After years of coy silence from Gearbox, Borderlands 4 is finally on the way and the premier looter shooter franchise is coming back. From its earliest entry back in 2009, the franchise has always prided itself on offering a veritable smorgasbord of firearms to loot and shoot. Over time, the series continued to iterate on and expand the gunplay to be more and more engaging with each passing entry. Borderlands 2 and Borderlands 3 both added additional gun types, manufacturers, and new elemental status effects that kept each entry feeling fresh and new despite still leaning into the tried and tested franchise formula that has grossed publisher Gearbox more than $1 billion dollars since the first game.
But not every series innovation makes it to the next game. The manufacturer Atlas appeared in the original game and didn’t return until Borderlands 3. Slag elemental weapons and e-tech guns remain locked into Borderlands 2. In fact, there are plenty of weapons that Gearbox could bring out of single game obscurity in Borderlands 4. With that in mind, there’s a variety of weapons introduced in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel that absolutely deserves to become a series staple.
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Borderlands 4 Needs to Bring Back Laser Guns
Laser weapons were perhaps the single greatest addition made in the Pre-Sequel. A whole new category of guns, laser weapons fired beams of energy as opposed to the standard bullets most other guns utilized. Lasers themselves came in several varieties, including rapid fire blasters, continuous beams, hyper-accurate railgun blasts, and shotgun-style scatterguns. Every laser gun was imbued with some sort of elemental status effect, giving them an added level of base utility.
Despite their usefulness in the Pre-Sequel, laser weapons never made the jump to Borderlands 3. The lore reason for their absence in the rest of the series is that Marcus flubbed some sort of trade deal that prevented the weapons from making their way to Pandora, but given that Borderlands 3 and Borderlands 4 take place across multiple worlds, this explanation doesn’t really hold water. The real world answer seems to simply be that Gearbox hasn’t seen fit to bring laser weapons to future installments of the series, and that’s a shame.
Why Laser Weapons Deserve a Spot in Borderlands 4
Laser guns were, first and foremost, incredibly fun to use in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. After three games of bullet-based weapons, it was a marvelous change of pace for the series. Where every other gun is based on some sort of hitscan weaponry, options like the beam or blaster offered something new and different for players who’d already mastered the series gunplay.
Lasers introduced a new weapon type where, unlike their e-tech predecessors in Borderlands 2, each weapon felt fun and satisfying to use. Yes, they all leaned very heavily into the Borderlands‘ series sci-fi flare, but fundamentally they all followed the same core principles of the other weapons in the game. They were always a natural evolution of the existing weapons on offer.
Despite its own devoted fanbase, The Pre-Sequel arguably remains the black sheep of the Borderlands franchise. Serving as an awkward interquel between Borderlands 2 and Borderlands 3, it was ultimately used as a stopgap between releases while Gearbox made some important choices about what it wanted to do with the franchise. Because of this, as well as its lukewarm reception on launch, the game’s plot, characters, zero gravity mechanics, and gameplay contributions have been largely eschewed in subsequent content.
That being said, lasers were far and away the game’s best contribution to the series. If the devs behind Borderlands 4 have any desire to make the game an evolution of all that came before, lasers have to make their return. After all, in a series all about having an infinite number of guns, it just doesn’t make sense to exclude a whole family of weaponry. Decreasing the variety of toys in the players’ toybox runs contrary to the ethos of the Borderlands series as a whole.
See if you have what it takes to go down in history as a legendary Vault Hunter as you search for secret alien treasure, blasting everything in sight.
Looter Shooter
Action
Adventure
RPG
- Franchise
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Borderlands
- Released
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September 23, 2025