Borderlands 4 developers claim campaign is 'meaty' and game is 'naturally' different

Borderlands 4 developers have claimed that the game's campaign is "meaty" and revealed why "it felt very natural to do something different" with the title as a whole.

Borderlands 4 is an upcoming game from Gearbox Software that's being published by 2K. It continues the story of what happens in the Borderlands series but in a completely new setting.

It's set on the planet of Kairos, which is split into four different regions: the rolling hills of the Fadefields, the frigid peaks of Terminus Range, the shattered lands of Carcadia Burn and the Dominion.

Chris Brock, executive producer at Gearbox Software, revealed why the big new focus for Borderlands 4 is on seamless exploration.

"When we were going from Pre-Sequel to 3, one of our big focuses was just on gameplay," he told indy100. "We have all these guns, let's make them really fun to fire.

"We felt like we were successful in that ambition and going from 3 to 4, we thought if we can do the same thing for exploration that we did for guns in the last one, we're really onto something.

"Let's make it more fun to move, explore the world, discover things, that was the genesis for 4. The previous Borderlands games are all about anarchy and 4 is about order. We wanted to try something different.

"The gap between 2 and 3 was big - 3 needed to feel familiar in my opinion and after that, it felt very natural to do something different with the next one."

A huge focus on Borderlands 4 from developers is on seamless exploration / 2K

At the end of Borderlands 3 - spoiler alert for those who haven't played it - it turns out the planet of Pandora, which the three numbered entries are pretty well entirely set on, is a giant Vault and the moon of Elpis (where Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is set) is a giant Vault key. To save Pandora and stop the planet from being destroyed, Lilith sacrifices herself by warping Elpis to an unknown place in the galaxy.

Taylor Clark, lead writer at Gearbox Software, said this was the perfect place to start the story for Borderlands 4.

"From a narrative perspective, it made all the sense in the world to think 'what happened to that moon?'" he said.

"As we see in the first trailer for the game, we see the moon crashing through this interesting veil that's been covering this secret planet of Kairos that's been hidden from the rest of the galaxy.

"It's natural to do that and has the added bonus of being a fresh start. It also allows us to show off the technical advancements too. Brock and I have been joking that our planets, historically, have been like Star Wars planets.

"We have this new world that's diverse suddenly where you can go seamlessly from environment to environment and experience the change of the trees thinning out and becoming more mountainous."

The changes don't end there.

Borderlands 4 is set on the brand new planet of Kairos where players control one of four Vault Hunters / 2K

There's a brand new antagonist called The Timekeeper who rules over Karios with an army of synthetic robots called the Order. Kairos inhabitants have a Bolt in their nervous system which The Timekeeper uses to control everyone but after the moon crashes through Kairos' protective veil, there is an uprising against his rule which the new Vault Hunters side with.

"One of my favourite things in the game are the propaganda lines you hear from The Timekeeper and his lackeys," Clark said. "It's a different kind of storytelling we can do.

"We have a totally different kind of villain. In this history of Borderlands, the villains are not repeating themselves. Handsome Jack is very different to the Calypso twins who are very different to The Timekeeper."

Although there has been a focus on making things different, one thing that has actually been reverted is the humour.

This time around, it's much more dry and grounded than the predominately toilet humour found in Borderlands 3 to help match the new setting in Borderlands 4.

"Of course we listened to feedback, what people told us and we take it seriously," Clark said. "The other side of that is it's a creative adjustment where Pandora was more of a Wild West but Kairos is a place of totalitarian dictatorship.

"You don't want to be shotgunning folks and making light of the situation. Tonally, [the dry approach] is appropriate and it fits well with the feedback we've received."

"People are here to be entertained," Brock added. "If you get the balance right between telling a serious story but also making people laugh, that's something that's going to stick with people."

While Brock and Clark did not reveal exactly how long the game will be, expect it to keep players busy for quite a while.

Developers described the campaign length as 'meaty' / 2K

"It's really hard to put a number on it," Brock said. "Something that's true of all Borderlands games is the time taken doing all the main missions versus doing everything in the game is a pretty wide range.

"I think that range is wider now. I think if you do everything, that's a vast amount of game at this point."

Clark added: "The main story alone is a meaty campaign."

"That's actually a good frame of reference," Brock jumped in. "Periodically through development, we compile everybody in a room and we play through the game from beginning to end narratively to see how it works.

"It routinely took days longer than we thought."

Borderlands 4 is available to preorder on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC and releases on September 12.

Elsewhere from indy100, the Borderlands 4 reveal had fans losing their minds and the difference between Borderlands 4 standard, deluxe and super deluxe editions.

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