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Gearbox has shed some light, just some, on Borderlands 4’s upcoming Vault Hunter, C4SH.
Randy Pitchford explained that they couldn’t actually say that much because they were still in the middle of development. So it is entirely possible that they could change things about him in the last minute.
But he did talk about why they made him.
The Idea Behind C4SH
Randy said this in an interview with Hooked Gamers:
You know, we didn’t do extra vault hunters in Borderlands 3. The last time we did them was with the presequel. And it’s kind of fun because when we do extra characters as bonuses, as add-ons, we can kind of take more risks than we feel we are willing to take with the main ones.
And one of those risks with C4SH is to play with that randomness. With randomness, there is always that risk. And if you don’t have the bad side of the roll, you can’t feel as good about the good side of the roll.
Borderlands’ RNG
As one of the first AAAs to play with RNG, gamers have been fortunate that Gearbox hasn’t thought to capitalize on it the same way other games have. Gearbox isn’t shifting Borderlands’ entire game design around a new business model, such as battle passes or worse, gacha.
Not everyone may agree that that is best for the franchise, but gamers who grew up with these games are definitely appreciative they’re still getting the same experience.
Randy elaborated on how Borderlands’ RNG gives players an addictive, if frustrating, play loop:
Fortunately, I think Borderlands players already kind of like that because it’s built into how everything works in the game.
So there’s so many times when I’ve just been farming a boss and been looking for a very specific drop and I’m just getting the bad RNG – and it’s like, this is ridiculous, it should have come up like three kills ago and I’m still not getting this drop.
Like when the math is not favouring us, when the RNG gods punish us. But then when it does come, it’s great, it’s the best feeling in the world.
C4SH’s Randomness Could Surprise Gearbox Themselves
Borderlands 4’s narrative director Sam Winkler summed it all up best:
I mean, they don’t let me touch the numbers for a good reason. But your point is there that the whole game is this heavy loot chase RNG.
Our design team is very good at dialing that stuff in. We do a lot of stuff post-launch to buff and make sure that all the interactions are working.
And so there’s probably going to be some weird, fun interactions with C4SH’s randomness abilities that we don’t even know about yet until people play with it.
