Gearbox Software’s upcoming looter shooter sequel Borderlands 4 has received its own dedicated PlayStation State of Play presentation, showcasing almost 20 minutes of new gameplay and offering a first look at its revamped mechanics.
In the trailer, Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins and senior project producer Anthony Nicholson explain how this latest entry would go back to the series’ roots as its most grounded entry yet, giving more details on its story, which sees its Vault Hunter protagonists trapped on the planet Kairos after the events of 2019’s Borderlands 3.
The extensive gameplay reveal also offered players a glimpse at two of the four new Vault Hunters that will be available at launch, Vex, the Siren, who can either boost herself or summon minions, and Rafa, the Exo-Solder, who can utilise his exo-skeleton for a variety of different weapons.
While the core shooter experience of Borderlands 4 is still the same one fans will know and love, the game has been refreshed with some additions to shake up gameplay. Movement abilities have been enhanced to make traversal more enjoyable, including the addition of a grappling hook for both exploration and combat, a midair hover, climbable walls, and the return of vehicles, with players able to spawn them in whenever they please this time around.
Guns will unsurprisingly get revamped too, with the game featuring eight weaponry manufacturers, with three of them – Order, Ripper, and Daedalus – being new to the game. Borderlands 4 will introduce the Licensed Parts System, allowing each of its guns to be comprised of a variety of parts from different companies, each bringing their associated bonuses for additional variety.
Taking cues from fan feedback following its last game, Legendary loot drops have now been rebalanced, lowering their drop chance and making attaining such weapons rarer and more rewarding as a result. Finally, some minor but significant changes were introduced, such as its new Ordnance gear slot, which can be equipped with either grenades or heavy weapons and will operate on a cooldown, and Enhancements, which replaces the Artefact slot from past games and will provide bonuses to guns from specific manufacturers.
This extensive deep dive will no doubt spur excitement from fans, and best of all, they won’t need to wait that much longer, as the trailer follows an announcement that Borderlands 4 will launch 11 days earlier on 12 September 2025 for the PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, with a Nintendo Switch 2 version due out at an unspecified point later this year.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Si Jia
