When you play a Borderlands game, you can enjoy it in a variety of ways. You can either play it casually for the looting and shooting, or enjoy the story and side quests. But many players gravitate towards the endgame experience, which has evolved with each entry in the series, and I believe the endgame for Borderlands 4, while clear-cut in design, is very underwhelming. This is for a lot of reasons, and to properly explain it, we need to go over what is available right now with the base game.
What is the Endgame for Borderlands 4?
The endgame for Borderlands 4 feels very casualized. This is because there are only a handful of clear-cut objectives to do. You have a set amount of challenges to fully unlock “Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode” and its 5 tiers. There is also the weekly “Big Encore” variant of a boss you can farm over and over again to get its legendary drops with Eridium instead of cash, as well as a replayable story mission with modifiers for every enemy that gives you a guaranteed legendary after you finish it. Complete with a randomized location for Maurice’s Legendary Black Market vending machine that gives you legendary guns to buy every week. All of this on a clear weekly rotation.
It all sounds great on paper and gives you plenty to look forward to each week while leveling other characters. However, there could be a lot more that the endgame offers. Especially considering how precise some of its offerings are.
Encore…Encore?
As mentioned in our review of Borderlands 4, every boss has an Encore Machine stationed outside of its arena to offer endless farming for legendary loot. It is a revolutionary system, and it is very well implemented with no friction, no complaints here. But in the endgame, there is only 1 “Big Encore” that you can spend your Eridium to farm a tougher version of a boss for better chances at legendary drops. While it is a neat idea to focus on one boss at a time, the second week of the game’s lifespan proved why this is a detriment.
The big encore boss was “Shadowpelt,” which is a horribly unfair boss to fight, and legendary drops are not guaranteed for big encores. Its attack patterns are frenetic, it is nearly invisible, and it can regenerate its shield faster than you can deal noticeable damage to its health. If players have problems with the core design of a boss, it is not ideal to limit the big encore to just one boss per week. In fact, it would be ideal to go on a weekly rotation of the following:
- Story Bosses
- Order Bunkers
- Mines
- Drill Sites
- Vaults
This would allow for more variety to farm as many bosses as possible per week, and not skip the only boss available if the drops are not interesting, or in the case of Shadowpelt, completely unfun to farm. One boss per week feels like a miscalculation. There are a lot of bosses, dozens of them in fact. Despite the idea being aimed at long-term engagement, it just feels too restrictive.
Not so Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode
Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode’s increases to enemy damage and health are very noticeable. Along the way through unlocking all of the tiers, Gearbox gives the player a victory lap across almost every boss in the story, vault, and certain bunkers and mines I did not discover initially. All of this is great by design, but the loot is not noticeably better to match that difficulty.
In Borderlands 3, the Mayhem mode had every weapon drop in the specific Mayhem level you were on. This allowed for gradual upgrades, so you could turn off Mayhem mode to use that enhanced loot and feel overpowered. It was fun in that regard. However, in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, you can’t tell what is enhanced or if the weapon is enhanced. There’s a lot of guesswork that just should not be there, especially when there is a higher risk involved to get the loot.
The Black Market Machine in Borderlands 4 Needs Improvement
This should have been a slam dunk, but there are many issues by design for Maurice’s Black Market vending Machine in Borderlands 4. For starters, while the hidden location idea is fun initially, after discovering its location, it should be marked on the map permanently if it rotates back into that spot. That is small potatoes in comparison to how it works and what it offers.
It is a normal vending machine and offers eight legendary items to choose from. Sounds sick, right? Well, unfortunately, it is actually only two legendaries with four variants to pick from. To say my disappointment is immeasurable is an understatement. There should be four weapons at least, with two variants to choose from, to instill the fear of missing out that it is designed to have. Also, it functions on a cooldown of a day, and exiting the menu triggers the cooldown, so if you want to check if your current equipment is better or worse than what you want to pick. Well, you are just SOL, and that is very frustrating.
World Events Need an Incentive to Play Them
World events are a cool randomized activity that can trigger across the map. However, outside of achievements, there is no incentive to play them. The drops are not worth the time investment, and the mechanics, especially for the Order ship event in the Fadefields, are just not fun to engage with. Having to kill endlessly spawning enemies, alongside focusing on finding doors and buttons, is just not fun to me.
The Goredello arena, on the other hand, achieves its vision of being an arena to mow down enemies for multiple rounds. However, the loot rewards for both of these events feel underwhelming. If they had a higher chance to drop legendaries at higher tiers you achieve through completing objectives, it could be fun to go into one. But for now, they just feel like a waste of time, especially if they randomly activate with no notification while playing.
Bring Back the “Chaos Chamber” in Some Form
In Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, there was a roguelite activity called the “Chaos Chamber“. This activity spawned random enemies in random rooms and gave you a boss to fight at the end of it. Throughout the run, you would collect crystals that you could then spend to get more loot in the final chamber. Considering legendaries dropped like candy in that game, it felt tedious to find an actually decent gun to use at higher tiers of Chaos Mode. Which was akin to Mayhem Mode.
If clarity for what loot is improved with Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, having a roguelite activity like the Chaos Chamber would be a fun time waster, especially if there was at least one guaranteed legendary for completing it. Especially considering certain story events in Borderlands 4 could make one exist on Kairos. No spoilers for why that is, sorry!
Progression Needs to be Account-Wide
Finally, there are some means of progression in Borderlands 4 that are designed to be “per character” when they should be account-wide. For starters, throughout the open world, there are speakers that spawn enemies to kill, vault symbols, mines, bunkers, and outposts. All these Points of Interests give SDU points to unlock backpack space and more ammo reserves. This sounds fun for a first time through. But considering how many of these activities there are, they should have permanent account unlocks. Obviously, replayability should be optional, but I dread having to redo all of these activities on another character or three.
But the real kick in the crotch is with Specializations. Specializations are this game’s take on Badass ranks. Where you can unlock numerous percentage upgrades to many different stats. While also unlocking perks that can change certain aspects of the game. Such as giving action skills, critical chance, and damage, allowing aim down sights while you are fighting for your life, and more.
This all starts out well. However, it was disappointing when it was confirmed that Specializations are not shared between characters. It made the idea of starting new characters feel worse. Badass ranks offered minuscule but helpful stat upgrades for new character playthroughs. It was a great idea, and limiting Specializations to individual characters just feels disappointing.
In Conclusion
Obviously, Borderlands 4 just came out. Clearly, they are focusing on fixing performance on PC and working on DLC behind the scenes. But there is so much in the endgame that needs a lot of love and care to be changed systematically. I feel like I will be playing this game way more than I did Borderlands 3. However, I just wish some of this stuff could be ironed out in time. Gearbox has a golden opportunity to make the best endgame for a Borderlands game yet. I just hope they find a way to address these problems.
