The first big trailer atGamescom Opening Night Livelast week was a CG teaser forBorderlands 4, and it couldn’t have come at a more necessary moment. Themovie adaptation has been a disaster, releasing to abysmal reviews and cratering with audiences. So far, it’s only made back about a sixth of its budget at the box office, making it the biggest flop of the year. It seems likeGearboxhit the big red button (a metaphorical button it likely installed at some point in the movie’s years-long post-production cycle), deploying the Borderlands 4 trailer in an attempt to turn some of the bad press around.
It’s Time For Borderlands 4, But What Should It Be?
It actually is about time for us to start hearing about a new Borderlands game, though the weirdness of pandemic time makes me feel like 3 just came out. In reality, if Borderlands 4 hits its 2025 window, it will have been six years between mainline games (and three years since spin-offTiny Tina’s Wonderlands). Gearbox took seven years between Borderlands 2 and 3, so this is par for the course.
But making the announcement with a CG trailer immediately after the film flopped makes the studio seem a little desperate. And, it has me thinking that Borderlands 4 is going to need to innovate more than 3 did if it wants to carry the series forward, rather than merely attempting to keep it afloat. And, if Gearbox is going to pull that off, it should look to the series' spin-offs for inspiration.
For Borderlands To Evolve, It Should Look To Its Spin-Offs
The Borderlands series has always saved its most interesting ideas for the spin-offs. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, which was largely set on a moon, introduced low gravity and an air tank mechanic that brought new complications to combat. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands took the action to a tabletop RPG setting, swapping out the guns for magical equipment.Tales from the Borderlandstook the world and its storytelling more seriously than any of the mainline games and made characters that you could root for as a result.
Borderlands 3, on the other hand, didn’t really have any big new ideas. It was fun. It was big and really long and had an endless amount of boss fights. But, it really just felt like more Borderlands. For Borderlands to stay interesting, it needs to do more. The graphical upgrades between the last generation and the current one aren’t substantial enough that the boost it will get by merely looking prettier will be much of a selling point. The game needs to actually have new ideas or it’s going to struggle in the current games-as-a-service saturated climate.
The thing that makes the Borderlands games unique is that, functionally, they’re doing a lot of the same things as games-as-a-service titles. They’re designed to be played online with friends. Their missions are designed to be tackled repeatedly as you work to get better and better guns. They have long tails with Gearbox hoping that players return to play post-game content including paid expansions. They’re basicallyDestiny, except Gearbox doesn’t expect you to play them forever, and stops supporting them after a while.
As a result, the Borderlands games occupy a weird space, between forever games and annualized releases, not designed to be played ad infinitum, but also not designed to be replaced anytime soon. It’s been five years since Borderlands 3 and most players probably stopped playing it within a few months of its release. There’s no expectation of a long-term routine as there is with Overwatch or Valorant or Fortnite, but players need incentives to leave their regular games behind.
A Borderlands that actually tries to do something new could be that incentive. A Borderlands that has more interesting quests, rather than just asking you to go somewhere and shoot a bunch of guys. A Borderlands that introduces key new mechanics like Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. A Borderlands that takes players to a radically different setting like Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. A Borderlands that plays around with elements of different genres, maybe adding Neon White-inspired speedrunning levels or the option for players to build their own campaigns or a gun workshop where players can build wild new weapons by collecting parts from loot chests. Borderlands 4 can be so many things. It would be a shame if Gearbox decides to make it a Borderlands we’ve already played three times before.
