‘Borderlands 4’ shows off new planet Kairos in gameplay deep dive, and it’s coming a week earlier than we expected (video)
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Borderlands 4 is easily one of the biggest and hottest upcoming space games of 2025, and we’ve been dying to know more about what Gearbox has in store for us after three explosive but surface-level looks at the game. On April 30, publisher 2K and the devs blew the lid off the fourquel.
First things first: The main setting isn’t Pandora anymore. Not after its moon, Elpis, was literally zipped away at the end of Borderlands 3 by the siren Lilith. The destination? The planet of Kairos, which we hadn’t visited before and is run by The Timekeeper and his synthetic army. It’s a bit of a space dictatorship that’s gone on for quite a bit, so the people are rising up and rebelling after the cataclysmic event involving Elpis.
Of course, four playable ‘vault hunters’ spearhead the cast, and the gameplay deep dive (which you can watch above) focused on two of them: Vex the Siren and Rafa the Exo-Soldier.
Vex is great at wielding supernatural energy against her enemies and to “empower herself,” though we’re far more interested in the abilities to allow her to conjure up minions, including a glowing purple feline. Rafa, on the other hand, has an experimental exo-suit that allows him to use several extra weapons as ‘actions’ on top of the guns you can find and equip.
“These are two of our four new vault hunters,” the video teases, so expect to get more information on the others in the coming months, before the game launches on September 12 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
Gearbox honcho Randy Pitchford underlined this as a more “grounded” take on the sci-fi universe, which might signal a calculated move away from overly obnoxious writing, and yet it remains a colorful and cel-shaded affair packing tons of raunchy comedy and ridiculous gore in spite of that clear answer to the biggest criticisms of Borderlands 3.
The capabilities of the current-gen consoles and modern PCs allow Borderlands 4’s Kairos to be split into four major zones that are next-to-seamless and more jam-packed with both scripted content and dynamic random events than ever before. This includes dungeons, silos, and even short activities which can be affected by the dynamic weather. And of course, personal speeder-like vehicles will make covering bigger distances much easier.
As for the co-op multiplayer element, it’s important to remember local split-screen will be a thing, but online will be fully cross-platform and support up to four players, each of which can set their own difficulty and get their own instanced loot (this means your pals won’t be able to grab your shiny rewards). Speaking of loot, the guns still come from different manufacturers that offer distinct traits and unique features, yet customizable parts come into play too, meaning the procedurally generated (aside from legendaries) guns can be tweaked even further by players.
Other additions and changes include explosives and heavy weapons linked to skill-like cooldowns rather than ammo, action skills with massively different progression trees, health/buff kits, and full mission and boss replay. Before the stream ended, we were promised more information in June, so stay tuned for more. If you just want a quick new look at the game that gets you hyped without going into details, watch its funky gameplay trailer here:
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