Borderlands 4, the newest installment in Gearbox’s crazy popular, highly-acclaimed looter shooter series will be taking a page out of Bethesda’s Skyrim playbook when it releases later this year in September 2025.
No, there won’t be giant dragons or Daedric armor or arrows to the knee but there will be more open exploration than there has ever been in a Borderlands game before. Back when Skyrim was being marketed before its release in November 2011, Bethesda boss Todd Howard claimed that pretty much anything you saw in Skyrim would be accessible to your character in-game and nothing was simply backdrop scenery. Or, as Howard put it, “that mountain is not just a backdrop, you can walk all the way to the top of that mountain.”
“That mountain is not just a backdrop” will be the mantra for Borderlands 4 as well, which will take place on the planet of Kairos, a planet previously inaccessible in previous installments of the game. Gearbox head Randy Pitchford revealed the magnitude of Borderland 4‘s expansive, semi-open world zones on the brand-new planet.
“It’s by far the biggest universe that we’ve built,” said of Borderland 4‘s Kairos at a PAX East 2025 panel. “And it’s seamless. There’s no load times.”
Pitchford then added, conjuring notions of Howard’s Skyrim elevator pitch, “You see something anywhere on the screen, a mile away, up in the sky, you will be able to get there.”
Although it’s exciting that Borderlands 4 looks to be the most capacious game in the Borderlands series yet, will that excitement be negated by rising prices and tariffs on video games in 2025 and beyond?
When asked about Borderlands 4‘s price tag at the panel, Pitchford replied, “I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t know. That is the truth. I’ll hit it straight on. It’s an interesting time.”
Pitchford continued, “On one level, we’ve got a competitive marketplace where the people that make those choices want to sell as many units as possible and they want to be careful about people that are price-sensitive. There are some folks who don’t want to see prices go up, even the ones deciding what the prices are.”
He added that the development budget for Borderlands 4 far exceeded that of Borderlands 3.
“There’s other folks accepting the reality that game budgets are increasing, and there’s tariffs for the retail packaging. It’s getting gnarly out there, you guys. Borderlands 4 has more than twice the development budget for Borderlands 3. More than twice. So the truth is, I don’t know what the price is going to be.”
Are you looking forward to the fact that Borderlands 4 will be the biggest universe Gearbox has built yet?
Borderlands 4 will release on September 12th, 2025 for the Playstation 5, Xbox Series X|S. In addition to taking place on the new setting of Kairos, the game will feature new traversal mechanics such as grappling hooks, double jumps and gliders; support up to 4-player online co-op and 2-player couch co-op; include four new playable Vault Hunters and feature an all-new loot and combat overhaul.
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