Borderlands 4 brings billions of weapon combinations, a non-linear campaign, and a new dangerous world

Borderlands 4 marks the franchise’s boldest evolution yet, introducing a non-linear campaign structure, a new world called Kairos, and an antagonist who controls time itself. Built on Unreal Engine 5, the game enhances weapon customization, expands endgame content, and brings back familiar characters in surprising ways. We spoke with producer Chris Brock and lead writer Taylor Clark about the engine switch, narrative shifts, and how they aim to balance chaos with control.

Borderlands is about shooting and looting, so let's get to the first part of it. Shooting — what are the main new features in gunplay and action and all this stuff?

So, the license part system is probably the biggest thing we've done with weapons. Like we were saying earlier in our presentation — if you remember BL3, if you had a Maliwan or a Vladof gun, it was just those parts that were going into the weapon. And that still gave us a lot of variety. But going into this one, we said, “What if we start allowing some amount of weapon parts to cross over between manufacturers?” What that would do is give us combinations that would surprise even us, right?

And so we started putting that together. During development, we started to see you could have a Torgue gun with the Jakobs ability — where when you do a crit, it just bounces a rocket to somebody else, right? And then it has the Torgue thing, where when you reload it, you throw it out there and it becomes a grenade, and you can shoot it to do more damage.

We started having so much fun with that, and we’d start to see combinations where we’d say, “Oh man, that’s really powerful — maybe it’s too powerful,” right? But it turns out it’s okay for players to feel powerful. Like, it’s good to be overpowered sometimes, right? Obviously, there's a balance there, but it’s so much fun to find a weapon that can do all of those things. So that was the key weapon innovation. And then obviously, we have some new manufacturers that add new flavor to the mix.

Okay, now for the looting part — how many weapons and combinations are there in the game?

Oh man. Jeez, I don't actually have a real number. It’s billions and billions and billions.

Yeah, I mean, it really is in the 8 to 10-ish figures now, depending on how you count, right? We have all these parts, and they can combine into — like, you know — billions. Literal billions. And then there are also visual variants too, so if you want to count that stuff, it gets even higher than that. I don’t have a real number for you, but I can probably get one. Someone's probably done it.

You mentioned that this is the first time the campaign is not linear. So, game length–wise, how much content is there in the campaign in terms of hours?

Oh, for the campaign? It’s hard to— I don’t think— I mean, we’ve actually been quizzing each other. We don’t know the answer to that question because everybody’s playstyle is different in the way they play and test it.

We can say it is a meaty campaign. I wouldn’t put an hour total on it just because I wouldn’t know, but I can tell you that we have done several internal playtests where we all sit together and play through just the main campaign, and it has taken us days — several days — just to get through the main campaign. So it’s big. It’s meaty, for sure.

Yeah, and every Borderlands game has had this kind of range, right? Depending on whether you just do the main critical path or go for everything there is to do. And I think the range in this game is even larger than it’s been before. Because I think on the high end, we just have tons of content. If you want to do everything, it’s a lot.

Borderlands games are not just about the campaign but about the endgame as well. So what can we expect in that area?

So, we can't talk about it too much, but I can tell you our creative director, Graeme, is very serious about endgame. It’s something we thought about very early in development. A lot of times in Borderlands, we don’t think about it until halfway through development and say, “Okay, we’ve got a good game here, but we need to have an endgame here.”

This time around, we’ve thought about the endgame pretty much from the beginning. So I can’t get into the specifics, but it’s pretty good.

I'll get back to the presentation. You mentioned this is the first time that a Borderlands game is built on Unreal Engine 5. It’s an impressive piece of technology, but it comes with its own set of challenges — especially when it comes to open-world games. So were there any obstacles or challenges, and how did you overcome them?

That’s a good question. Anytime you switch to a new engine, you encounter obstacles, just because you have to learn how to work again. We started this game about five years ago, and we were in Unreal Engine 4 initially. So then you switch to a new engine, and some of that stuff imports over, and some of it doesn’t.

And as we’re learning to walk again in a new engine, of course there are difficulties. But we have a good relationship with Epic, and they’re a good partner as far as support goes. And we can also modify the engine in ways that help make the specific game we want to make. So that’s kind of how we tackle that problem.

What are the main advantages of this engine, and how did it help you achieve the look you wanted — and even work with the typical art style of the Borderlands game series?

The biggest thing I’ve noticed is the lighting. The lighting is pretty impressive in the game. There’s full HDR lighting on everything. When we first started working on this — at least for me personally — I had this thought of, “I understand how all that lighting would benefit a game that’s more realistic or cinematic, but what’s it going to do for our comic book style?”

I think it works very well. I’m actually very surprised at how much of a difference it’s made — but it really has. You played it today — what do you think of it?

It looks really good! We just have a couple of minutes left. Could you briefly take me through the story? What can we expect in that area? Who’s the villain? What are his motives? Who are the heroes, and why?

It’s a very different setting, as we said, from Pandora — by design. Pandora was this Wild West, which was defined by a couple of things: everyone wanted to kill you, and everything wanted to kill you. A bunch of corporations that we’re familiar with — familiar names — were vying for supremacy at each other’s throats.

Here on Kyros, it’s a different story. The corporate influence — it’s a closed planet. You see the same manufacturers and stuff, but that’s contraband. Here, everything is controlled by the Timekeeper. Control versus chaos — this is the defining conflict and theme of Kyros itself.

The Timekeeper is obsessed with control. And of course, Vault Hunters — being the greatest agents of chaos in the six galaxies — are outlawed on Kyros. That’s the tension you see. And the Timekeeper is a very different, unique kind of villain in the Borderlands canon. We’re always pushing the ball forward, not just repeating ourselves with our villains. Players will feel like the Timekeeper is a distinct presence here.

What are the specific connections to the previous Borderlands games? You mentioned Lilith. There’s a Claptrap in the game. Any others?

Claptrap — we couldn’t do without that.

If you remember, at the end of Borderlands 3, you find out that Pandora is a giant Vault and Elpis, the moon, is the Vault Key. And we cannot let them interact. Lilith, to save everyone, sacrifices herself and warps this giant moon of Elpis away.

What happened to that moon?

Well, in the first trailer we released, you see the moon come crashing in through the Veil of Kyros, showing that it was this closed planet — nobody gets in, nobody gets out. And so the story — it’s a new story in the sense that it’s a new planet — but you know, this Elpis is the legacy of our Pandora story. And all the people we see have something to do with it — without giving anything away — have something to do with chasing down why Elpis is here.