Borderlands 4 Should Finally Go Full Open-World

November 5, 2024

Borderlands has always been a bit of an odd duck. The games get expansions, but they don’t try to be live-service behemoths like Destiny 2 or Fortnite. They occupy a halfway position in many ways, and the series’ long-standing commitment to being open-zone but not fully open-world is another example. Borderlands has been built that way since the first game debuted in 2009, and with Borderlands 4, it’s about time to evolve beyond it.

I’m thinking about this again because Gearbox head Randy Pitchford recently hinted that the next game would have seamless loading. When a fan posted a clip of their PC loading into Borderlands 2 and facilitating fast travel instantaneously with the comment, “Seamless loading will be a reality someday,” Pitchford replied, “Seamless, you say?” When pressed for details, the Gear-boss said he would “absolutely elaborate”. He then proceeded to not elaborate.

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Borderlands 4 Can’t Just Be More Borderlands

After a disatrous film adaptation and three very similar mainline games, 4 is an opportunity for Borderlands to evolve.

Borderlands Has Never Really Been Open-World

The exchange suggests that Borderlands 4 will make the process of loading up the game and fast traveling significantly faster than it has been in previous entries. In the original game and Borderlands 2, the map was split up into many small segments, and you often needed to travel between them multiple times to complete a mission, with a load screen for each transition. Borderlands 3 did away with this, putting all of a planet’s content into one interconnected map, but it was still built like those earlier games and not like an open-world map.

In Borderlands 3, every mission was combat-oriented. There were some that tried to switch things up — like “Head Case” which transported your character into a ‘simulation’ that looked exactly the same as the regular game, except overlaid with a staticky blue filter — but it isn’t a series that has ever invested in a wide variety of activities. When you arrive on a new planet, you can expect to shoot a bunch of dudes in a bunch of different places, but you shouldn’t expect any variety beyond that.

That’s a big difference from open-world games, which tend to include side activities like climbing towers, hunting, taking back territory by capturing bandit camps, stealth missions, racing missions, puzzle shrines, mini games, and so on. Borderlands’ gameplay is as focused as a linear shooter should be , but it’s spread out across an open-world game’s amount of real estate. It’s an odd mix.

Planetary Hallways In Borderlands 3

This is exacerbated by the level design of the planets you can explore. In Borderlands 3, planets were often built like long hallways more than actual worlds. Exploration is largely limited to moving up and down that hallway. This kind of linear design works in a shooter like Call of Duty, where the cinematic presentation and set pieces are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. But Borderlands has a much more pared down presentation style (and, again, is going for a pseudo open-world thing) so you don’t feel swept up in the action in the same way.

borderlands 3 eden 6 moze combat

But imagine a truly open-world Borderlands. The tried-and-true FPS gameplay would still be at the core, but taking out a Psycho camp could have greater significance than just scoring a cool new gun at the end, as you could turn it into a friendly outpost where you could stock up on consumables and accept new missions. There could be bigger cities to explore with lengthier RPG-style side quests. Exploration could be more meaningful, as you uncovered new towns or landmarks with interesting puzzles or combat challenges. The series suffers from its lack of gameplay variety, and opening the world up could fix that.

Borderlands, in many ways, was the blueprint for the video game landscape we have now. Live-service looter shooters like Destiny 2 wouldn’t exist without Borderlands establishing the Diablo-with-guns template 15 years ago. But the series is stuck in the past, hewing way too close to the template it created. For Borderlands to evolve, it needs to embrace being an open-world instead of keeping its two feet planted in separate genres.