Things Borderlands 4 Should Avoid

Summary

• Explore new planets to avoid repetitive settings and offer unique gameplay experiences.
• Simplify skill trees for accessibility without overwhelming casual players with complexity.
• Focus on meaningful humor, quest variety, and enemy design to enhance player experience and avoid repetitive mechanics.

It’s official: Borderlands 4 will be hitting platforms on September 23, 2025. It’s been a long wait, but fans are cautiously optimistic that after the mixed receptions of both Borderlands 3 and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, Gearbox can deliver a hit. But that doesn’t mean some concerns don’t still linger.

We’ve already talked about how Borderlands 4 shouldn’t bring back these characters, but there are other missteps the game needs to avoid to keep fans happy. We’re hoping that by learning from the criticisms of its predecessors, Gearbox Software can deliver a game that not only meets but exceeds our expectations, ensuring Borderlands 4 becomes a franchise highlight. We’ve listed some of the mistakes we think Gearbox should avoid making. Let us know in the comments what you think Gearbox needs to do for Borderlands 4 to be a hit.

9

Don’t Rely On Old Settings

It’s A Big Universe

Borderlands is set in a vast universe, but it has a tendency to keep returning to the same handful of planets/locations. In particular, Pandora (one of the worst holiday destinations in video games) played a major role in Borderlands 1, 2, and much of Tales from the Borderlands. It’s time to leave home behind and explore new worlds.

Borderlands 3 did a better job of planet hopping, but we want more. Borderlands 4 needs to resist the temptation of taking us where we’ve been before and show fans weird and wild new planets. If the environments of these planets lead to new gameplay mechanics, like low gravity and oxygen levels in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, even better.

8

Don’t Overcomplicate The Skill Trees

Sometimes It Better To Keep Things Simple

At its heart Borderlands is a looter-shooter centered around excellent, frenetic gunplay and collecting ever more powerful boomsticks. Over time, Gearbox has increasingly focused on the RPG progression systems too, which has led the skill trees to become more and more complex.

Having choices on how to build your character is great, but this isn’t Path of Exile 2. Many Borderlands fans don’t want a game with massive skill trees. The skill trees in Borderlands 4 need to be accessible enough that casual players don’t feel intimidated or bored by minor percentage increases and complicated numbers. Less is more; make each level-up feel meaningful and rewarding.

7

We Don’t Need 87 Bazillion Guns

Constant Inventory Management Has Never Been Fun

Gearbox has always emphasized the sheer number of guns up for grabs in Borderlands. The original game was pitched to us as having 87 bazillion guns (in reality, it only had around 16 million), and over the years, that number has only grown. With Borderlands 4, they’re promising even more guns than ever before. Of course, what they really mean is millions of procedurally generated weapons combinations.

The problem is that, by and large, the vast majority of weapons dropped by most enemies are inventory-clogging trash. Picking up trash-tier loot and then constantly emptying your inventory has never been fun, and we’re hoping Borderlands 4 will move away from it. This could be by allowing players to add their own mods to dropped weapons or by simply taking more of a quality over quantity approach to weapons. Borderlands has given us some of the best looter-shooters ever made, but the franchise’s loot mechanics need modernizing.

6

Don’t Force The Humor

More Jokes Need To Land

Borderlands has a unique sense of humor, and plenty of people would argue that the series has produced some of the funniest open-world games around. At least when the jokes land. Unfortunately, the comedy in Borderlands can be more than a bit hit-and-miss. Particularly in some of the more recent entries.

For a start, certain characters just aren’t that funny anymore, or never were. Tiny Tina is still a comedy gold mine, as is Moxxy. But the likes of Sir Hammerlock need to be retired. Much of Borderlands’ humor is lowbrow, which is fine in moderation, but the franchise ran out of shock value long ago. The writers for Borderlands 4 need to take what people said about the humor of Borderlands 3 to heart and make sure more of the comedy hits and isn’t simply annoying.

5

Don’t Use The Same Old Mission Design

Modern Gamers Expect More From Their Quests

As a looter/shooter, Borderlands has always had pretty simple quest design. Most quests consist of going there, shooting that, collecting this, and returning to the quest-giver. Which is fine, most of the time. But in 2025, we’ve come to expect more from our quests.

In particular, certain dated quests need to go away. Each Borderlands game has had a variation of the Slaughter quest where players are stuck in an arena and tasked with fighting a ton of enemies, usually for meager rewards. Slaughter quests are boring and have outstayed their welcome. Similarly, quests that boil down to killing X amount of a certain enemy (especially if it involves using a vehicle) need to be retired. Borderlands has also given us some really clever/funny quests over the years; we need more of those.

4

Avoid Filling Maps With Boring Open-World Filler

Bigger Isn’t Always Better

Borderlands has always used large, open-world-like zones rather than having one singular open world. This has allowed the devs to fill each game with lots of areas that feel different while avoiding the open-world bloat that plagues so many massive modern open-world games. The result has been some of the best open-world FPS games ever made.

But over time, these zones have gotten bigger and bigger, making backtracking for some quests more of a pain than it needs to be. Borderlands 4 should avoid making its zones too big and filling them full of vast empty spaces and boring busy work. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands did this to great effect.

3

Don’t Force Players To Drive Vehicles Constantly

Vehicles In The Franchise Have Rarely Been Fun To Use

Speaking of vast empty spaces- Borderlands has had a vehicle problem for a long time. Vehicles in the series have never been much fun to use, but the developers have continuously forced us to keep using them. The controls have rarely felt good, the physics has always been weird and floaty, and vehicular combat a chore.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was all the better for simply dropping vehicles completely. Borderlands 4 should either do the same or, at the very least, have a much smaller focus on vehicles. Players don’t come to the series for the vehicles, so why insist on making them such a big part of the games?

2

Don’t Forget Solo Players

Lots Of Fans Like To Play On Their Lonesome

This is a big one. For some of us. Borderlands has always focused on being a co-op shooter that’s fun to play as a group. After all, Borderlands’s most iconic vault hunters are meant to work as a team. But Gearbox has also tried to have its cake and eat it too, by offering the option to play solo. The problem has always been the balance, or lack thereof, when playing on your own.

Every Borderlands game has at least one area or boss that just sucks when playing solo. Likewise, the skill trees have too many skills that require synergy with another character or need the player to play with someone else for them to work properly. Solo needs to be fun throughout, even if that means a greater emphasis on having AI-controlled allies chasing around after the player.

1

Don’t Rely On Boring Bullet Sponge Enemies

Focus On Clever Enemy Design Over Brute Force

This is solo-player adjacent, but is applicable to group play too. Far too many of Borderlands’ enemies are bullet sponges who hide behind overpowered shields and massive health pools. Enemies like this are rarely fun to fight and can make playing solo a major pain.

Rather than giving bosses and badasses overwhelming health pools, give them interesting mechanics. Likewise, Badass variants should be more than just normal enemies who hit harder and take ages to kill. Gearbox doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel here. Glowing weak spots might not be revolutionary, but they’re much better than being one-shotted by a Badass Psycho who takes three mags to take down.