Borderlands 4 is finally introducing a seamless open world to the franchise! Read on to learn more about what the dev team has in store for players in the game’s many regions.
Borderlands 4 World Design Breaks Away from Past Games
Leaving Loading Screens Behind
The Borderlands franchise has never exactly been small. From the bandit-infested dunes of Pandora to its moon, Elpis, Gearbox’s looter-shooter has always been about exploring big landscapes. But with Borderlands 4, the team is finally tossing away the loading screens, stitching the world together, and giving players a seamless open world for the first time in the franchise’s history.
For context, previous games in the series, like Borderlands 2 and 3, featured large levels, but they were always segmented by loading screens and menus. Borderlands 4, however, trades the segmented zones and hubs of previous entries for what Gearbox, according to Game Informer, calls a "Seamless World." Project producer Anthony Nicholson said they never set out to make an open-world game in the traditional sense but found themselves gravitating toward it as they experimented with seamless transitions and side content.
Even Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, earlier this year, avoided using the phrase "open world" to describe their game as "that will come with baggage." However, as Nicholson told Game Informer, "It’s really in service of helping the players be able to be in the game as long as possible and feel that immersion."
The planet of Kairos appears to be built to do exactly that. Early previews of the game from news outlets like indy100 note how "each region can be seamlessly navigated between and there are no loading screens between each one like in previous Borderlands entries." This wouldn’t have been possible on last-gen tech. As Nicholson explained, Borderlands 4 benefits from Unreal Engine 5, which gave Gearbox the tools to realize its ambitions. The results speak for themselves: expansive vistas, 360-degree combat zones, and traversal options like grappling and gliding that let players tackle encounters from land, air, or anywhere in between.
"We’ve always made big levels at Gearbox," added world building director Jason Reiss, "but we usually do these hub-and-spoke kinds of things and always transition from a large level to a linear level. I feel like we’ve flipped that formula where we have large levels that sometimes go into a linear level… It’s been all about ‘Let’s create a large, dynamic, awesome place where players can feel like badasses."
That same level of freedom has presented its own design headaches, though. With players able to spot enemies from much farther distances, the dev team had to rethink how they populate the world. "Enemies have to be alive and doing things from so far away, where they need to look like they’re naturally a part of their environment whenever you’re looking at them through your scope from a mile away," lead game designer Josh Jeffcoat explained.
Moxxi’s Tip Jar Returns in the Wastelands
The Wastelands, one of Kairos’ regions, seems to illustrate this new direction, as glimpsed in a Game Informer exclusive cover story about the game's weapons. Aside from industrial ruins, this area features enemy outposts ripe for climbing and returning fan favorites like Moxxi and Zane (albeit in a non-playable role). Even hangouts such as Moxxi's Tip Jar further tie the Wasteland to the spirit of Pandora, while still embracing Borderlands 4's newfound scale.
Not much about the Wasteland has been revealed beyond the aforementioned, but players can expect at least two more major regions on Kairos. It's just a matter of when Gearbox will unveil them ahead of the September 12th launch.
For the latest news on Borderlands 4, check out our article below!
Source:
Game Informer | The Seamless Open World Of Borderlands 4
Game Informer | How Gearbox Designs New Weapons in Borderlands 4
indy100 | Borderlands 4: We played it - this is everything you need to know
