The Borderlands State of Play stream made one thing abundantly clear: The next entry in the looter shooter series is redoubling its commitment to having more guns than ever before.
While Borderlands 3 had more than one billion guns for players to tote around the galaxy, Gearbox Software is making a fundamental change to the weapon parts system to allow the generation of even more weapons in Borderlands 4.
In previous games, weapons were only able to be generated with parts from a single fictional weapons manufacturer. This meant players could learn what weapons they enjoyed using based on certain trademark traits from different manufacturers.
For example, Vladof weapons were fully-automatic bullet hoses, Hyperion weapons became more accurate with continued fire and Torgue weapons fired explosive rounds. Each manufacturer had quirks and players knew more-or-less what weapon they were farming for, even if a particular drop didn’t have the perfect parts for the most desirable stats.
Borderlands 4 introduces three new weapon manufacturers with their own unique weapon traits and perks.
The State of Play revealed new weapon manufacturers, including Order weapons that charge up railgun-like shotgun blasts, fully automatic Ripper weapons that fire speedy flak rounds and reliable Daedalus weapons that allow you to swap ammo types on the go.
Now, randomly generated weapons can have parts from multiple different manufacturers. You might loot a weapon that has a Hyperion grip, a Tediore magazine and a Vladof barrel, allowing you to rip through enemies with increasing accuracy until you throw the gun away with an explosive flourish. It sounds very cool on paper, but in practice, it could make Borderlands 4’s endgame much harder.
Taking on Borderlands’ biggest challenges — especially raid bosses — has always been a challenge for the most dedicated players who spent time getting the best possible rolls on their loot. This meant farming the same enemies until they dropped the right weapon with the right weapon parts and perks to get the job done.
In Borderlands 4, a massive pool of weapon parts from other manufacturers is going to make it way harder to generate the drop you’re looking for. Legendary gun drop rates are already getting nerfed from the previous game — which means farming the right parts on a specific legendary weapon necessary for your build will be harder than ever before.
Legendary loot will be much rarer than it was in Borderlands 3 — Gearbox wants that bright orange drop to feel special again.
Borderlands 4 could potentially have the most interesting buildcrafting in the series, what with how many moving parts there are in the player arsenal. But it remains to be seen if strong builds will be easily accessible to everyone, or if the new loot mechanics will ensure that the strongest weapons only land in the laps of the most insanely dedicated (or luckiest) Borderlands 4 players.
Looting might be the biggest draw for Borderlands fans, but other big changes are coming in the next game, too.
Borderlands 4 is moving the series toward movement shooter territory, as every playable vault hunter will be able to dash, double jump, glide and grapple across the terrain. Certain areas also have ziplines that will let you shoot into the air to get a better view of the world, before you spawn the new Digirunner vehicle (which looks like a hybrid between Destiny’s Sparrow hoverbikes and Halo’s Ghost) to speed toward your destination.
The new Digirunners look like they take inspiration from Bungie’s greatest hits, both new and old.
The game will be fully crossplay-enabled at launch, which pairs well with the new co-op quality of life features. Your campaign difficulty and generated loot will be completely instanced from your friends, which means no one will have to fight over the world settings.
Perhaps most importantly, you’ll no longer have to reload an area to fight a boss again. Borderlands 4 boss arenas will contain a lever that respawns the encounter, so you can leap right back into the action without a mandatory trip to the main menu.
This is the perfect time to implement the feature, because between the weapon parts changes and the legendary loot drop nerfs, it’s safe to assume you’ll be fighting bosses over and over if you’re chasing a specific weapon roll in Gearbox’s next big looter shooter.
