Borderlands 4 doesn't have a new release date after Gearbox delayed it indefinitely from its original October 3 date.

There are plenty of examples of big, technically demanding AAA games running miraculously well on Switch. From my experience, The Witcher 3 and Alien Isolation have absolutely no business looking and running as smoothly as they do on a mobile platform, but here we are. Gearbox has the potential to do the same with Borderlands 4 on Switch 2, and if that requires a delay to stick the landing, so be it. I just hope the new date isn't too far off.

Borderlands 4 is hitting at a perfect time with Destiny's lull – and I hope Bungie takes the hint

Borderlands 4 on Switch 2 has been delayed and will no longer be launching on October 3 as originally planned. At the moment, there is no new release date and Gearbox says all pre-orders of Borderlands 4 on Switch 2 will be canceled automatically on September 26 if you don't do so yourself before then. As for physical, "please reach out to the corresponding retailer."

In a post on X, Gearbox says Borderlands 4's Switch 2 launch is being delayed simply because it's "committed to ensuring we deliver the best possible experience to our fans, and the game needs additional development and polish time to do that."

"Our hope is to also better align this release with the addition of cross saves, which we are working on and recognize is very important," adds Gearbox. "We will update you all on the new release timing once we've fully adjusted our plans."

Despite largely positive reviews, Borderlands 4 players have been experiencing performance issues since launch, particularly on PC. It's unclear if the Switch 2 delay is related in any way, but you can only imagine optimization is even trickier on a mobile platform like the Switch 2 compared to more powerful consoles and PC.

It's hard not to look at this news and feel some sense of irony at Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford's previous animated antics about Borderlands 4's earlier than expected release on Switch 2. Back in July when Gearbox announced the October launch date, Pitchford made a big show of the whole thing in a bizarre video in which he said "I know you're worried" about the Switch 2 version before excitedly announcing the date and saying things like, "WOOOO! BAH BAH BAH!" and, "I'm psyched. GET IT!!!"

Hopefully, a new release date is revealed in short order and it's not too far off from the original.

Borderlands 4 speedrunner begs devs "please don't patch this" after discovering time-saving new strategy, only for the looter shooter's creative director to say he's "got my eye on this"

When my day-to-day is writing about video games, and with the sheer deluge of titles launching each week, it's often hard to find any permanence with what I'm playing. But I’ve found myself glued to Borderlands 4 in the last week, and it reminds me of how fun it can be to shoot and loot without worrying about arbitrary power grinds and season passes.

I'll jump into sports games regularly, but outside of playing games for work (a first-world problem, I acknowledge), the one game that I've found myself sticking with over the last few years has been Destiny 2.

Maybe it just hit at the right time, or maybe that dopamine rush of late-night raiding is a high I'll be chasing from games forever. Still, it would be fair to say that what was once the golden goose of the live service trend has fallen on hard times.

After capping off the Light and Darkness Saga that began back in 2014 with 2024's (excellent) Final Shape expansion, Destiny as a franchise has been almost aimless. In fact, the only thing it seems fixated on right now is working to keep players hooked - not through having fun, but through a sort of chokehold.

Destiny 2 isn't fun to play right now

I don't need to recount all the details of why Destiny 2 is sitting barely touched on my console and PC right now (Austin nailed it better than I ever could) but the short version is that Bungie has put all the shiny new loot into the most ill-conceived grind which takes place across around 10% of the content in the game.

After vaulting old content, the studio has now essentially removed any reason to visit locations not in the new Portal system, and the complicated scoring system isn't something I have time to learn - or the desire to. Levelling is painfully slow, even if you can push yourself to spend more time in the mines of the Portal, and the latest update, Ash and Iron, has done little to fix things.

Destiny has often been described by the community and Bungie alike as a "hobby", but now it really does feel as though it's become a job of sorts. Log in, do the easiest-to-farm activity of the week, and wait for Bungie to drop more platitudes about how it's listening.

The final straw, at least for myself, was the latest incarnation of Iron Banner. I've loved the PvP event in the past, usually for its unique armor sets, but this iteration feels… off. Sure enough, the community spotted that what was intended to be an armor set for the event was (as had been rumored for months) too cool to be given away for free, and so Bungie slapped a price tag on it in the game's ever-expanding Eververse store.

The studio later changed the free armor to be more appealing, but by then, the damage is done. This is Sideshow Bob stepping on an endless supply of rakes, only unlike that classic Simpsons episode, here he's turning to the camera every time and explaining he won't step on them again before doing just that.

A new challenger

So, why do I mention this now? Partially because Ash and Iron has gone down like a, well, iron balloon, but also because for the first time in a long time there's a genuine, bona fide loot shooter rival.

Borderlands 4 is, in many ways, Destiny without the baggage. I know, I know, Gearbox's first-person answer to Diablo was here first, but technical issues aside, I've had more fun in a week of Borderlands 4 than I have in the last six months of Destiny 2.

I'm not filling a meter to earn watered-down cosmetics because the devs decided the better ones should be paid for, and I don't give a hoot about my power level. I'm earning fun perks like a rocket punch that deals flame damage to everyone around me, and my gun can be thrown like a grenade.

Part of that is down to perspective: Gearbox will keep players invested with loot, its Shift code freebies, and the eventual expansion, but whether I'm playing Borderlands 4 or not, it's not going anywhere. There's no FOMO, and there's certainly no specific way to play it.

Of course, Borderlands isn't a live service game, but I do think a challenger such as this gives Bungie something to mull over. Does it want to be remembered for making a sci-fi shooter feel like work? This is a studio that once rewrote the rulebook for first-person shooters, and despite the first Destiny not landing for everyone, there was clearly some semblance of that early magic there. Sadly, it’s been sanded down in the years since as the company bounced between publishers and worked to turn the game into what often feels like a full-time job.

Destiny is a franchise that means an awful lot to me, but I just can't justify playing it right now when there's so much out there. And, judging by the subreddit and the Steam Charts numbers, I'm not alone.

I don't play Destiny to watch a number increase once every hour or two. I play Destiny to get some slick new weapons and take them into missions to buildcraft and tailor the experience to how I want to enjoy it. And, until Bungie can hold up its end of the bargain, you'll find me on Kairos pummeling opponents with my big, flaming fist.

Borderlands 4 review: "Undeniably an excellent looter shooter, but one that requires a bit of tunnel vision to fully enjoy"

Borderlands 4 is finally here, and players have spent nearly two weeks now discovering its most powerful vault hunter builds – builds that Gearbox assures won't actually be nerfed yet, as the developers instead focus on rolling out new buffs.

Creative director Graeme Timmins states as much in a new online post following circulating threads about so-called "broken" or "overpowered" Borderlands 4 builds – from Vex being dubbed "the strongest vault hunter in the entire series" to silly speedrunning strategies – and much to players' delight, such "unintended" ways of playing won't be targeted with nerfs right now. In fact, Timmins says Gearbox has some buffs up its sleeve.

"We've seen the discourse about builds that use unintended interactions and/or the knife," he writes. "We're not going to act on those immediately; instead, we're looking at our first round of buffs."

That doesn't mean future nerfs aren't a possibility, however. As Timmins admits, "those will get addressed, but we're going to start with underperforming gear/skills first." It's safe to say the Borderlands 4 community is sighing a breath of relief.

"Devs recognizing priorities in a non-competitive PvE game," as one player responds, "is this real life?" Another excitedly asks, "Buffs before nerfs?" Elsewhere, a fan amusingly replies, "Hell yeah, this is the soul of the genre. Looters are made to be broken, and answered with even harder content that drops even more broken loot." It might be funny, but judging by the comments, it seems like most would agree with that sentiment.

This rings especially true considering the Borderlands series' history. Nerfs were a cause of contention within the community after they rolled out for entries like Borderlands 3 and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. As YouTuber Moxsy states in a response to Timmins, "This is such a huge W. Massive nerfs hitting Wonderlands & BL3 on launch caused huge outrage and frustration in the community. Love to see this direction."

Some players don't ever want to see their favorite builds nerfed, though. As one comments, "Here's a thought. If people are having fun with their broken builds, why take that fun away? I'm not ruining anyone else's fun either. Just as you said, focus on buffs to other things. There's no need to act on any of those nerfs you have in mind. Buff the other things." I get it, as a fan of being OP in-game myself – but it's likely Gearbox will fix what it feels it should.

Here's hoping the buffs prove impressive to fans – and nerfs remain a distant possibility. Our own Borderlands 4 review describes the game as "undeniably an excellent looter shooter," so it's safe to say that it may just stand as one of the best Borderlands games.

Playing through the new action RPG yourself? Be sure to check our Borderlands 4 tips for a smooth start in Kairos.

Borderlands 4's first big console patch is "coming," but its creative director says that despite Gearbox's best efforts, "it just takes longer" to push updates to consoles.

Responding to a popular Borderlands 4 speedrunning exploit shown off on Twitter, Graeme Timmins said, "I've got my eye on this," should it prove to cause tech issues. In response, he was asked whether that potential balance pass would apply to console - PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of Borderlands 4 are yet to receive the relatively small PC patch that dropped last week.

To that, Timmins reminded fans that "console testing and certification is more involved [than] pushing out PC builds." That's because while it's often possible to simply push a new update out to Steam or Epic users, Microsoft and Sony have certification processes that slow that process down considerably. That's why early access games are much more common on PC than they are on console, for instance, or why an update like Stardew Valley 1.6 came to consoles six weeks after it dropped on PC.

For impatient Borderlands 4 fans, that might not be super helpful, but Timmins says "it just takes longer" for console companies to make sure "we're sending out good quality patches." Regardless, he says, "it's coming and we're doing everything we can to make it happen quickly."

Elswhere, Timmins has promised that the Borderlands 4 console patch will offer some "great fixes," but it's tough to imagine that PC hasn't been at the forefront of the studio's mind since launch. Performance issues have marred what's been an otherwise pretty successful launch, and they attracted some serious attention from Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford, who went as far as offering advice to individual players on social media.

Performance issues aside, check out our Borderlands 4 review to see what we thought of the game or browse our top Borderlands 4 tips if you're already playing.