Borderlands 4, the game that is most definitely not a live service, has laid out its plans through the end of the year, which includes three separate launches and events ahead of its big story update early next year, which launches an entirely new Vault Hunter. Here are the events and what’s coming with them:
Horrors of Kairos Halloween Event (October 23-November 6):
- A Halloween Pumpkin Head (all classes)
- 1 weapon skin
- 1 legendary grenade (drops from World Boss) – “Skully”: Fires projectiles as it seeks out the nearest target
- 1 legendary weapon (drops from World Boss) – “Murmur”: Assault Rifle that executes weakened enemies and guarantees crits under 35% health
- “Seasonal Weather Variant”
- That’s certainly a mini event, and I suppose you have two weeks to farm up those legendaries before they go away. This one is free to all players. The next thing is not:
How Rush Saved Mercenary Day Christmas Bounty Pack (November 20)
- 4 legendary guns
- 5 weapon skins
- 4 head skins (all classes)
- 2 Vault Hunter skins (all classes)
- 5 ECHO drone skins
- 2 ECHO attachments
- 5 Vehicle skins
- 1 new vehicle
- New Rush-based story missions
Then there will be the game’s first “Vault Card,” a concept introduced in Borderlands 3 that functions more or less like a form of a battle pass. It gives you more XP and other prizes, and unlike some other games, the pass does not expire.
Invincible Boss Free Addition (December)
- The first Invincible Boss to hit Borderlands 4, one of the series’ toughest challenges
- Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode 6, upping the difficulty of the game further.
- New legendary weapons, but how many are unclear. Almost certainly Invincible drops.
They did not get into the Story Pack launching in 2026, but they already did a preview of C4SH, the card-slinging robot who is coming to the game, a change from Borderlands 3 that did not introduce any Vault Hunters, only new trees for the existing four classes.
I’ve seen some players somewhat disappointed with some of these offerings, referencing how BL3 events seemed to have more to them, but honestly this isn’t much different than I was expecting. I do wonder, however, if Gearbox has the same post-launch budget and workforce as they did back then.
The Halloween event launches next Thursday, and that is also when a very large patch for the game drops, which will be full of buffs and a few nerfs of some of the most broken builds in the game that are, in some cases, literally broken. So that will come alongside Halloween, and we’ll see what players think of all this then.
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