Among some of the many changes Borderlands 4 will introduce to the franchise, players will be able to use a whole new variety of movement abilities, like grappling hooks and spawning vehicles on-demand. While these are arguably great improvements for the Borderlands franchise to embrace, this new territory could take one challenge that past Borderlands games have faced to a new extreme for Gearbox to tackle.
Between Borderlands 4’s seamless open-world environments and the new movement abilities and vehicles that Vault Hunters will have access to, it’s crucial for Gearbox to prevent map exploits wherever possible. This may mean that pesky invisible walls and death barriers will be more prevalent than ever before, though this is arguably a necessary evil to prevent map exploits like the ones that have ruined parts of the experience in past Borderlands games.
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Borderlands 4’s New Movement Abilities Could Open Up Pandora’s Box
How Borderlands New Movement Mechanics Could Take One Challenge to New Extremes
So far, Borderlands 4 is already shaping up to take player’s movement mechanics to the next level. According to an interview with GameStar Talk, Borderlands 4 is allegedly introducing double jumps and dashes. Additionally, one of the new playable Vault Hunters has already been shown to have a grappling hook, and there will also be new vehicles in Borderlands 4 that players can summon from nearly anywhere. Whether or not there will be any additional movement mechanics introduced beyond this remains to be seen, though grapple hooks, double jumps, and on-demand vehicles already seem like big changes for the franchise.
However, with the new movement abilities and the larger, open-world environments in Borderlands 4, this could present a challenge for Gearbox to tackle. Between speedrunners and generally curious players, the community will surely race to test the limits of these new movement mechanics when Borderlands 4 releases, searching for out-of-bounds areas and other exploits that could provide some kind of gameplay advantage. At best, players might find some silly easter eggs in various hard-to-reach places, though, at worst, the discovery of certain map exploits could potentially allow players to skip certain encounters or otherwise cheese fights by entering areas where enemies can’t attack the player.
Borderlands 4 doesn’t have an official release date yet, though it’s anticipated to arrive sometime in 2025, barring unforeseen delays.
In past games, some of the hardest bosses in the Borderlands franchise, like Crawmerax the Invincible and Terramorphous the Invincible, can be trivialized by these kinds of map exploits. Another exploit in the original Borderlands allows players to fall through the map to enter General Knoxx’s secret armory and then leisurely loot the entire compound without having to worry about the self-destruct timer that’s scripted to countdown once players enter the armory the intended way.
Preventing Map Exploits is Crucial for Borderlands 4’s Difficulty and Loot Balancing
In looter-shooters like the Borderlands games, especially once the exploits become common knowledge among the game’s community, it’s admittedly hard not to take part in exploits like this that offer some of the best loot in the game without having to deal with any of the usual prerequisites. In hindsight, though, these kinds of exploits are arguably bad for the game’s difficulty and loot balancing, so Borderlands 4 would be wise to take extreme measures to avoid them.
Considering that past Borderlands games have struggled with map exploits, Borderlands 4 taking things up a notch with new movement abilities and even bigger open-world environments will surely make this a bigger challenge for Gearbox to tackle than ever before, though not an impossible one. This might mean that, while frustrating, artificial barriers like invisible walls and death barriers might be a necessity to prevent map exploits wherever natural barriers aren’t sufficient, or post-launch updates may even need to address any exploits that arise.
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