45 articlesBorderlands 4 is almost here, so it’s a good idea to start learning about all the new mechanics and features you need to know about. There’s a lot of new and changed mechanics in this one, even for series veterans. It does still keep the series’ formula, though, but a lot of key aspects will feel pretty distinct! Eager to know more? Read on for all the details!
Everything You NEED To Know About Borderlands 4 | New Mechanics & Features
Meet the New Vault Hunters! The Newest Vault Hunters, At Least
The most important thing to know first is which character to pick! As is series tradition (well, except for Wonderlands), you can pick from one of 4 different Vault Hunters. Here’s a quick breakdown of their playstyles:
Vex, the Siren – The token Siren Vault Hunter, she keeps the tradition of other Siren VHs by primarily focusing on elemental damage. Alongside that, some of her Action Skills allow her to summon phantoms and familiars to help her in combat. For veterans, she’s sort of a mix between Lilith and FL4K.
Rafa, the Exo-Soldier – A high-tech soldier with an extremely versatile arsenal. Very mobile, as well, making him perfect for an overly aggressive playstyle. His Action Skills allow him to use tools, such as placing turrets, or even just go all-out slasher by switching the camera to a 3rd person view and using dual blades! Kind of a blend between melee Zer0 and Axton in gameplay.
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Harlowe, the Gravitar – Currently, we haven’t seen much of Harlowed yet. As a former Maliwan employee, we expect her to have some focus on elemental weapons. That aside, we do know she can use a variety of gadgets for crowd control in combat. She has the unique ability of Entangling enemies, making them share any damage taken. Looks most similar in playstyle to Maya in Borderlands 2.
Amon, the Forgeknight – Just look at him and you know what you’re getting into! Amon brings the Viking power fantasy to Borderlands. He can digistruct weapons, such as axes and hammers, on the fly to smite his foes. While he can throw these weapons for range, he mostly favors brawling and melee combat. He can even digistruct a shield for protection! Plays somewhat like a mix of Brick, Athena, and Krieg.
The World Opens Up
If you’re a veteran of the Borderlands series, you surely already know how each game’s world is structured. For those who don’t know, however, previous games in the series were divided into small chunks. That meant that areas were completely isolated from each other, breaking up travel with loading screens as you moved to different areas.
In Borderlands 4, however, this is no longer the case! The game’s world is now structured much more like a standard open world. Most of the playable area is seamlessly put together, so there are fewer breaks in traversal.
To aid with this, you can also now digistruct a vehicle anywhere. No need to run to a Catch-a-Ride to get a vehicle anymore! You’ll no longer need to either walk forever or fast travel if your vehicle gets destroyed while exploring.
Overall, exploration and traversal are going to be a lot more seamless this time around. Whether or not the open world is filled with enough content for its size is left to be seen, however. If nothing else, though, at least loading screens will be nearly gone! Don’t worry about getting lost, either. Your robo-buddy ECHO-4 will help you out.
Goodbye Minimap, Hello Compass
While on the topic of the game’s world, the next new feature in Borderlands 4 is an important one to know… but also a fairly controversial change. Unlike the past games, you no longer have a minimap on at all times. Instead, you’ll now rely on a compass on the top of the HUD and an (optional) combat radar on the top right.
According to the developers, the game’s verticality made the minimap pretty suboptimal for navigation. Plus, they want people to actually explore the game’s world, not just keep their eyes glued to the minimap while walking around.
Still, it’s left to be seen just how well this pans out in the long run. Gotta wait until the game is out for everyone. One way or another, it’s still an important change to know about, for sure! Besides, you can still bring up a full normal map, as well.
Even Bigger Skill Trees
While not necessarily new mechanics, the Borderlands 4 Skill Trees are definitely something you need to know about. Similar to past Borderlands games, all characters will get 3 distinct Skill Trees. This allows them to specialize in different parts of the character, offering more build possibilities and playstyles.
However, Borderlands 4’s Skill Trees are by far the biggest the series has seen yet! For example, Vex’s Dead Ringer Skill Tree has a whopping 29 Skills for you to pick and level up. As a comparison, Borderlands 3’s Skill Trees had about 12 to 15 Skills… and those were already a tad bigger than Borderlands 2’s.
It’s worth noting that earning Skill Points still works the same way, more or less. You can earn 1 per level starting from Level 2. This means you can get a total of 49 Skill Points by Level 50, which is going to be the initial level cap. Of course, we expect the cap to be raised later on via DLC, as is series tradition.
This, however, does mean that it will be nearly impossible to fully max out a single Skill Tree this time around. You simply will not have enough points to get everything. But, with so many Skills in a single tree, this might be the first time in the series where focusing all in on just one tree might be better than spreading out.
Besides that, though, some things work the same as always. You’ll still need to invest in the Skill Tree’s topmost Skills to unlock the more powerful abilities down the tree. There are also Augments and Capstones, which don’t cost Skill Points, but can’t be used all at once, similar to Borderlands 3. In summary, Skill Trees are similar to 3’s but way larger!
New Weapon Generation: License System
One of the new key mechanics and features in Borderlands 4 is an important one to know, as it relates to the weapons you loot. That’s, like, the most important part of the game! Gotta get all that loot!
In Borderlands 4, weapons can be generated with Licensed Parts from other gun manufacturers. When this happens, the weapon will inherit that manufacturer’s gimmick, despite its main manufacturer being another one. This can be confusing talk for anyone who hasn’t played the previous game, but we promise it’s a lot simpler than it sounds.
As an example, let’s say you get a Jakobs gun that has a Licensed Part from Tediore. This weapon will then have Jakobs’ gimmick (bullets ricochet on Critical Hits), while also having Tediore’s gimmick (throw the weapon to do damage instead of reloading).
Essentially, this somewhat blurs the lines between gun manufacturers, allowing multiple gimmicks to be on a single gun. It’s unknown how exactly the system fully works yet, but it seems that higher rarity weapons can have more Licensed Parts. We’ve seen some weapons with 2 Licensed Parts, which means a total of 3 manufacturer gimmicks on a single gun!
In addition to the License System, you can now also equip Enhancement Modifications to your VH. These will modify and strengthen the effects of specific manufacturers’ parts, allowing you to focus on the ones you prefer. For example, do you love explosions? Go all in on Torgue Enchantments and parts!
It’ll be interesting to see how this system pans out in practice. At least on paper, it has a lot of potential to create some very unique guns.
New Healing System: Repkits
In the past Borderlands games, healing in combat was pretty limited. You either picked up healing items dropped by enemies or used Transfusion grenades to lifesteal from nearby enemies. Aside from that and some Vault Hunters’ Skills, there weren’t a lot of options or depth to healing.
In Borderlands 4, however, this is set to change thanks to Repkits. Repkits are a new equippable item that you can use mid-combat to heal yourself! On top of healing, these Repkits also provide a variety of buffs and effects. They’re similar to other parts of your equipment in that each manufacturer has unique “quirks” for their Repkits.
The downside to Repkits, however, is that they have a cooldown while they recharge. You can’t just spam them to top up, at least not generally! You have to be mindful of how you use them. Plus, you can’t use them to escape Fight For Your Life mode, either.
Ultimately, though, Repkits are nice as they add an extra item to account for in your build. They also make healing feel like less of an afterthought on some characters, which should help survivability for all Vault Hunters.
Armor Shields Are Here!
In every Borderlands game, we’ve been able to equip and use Shields. These all have their unique behaviours, just like guns, but they’ve all always been Energy Shields. This made them weak to Shock damage, which would easily chew through them and leave you defenseless. However, some enemies have had special Armor Shields instead.
Well, this time around, we can finally use Armor Shields too! These new shields give you better defenses, usually providing a Damage Reduction effect. Additionally, they are separated into segments that can easily recharge even during the heat of combat. They’re unlike Energy Shields, which require you to avoid damage to recharge.
The downside to Armor Shields is that they take longer to fully recharge than the traditional Energy Shields. Of course, they are also weak to Corrosive damage instead of Shock damage. If you wish to minmax, it might be a good idea to swap your type of shield depending on what elements your foes are using.
Movement, Schmoovement
In addition to the basic movement options from Borderlands 3, Borderlands 4 is also adding some extra movement mechanics you’ll need to know about. Namely, the grappling hook and jetpack!
The grappling hook is a tool you’ll be able to use at certain points to propel yourself into the air. Official footage has already shown that this will be used even for some boss fights, not just for traversing the game’s world. Alternatively, it can also be used on some environmental objects to pull them towards you. This includes fish, if you want a bit of fishing! Bet you didn’t see that one coming.
As for the jetpack, it gives all Vault Hunters a lot more versatile movement. It can be used to double jump, glide across the air, and even perform evasive dashes to the sides. We haven’t had airtime this good since Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel with its 0-gravity mechanics!
Moxxi’s Big Encore
Another important new feature is Moxxi’s Big Encore Machine. This is a quality-of-life feature that allows you to respawn bosses and other enemies for farming instantly. It does cost a fee (of in-game currency, of course), but it should save you time when farming for specific drops. While Gearbox have yet to show it in action, it’s alleged to be much faster than constant saving and quitting like in the past games!
The downside? Saving and quitting doesn’t work anymore for respawning bosses. It’s Moxxi’s Big Encore or nothing here. Nonetheless, we hope Moxxi doesn’t get too greedy for her fees, because respawning bosses without reloading the game sure sounds promising…
Dynamic Events Are In!
Last but not least, one of the main new mechanics and features you need to know about in Borderlands 4 is that its world will have more dynamic events than previous games.
There will be a variety of these dynamic events. These include World Events, Rifts, and Rift Champions. While the exact differences between them all haven’t been detailed quite yet, we do know some key things about them! Mainly, these events happen semi-randomly all over the game’s world and engaging in them is always well-rewarded with better loot than usual.
Overall, this seems to be a more organic and expanded take on the Seasonal Events we had back in Borderlands 3. On that note, we also hope to get more added events throughout updates and the like!
So, there you have it! That’s everything you need to know about Borderlands 4 and its new mechanics and features. Despite the game maintaining the classic looter-shooter formula of the series, there’s definitely a lot of nice changes in this upcoming game. It’s looking to be more of the same, but better than ever! Let’s hope it sticks the landing.
