Some of my friends are gamers, but as the only one who keeps up with the industry for a living, I’ve become a de facto information source for the people in my life who aren’t inclined to scroll gaming websites or watch The Game Awards as they happen. That’s how, on a Saturday night, I ended up rattling off a near complete list of everything announced at this year’s awards show to my friends.
There’s a new Naughty Dog game, I told them. And there was a cinematic trailer for The Witcher 4 that showed Ciri as the protagonist – it was pretty dope, I said.
“What about Borderlands 4?”, one of my friends asked hopefully, taking a swig from her beer can. I’d forgotten that she was the only person I knew who still loves Borderlands and plays it regularly. “Oh, yeah! There was a trailer.” I said. “And?” she said, expectantly. I thought for a second. “Well, it looked like Borderlands,” I said. Then, I added, “There’s grappling now.” She gasped. Another of our friends frowned at her. Defensively, she said, “You don’t understand. I was so happy when they added, like, vaulting. Just vaulting.”
Borderlands 4 Is More Of The Same
Borderlands 4’s trailer, I’m sure, surprised absolutely nobody – especially as Randy Pitchford leaked its existence ahead of time. Watching it again now, it looks a bit more technologically futuristic than I expected it to, with lots of big robotic enemies and a horde of what looks like androids, but apart from that, it’s more or less as I expected.
The art style has modernised – less comic book and more realistic, but it still looks undeniably like a Borderlands game. The traversal is the same, just with grappling. There are still tons of guns, so many that they rain from the sky in one scene. There’s plenty of shooting. There are Psychos. It’s definitely… Borderlands.
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Borderlands Hasn’t Changed Much Over The Years
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As my Borderlands defending friend said, “If it ain’t broke…” Borderlands hasn’t made any significant diversions from its formula since the first game was launched in 2009. 2012’s Borderlands 2 iterated on the first by improving the overall narrative and reworking gameplay systems in many ways, but most importantly, to offer players more build flexibility. Borderlands 3 added gorgeous, varied planets, a ping system, and more co-op modes. The Pre-Sequel doubled down on the futuristic aesthetic we see in the trailer for 4.
But all of them largely play the same. They’re cooperative first-person looter shooters with some RPG elements, where you play Vault Hunters with different skills and abilities. The series is iterative, but never revolutionary. You shouldn’t expect to see huge pivots in gameplay or mechanics, or really, any pivots at all.
It’s tempting to speculate on what this refusal to change means for the future of Borderlands. The triple-A space is incredibly competitive, and making games is more and more expensive. If Borderlands continues to refuse to innovate with its games and just gives players more of the same, will it be able to keep up?
Then again, it’s worked so far. Borderlands is one of the best-selling video game series of all time, selling more copies than Halo, The Witcher, and God of War. Its strategy of giving players exactly what they expect isn’t particularly interesting, and it can make the series feel dated and trapped in the 2010s, but Gearbox isn’t suffering for it, at least, not yet. Light iteration won’t work forever, but in 2025, it might still be enough.
