Wreak havoc throughout the harmful new planet Kairos when Borderlands 4 launches on September 12, 2025. I’m Graeme Timmins, Artistic Director at Gearbox Leisure—and at present, the staff and I are thrilled to offer you our deepest ever take a look at some explosive, carnage-filled gameplay, all working on PlayStation 5 Professional. We’re displaying off two of our 4 new Vault Hunters and a few of their Motion Abilities, intense looter shooter gameplay with particulars on all types of recent gear, the lethal areas you’ll discover on the all-new planet Kairos, and rather more.
Following the cataclysm seen in our teaser trailer and the contentious conflict of our First Look trailer, the tyrannical Timekeeper is right here to admonish us as we meet our 4 new Vault Hunters on this pulse-pounding Gameplay Trailer:
Ever since Gearbox created the looter shooter style almost 16 years in the past, we’ve continued to refine the components, delivering extra loot and motion with each entry. I’ve labored on each mainline Borderlands recreation since beginning out as Lead Degree Designer on the unique Borderlands, and my Gameplay Deep Dive co-op buddy Anthony Nicholson, Senior Venture Producer on Borderlands 4, has been with the sequence since Borderlands 2. With Borderlands 4, we actually imagine that this staff is creating the most effective, most formidable Borderlands recreation to this point.
This all-new journey is the right entry level for brand spanking new gamers—and for present gamers, you’ll discover the superior gameplay you recognize and love cranked as much as 11, with new motion skills, our greatest and baddest enemies but, an unlimited new planet to discover, and naturally, billions of weapons to loot.
Wreak havoc as a Vault Hunter
The Borderlands video games are set in an unforgiving sci-fi universe, the place life is reasonable and weapons are plentiful. You play as a Vault Hunter, a badass mercenary on the hunt for alien Vaults, wielding wild weapons and devastating skills. Within the Gameplay Deep Dive, we’re displaying off two of our 4 all-new Vault Hunters: Vex the Siren, who makes use of supernatural part power to empower herself and might conjure lethal minions, and Rafa the Exo-Soldier, a former Tediore trooper who wears an experimental exo-suit able to digistructing an arsenal of weapons. Personally, I’m an enormous fan of Vex’s spectral feline acquainted Hassle, who can completely maul any enemies that attempt to assault my flank throughout a shootout.
Every Vault Hunter class in Borderlands 4 affords a singular playstyle that empowers you to select from three signature skills that function your Motion Abilities. We’re delivering our most superior talent tree system but, letting you improve your Motion Abilities with particular augments and capstone skills. You possibly can select from three branching paths of passive skills that allow an extremely vast number of distinctly highly effective builds.
Every Vault Hunter additionally has a singular Trait that shapes their playstyle; as an illustration, Vex’s Trait makes her Motion Abilities attune to the aspect of the weapon she at present has geared up, incentivizing an arsenal of elemental weapons to shock, burn, or freeze enemies based mostly on the state of affairs.
Certainly one of our guiding design rules for our Vault Hunters is that enjoying as them ought to make you’re feeling like an unstoppable drive on the battlefield, that unleashes Motion Abilities to regulate the circulate of fight and blast via enemies with an arsenal of outrageous weaponry. You too can flex much more talent expression throughout battle with a variety of recent motion skills, together with gliding, dashing, double-jumping, and point-grappling.
Welcome to Kairos
In Borderlands 4, we’re dropping you into the center of Kairos, an all-new planet rife with warring factions, lethal fauna, and determined inhabitants. For hundreds of years, the oppressive Timekeeper saved the planet hidden, controlling its inhabitants with cybernetic implants referred to as Bolts and a military of artificial troopers often known as The Order.
However six years earlier than the occasions of Borderlands 4, a rogue moon all of a sudden teleported into Kairos’ orbit, shattering the planet’s protecting veil and plunging the world into chaos. Now the denizens of Kairos have began rising up, with some even ripping their Bolts proper out of their skulls. That’s the state of affairs our 4 Vault Hunters have crash-landed into: a planet with a inhabitants primed to blow up, and also you’re the spark.
In your quest to ignite a revolution in opposition to the Timekeeper, you’ll meet distinctive factions that you just’ll must recruit to your trigger, together with a slew of recent characters and a few returning faces that’ll be immediately acquainted to Borderlands followers. We’re delighted to be bringing again fan-favorite characters like Claptrap, Moxxi, and Zane—however we’re additionally so excited so that you can meet a few of the charming allies and loathsome adversaries that await you on Kairos.
That will help you get round Kairos’ sprawling, seamlessly linked areas, now you can summon a customized Digirunner car at will and jet-boost your manner in the direction of the horizon. We’ve constructed a world that exudes craftsmanship and encourages you to discover it at your individual tempo—with the choice for steering offered by your ECHO-4 robotic buddy—as you tackle new enemies, encounter world occasions, and uncover hidden treasures.
From Order patrols to world bosses, there’s at all times one thing to shoot and loot as you discover Kairos. You’ll additionally come throughout brief gameplay experiences and new actions that auto-grant a tracked mission everytime you uncover them—like Silos, which home previous, decommissioned Order tech that you would be able to hijack for the Crimson Resistance with the assistance of ECHO-4.
When you’ve reclaimed a Silo, it would reveal the approximate location of a Vault Key Fragment. Gather sufficient fragments and also you’ll unlock a hidden Vault—a excessive stage dungeon with difficult fight and severe loot. Reclaimed Silos can be used as Quick Journey factors, or you’ll be able to zipline up their hacked communications balloon to begin gliding via the air in the direction of your subsequent goal.
Wreaking havoc throughout Kairos is superior alone and even higher with buddies—which is why we’ve made it simpler than ever to leap into co-op multiplayer, whether or not via 2-player splitscreen or through our improved foyer system with drop-in/drop-out motion for as much as 4 gamers on-line, with full crossplay at launch.* Borderlands 4 is designed for co-op from the bottom up, with instanced loot for every participant, dynamic stage scaling, particular person issue settings, and the choice to Quick Journey on to different gamers to maintain the celebration collectively and having enjoyable via the entire marketing campaign.
Gearing up for a battle
Within the new gameplay footage, you’ll be able to watch us go on the offensive throughout the Terminus Vary, the place one of many Timekeeper’s generals, Vile Lictor, has been conducting nefarious experiments. We’re breaking into his secret blacksite with the assistance of Amara, an allied Siren and former Vault Hunter.
You too can see the damaging energy of some lethal weapons from our eight distinctive producers: Order, Ripper, Daedalus, Tediore, Maliwan, Jakobs, Vladof, and Torgue, every boasting their very own devastating strengths. Longtime Borderlands followers will discover that the primary three of those producers are model new, with recent traits:
- Order weapons concentrate on precision with high-powered bursts
- Ripper weapons cost as much as go absolutely automated
- Daedalus weapons are easy-to-use and incorporate a number of ammo sorts
- Tediore weapons are reloaded by tossing them as grenades
- Maliwan weapons concentrate on elemental harm to burn, freeze, and shock
- Jakobs weapons can fireplace bullets as quick as you’ll be able to shoot with ricochets on essential hits
- Vladof weapons have a excessive price of fireside and big magazines
- Torgue weapons have heavy-duty explosive rounds that may swap to sticky projectiles.
With the brand new Licensed Elements system, you’ll find weapons that incorporate the behaviors and talents from a number of producers right into a single weapon, fueling our wildest loot selection but. As well as, Borderlands 4 reworks our strategy to the enduring Legendary weapons which have distinctive results you received’t discover on every other piece of substances. In Borderlands 3, Legendaries dropped too usually, devaluing them and making different loot really feel much less particular general. In our new system, not solely do all weapons really feel nice, however now Legendary drops will actually be particular occasions.
We’ve added the magic again to our loot chase, and we all know you’ll love grinding all the good gear on Kairos. Farming coveted gear is rather more intuitive now that you would be able to replay complete missions or use Moxxi’s Huge Encore Machine to battle bosses everytime you’d like. Talking of bosses, Borderlands 4 makes them greater and higher than ever—like Vile Lictor himself, a monstrosity you’ll be able to glimpse on the finish of the Gameplay Deep Dive. These boss fights will put all of your new abilities, gear, and talents to the final word take a look at, requiring that you just suppose shortly and adapt to no matter every boss throws at you.
There are additionally new gear slots to specialize your builds even additional:
- Ordnance, a shared slot for Grenades and Heavy Weapons like rocket launchers, recharges on a cooldown to maintain you locked and loaded throughout particularly powerful encounters
- Enhancements, which change the Artifact slot seen in Borderlands 3, increase your weapons based mostly on their producer, rewarding you with further firepower while you optimize your gear loadout
- Repkits add utility by letting you heal your self or activate momentary buffs to assist flip the tide of an intense battle
We’re extremely excited to unveil extra Borderlands 4 once we host our first hands-on occasion this June, with tons to indicate off forward of the total launch on September 12. Wishlist Borderlands 4 now and keep tuned as we reveal extra within the coming months!
*On-line play requires an Web connection, a SHiFT Account, and a PlayStation Plus subscription. Phrases apply.
