Gearbox has released the official story trailer for Borderlands 4.
We already know a little bit about Borderlands 4’s story, but this trailer has teased a few characters without showing all their cards. You will likely immediately identify Claptrap and Mad Moxxi above anyone else. If you’ve been paying attention to the marketing, you will likely know the four default Vault Hunters, Vex, Rafa, Harlowe and Amon. And after that, you may recognize the new villain, the Timekeeper, and then Zane and Defiant Calder.
The trailer gives us a sneak peek at the Timekeeper’s army, a Kerrigan-like cyborg woman who talks about resisting the Timekeeper and a giant hulk of a man who talks about returning to follow him. We also see the requisite Bandits, robots, and creatures of different kinds to meet in the new setting in Kairos.
Other characters we see but haven’t been introduced you yet include two different mysterious people in white hooded robes, an artistocratish woman reminiscent of Hunger Games’ Effie Trinket, and a military man reminiscent of X-Men’s Bishop. As always, Gearbox does this thing where they barely hide the inspirations for their characters and story ideas, but the execution is so good that the fans really don’t mind it.
Unlike Borderlands 3, Borderlands 4 seems to have a straightforward storyline that isn’t trying too hard to be clever, but of course we can’t make too many conclusions based on these trailers. The early buzz on Borderlands 4 really isn’t in the story, but in making corrections to game design to properly bring the franchise forward after learning what they did from Borderlands 3.
We do think it’s safe to say that the entire mess that Gearbox President and CEO Randy Pitchford created unnecessarily with his sloppy response to fans about the game’s pricing is mostly settled. We understand that Take-Two Interactive gets to decide on the pricing, and they decided to go with a base price of $ 70. We believe this choice derails the notion that games were suddenly jumping to $ 80 across the board. Game companies aren’t going to force a severe price hike across the board, but to address issues around the industry’s sustainability, they will price across a range in proportion to a project’s scale and value. Maybe what this really is is the end of the idea of a default price for a video game at all.
Borderlands 4 is launching on September 12, 2025, on PlayStation, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows via Steam and Epic Game Store. It will also be releasing on Nintendo Switch 2 later in 2025. In the meantime, you can watch the story trailer here.
