Borderlands 4 Beginner's Guide

Borderlands 4 is the latest entry in Gearbox’s iconic looter-shooter series, delivering an all-new adventure on a brand-new planet with fresh characters and features. Whether you’re a new player discovering the Borderlands universe for the first time or a returning Vault Hunter eager to see what’s changed, this Borderlands 4 beginner’s guide will walk you through everything you need to know before diving into the mayhem. We’ll cover the story setup, world structure, new movement abilities, playable characters and their skills, combat basics, loot systems, HUD changes, co-op features, collectibles, dynamic events, endgame content, and more – with tips and comparisons to past games for context. Let’s get started!

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Plot Premise and Setting

Before we dive into explaining how to play Borderlands 4, it's worth covering the story premise first.

The game is set on Planet Kairos, a vast and dangerous prison world unlike any location in previous games. For thousands of years, Kairos was hidden from the universe and ruled by a tyrant known as The Timekeeper, who oppressed the population using cybernetic implants called “Bolts” and an army of synthetic soldiers called The Order. Six years before the game’s events, a rogue moon teleported into orbit and shattered the planet’s protective veil, triggering chaos and inspiring the locals to rebel (many even ripped the controlling Bolts from their skulls).

You arrive on this volatile world as one of four new Vault Hunters (interplanetary mercenaries seeking alien vaults and treasures). Your mission quickly becomes igniting a revolution against the Timekeeper’s regime. Along the journey, you’ll rally disparate factions and inspire pockets of resistance across Kairos. Expect to meet plenty of colorful new characters – as well as some familiar faces that Borderlands veterans will recognize. Fan-favorite NPCs Claptrap (the lovable robot), Mad Moxxi (the sly bartender), and Zane (the semi-retired hitman from BL3) all return as allies on Kairos. They, along with new allies like the Electi outcast Levaine and Outbounders leader Rush, will help you take on the Timekeeper and his henchmen. Standing in your way are loathsome adversaries such as the Timekeeper’s fanatical generals (e.g. Vile Lictor, who conducts gruesome experiments) and the regional faction bosses who enforce his will.

Kairos World Structure: A Massive, Seamless Planet

The game’s world is what must be talked about in the Borderlands 4 starter guide first and foremost. 

One of the biggest changes in Borderlands 4 is its world design. Kairos is touted as the largest and most open world in the franchise’s history. Unlike the segmented, multi-planet structure of Borderlands 3, all of Borderlands 4 takes place on Kairos – which is divided into four huge regions (biomes) but has seamless exploration with no loading screens between zones. You can travel freely across the entire planet, and if you see something on the horizon – a distant mountain peak or the Timekeeper’s towering city – you can reach it directly without interruption. This is a stark departure from the “hub-and-spoke” maps of previous games, making BL4 feel more like an open-world adventure.

Distinct Regions: Each of the four regions of Kairos offers a unique environment and atmosphere: BLOG20

• Fadefields: A temperate zone of radiant beaches, rolling hills, and verdant forests. It appears idyllic at first glance, but dangers lurk beneath its whimsical surface (the local warlord Idolator Sol hoards food and supplies to appease the Timekeeper).
• Carcadia Burn: An arid, sun-scorched wasteland with deserts pockmarked by jagged mesas and deep canyons. This “shattered land” is harsh and lawless – think classic Borderlands desert vibes turned up to 11.
• Terminus Range: A frigid region of blinding snowstorms, wind-blown mountain passes, and hidden ancient secrets beneath the ice. Terminus’s frozen peaks present environmental hazards as deadly as the enemies stalking them.
• Dominion: The Timekeeper’s fortress city, a sprawling metropolis that stands as a monument to his power. Opulent architecture meets oppressive security here – its streets are patrolled by Order forces and surveilled via high-tech implants. Dominion is the endgame region, where the final showdown brews.

These regions connect seamlessly, creating one contiguous world. In fact, Kairos’s playable area is reportedly bigger than Borderlands 2 and 3 combined, at around 54 square kilometers of terrain. Every area is purposely designed with combat encounters, secrets, and unique landmarks, ensuring the world feels dense and engaging despite its size.

You can explore Kairos at your own pace. The Borderlands 4 tutorial gently guides you through a main storyline (for example, early areas start with lower-level enemies and gradually ramp up), but you’re free to wander off and tackle challenges out of order. Some zones may have pockets of higher-level enemies to gate progress, but even those scale up once you level, so no area ever becomes completely trivial.

Verticality is a key element. You might find yourself climbing cliffs, exploring cave systems, or ziplining into floating communication balloons. Thanks to the new movement abilities (gliding, grappling, etc. which we’ll cover next) you can reach high places that were inaccessible in past games. From underground vaults to mountaintop vistas, Kairos is full of nooks and crannies with hidden chests, secret bosses, and Easter eggs waiting for intrepid explorers.

Movement and Traversal: Parkour, Gliding, and the Digirunner

Another crucial gameplay improvement to talk about in the Borderlands 4 new player guide is the movement system. Exploring a massive world requires some new ways to get around, and Borderlands 4 delivers with expanded traversal mechanics.

Here are the key movement tools at your disposal:

• Mantling and Sliding: Returning from BL3, you can climb up ledges and slide along the ground. Sliding is great for quickly moving downhill or dodging under obstacles, while mantling lets you vault up onto roofs, over fences, etc. These parkour staples make traversal smoother and combat more fluid (e.g. slide into cover or mantle onto a sniper perch).
• Double-Jump: A brand new addition is the double jump, giving you a second boost in mid-air. his extra leap helps cover longer gaps or reach higher platforms that a single jump couldn’t. It feels almost like having a lightweight jetpack – expect to incorporate double-jumps in both exploration and combat (e.g. double-jump to dodge an incoming attack or to get better high-ground on an enemy).
• Air Glide: Borderlands 4 introduces a gliding mechanic that allows you to deploy a sort of hover/paraglider after jumping from high places. If you zipline up a comms balloon or leap off a cliff, you can glide across a huge distance, slowly descending while moving forward. This is fantastic for covering ground quickly or dropping into enemy camps from above. Kairos’s world design takes advantage of this – you might find overlook points intended for a quick glide into a far-off area.
• Grapple (Point-Grappling): Another major traversal tool is the grappling hook. Certain points in the world can be grappled, letting you pull yourself up or across gaps in an instant. You might grapple to treetops, cliff ledges, or anchor points on structures. The grapple greatly enhances vertical exploration. 
• Dash/Evade: A quick dodge dash has been implemented, giving you an instantaneous burst of movement in a direction (useful for evading attacks or closing distance). This was not present in BL3, so it’s a welcome addition for more responsive combat.
• Swimming: Yes, you can finally touch water! While not heavily advertised, previews note that Borderlands 4 allows swimming in bodies of water. Don’t expect full underwater levels, but at least shallow water won’t be an instant death barrier as in past games. This further opens up exploration of rivers, lakes, or flooded caves on Kairos.

Here are a few Borderlands 4 tips for beginners about movement tech: you can dash out of a grenade’s radius or dash sideways to avoid a charging beast. Moreover, you can chain moves together (e.g. grapple up, then glide off the point to reach a distant ledge). Combat arenas are also more multi-level now, and the grappling hook helps you “get the jump on enemies” from unexpected angles.

Larger map means you need a better way to access your vehicles, and that’s where the Digirunner steps in.

The Digirunner

This time, you have a special personal ride called the Digirunner. It’s essentially a high-tech hover bike that you can summon almost anywhere on the map – no more hunting for Catch-A-Ride stations. The Digirunner is fast and agile, equipped with a front-mounted turret/cannon for mowing down foes as you cruise. It also has a jet boost for speed bursts across open expanses or ramps. With the world being seamless, you can drive from one end of a region to another without loading screens, making exploration much more fluid.

You’ll unlock customizations for the Digirunner too. For instance, you can acquire Hover Drives that modify its handling and allow different terrain capabilities. You can also change its appearance with cosmetic parts, so feel free to deck out your ride in true Borderlands fashion. The Digirunner serves as both transport and weapon – great for hit-and-run tactics or traveling with a co-op buddy (it supports at least a driver and a gunner). If you’re playing co-op, one player can drive while another mans the turret, just like classic Outrunner vehicles.

Meet the New Vault Hunters

It would not be a proper Borderlands 4 complete guide if we didn’t talk about the new playable vault hunters.

This game features four brand-new playable characters, each with their own class, special abilities, and personality. Like previous games, each Vault Hunter represents a different playstyle archetype, so there’s something for everyone. Here’s an overview of the new heroes and what makes them unique:

Vex – The Siren

Vex is a Siren, part of the enigmatic group of super-powered women in the Borderlands universe. He has a cynical, tough-as-nails attitude born from a rough upbringing, but beneath it, she’s empathetic at heart. In combat, Vex wields supernatural phase energy. Uniquely, she can conjure spectral minions – for example, she summons Phase Clones (like ghostly apparitions) to fight alongside her. One of her pets, a spectral feline named Trouble, will maul enemies that flank her, giving Vex built-in crowd control. Vex’s class Trait (passive bonus) is Phase Covenant, which attunes her Action Skills to the elemental type of her currently equipped gun. This means if she’s holding a fire weapon, her skills deal fire damage, etc., encouraging you to carry a variety of elemental guns and swap to exploit enemy weaknesses.

Rafa – The Exo-Soldier

Rafa is a former Tediore soldier who wears an experimental exo-suit. His exoskeleton grants him enhanced strength and, more importantly, the ability to digistruct an arsenal of weapons on the fly. Essentially, Rafa can materialize high-tech guns and armaments using his suit’s tech – a bit like how previous Vault Hunters could deploy turrets or drones, except Rafa’s gear is directly wielded by him. This makes him a versatile fighter with a solution to every situation. According to early info, Rafa was actually a combat scientist for the Maliwan corporation before turning Vault Hunter, so he brings a mix of military discipline and tech-savvy ingenuity. His Action Skills likely involve heavy firepower and tactical gadgets; for example, he might summon auto-firing cannons or swap among specialized weapon modes. If you prefer a straightforward run-and-gun style with lots of firepower (akin to Borderlands 2’s Commando or BL3’s Gunner), Rafa will be your go-to. He’s built for “military precision with high-tech enhancements,” excelling in strategic combat and advanced weapon handling.

Harlowe – The Gravitar

Harlowe introduces a brand-new class concept to Borderlands: the Gravitar, which centers on manipulating gravitational forces. Essentially, she has telekinetic-like powers – she can lift and hurl enemies or objects using energy, controlling the battlefield. For example, Harlowe can hoist multiple enemies into the air at once and then slam them down, dealing massive area damage. She also has high-tech gadgetry at her disposal: her arsenal includes devices like the Flux Generator and Chroma Accelerator, which are deployable projectiles or mines that inflict a status called “Entanglement” – linking enemies together so they share damage. If you liked BL3’s Amara for her Phaselock crowd-control, or BL2’s Maya, Harlowe scratches a similar itch but in a more technological flavor (gravity tech rather than magical Siren energy).

Amon – The Forgeknight

Amon is a hardened warrior and the sole survivor of a Vault Monster attack on a cult that worshipped it. His class, the Forgeknight, blends melee combat with mystical “forge” abilities. Amon can forge weapons from raw energy or 

materials on the fly – for instance, he manifests a giant “Forgefist” for pummeling enemies or a Forgeaxe to throw at foes. His action skills have different stances: Onslaught might give him a powered melee slam with incendiary effects, Scourge could create a frontal shield wall that absorbs damage (with a “Firewall” to block projectiles), and Crucible could let him hurl an elemental axe as a ranged attack. Interestingly, Amon’s forge abilities adapt based on which Action Skill is equipped – making him somewhat stance-based and versatile in offense vs. defense. Amon will appeal to players who like getting up-close and personal – if you enjoyed Krieg’s melee in BL2 or Brick from BL1, Amon delivers a melee-centric style but with more finesse (thanks to those forge-crafted weapons and shields). He can tank hits and dish out elemental melee damage, acting as a front-line bruiser for the team.
Each Vault Hunter comes with three unique Action Skills (one tied to each of their three skill trees), though you can only equip one Action Skill at a time in combat. This is similar to Borderlands 3’s system, but Borderlands 4 pushes it further with a deeper skill tree system. There are three extensive skill trees per character, each with branching paths of passive skills and powerful Capstone abilities at the ends of branches.

You invest skill points as you level up to unlock and enhance these abilities. Notably, Action Skills can be augmented and customized: you’ll unlock Augments that modify how an Action Skill behaves. 

One of the most suggested Borderlands 4 tips for new players is adding elemental effects or extra projectiles.

You can slot one Augment at a time to tweak your equipped Action Skill. Additionally, those Capstones mentioned are often game-changers that can even override or significantly enhance your Action Skill’s functionality (though you can only equip one Capstone at a time, as they represent the pinnacle of a build).

All Vault Hunters also have a unique Class Trait that defines their playstyle. These traits are always active and encourage certain strategies (for Vex, carrying multiple elemental guns; for another character, it might be something like stacking melee hits or gaining shields when using action skills, etc.).

Making Builds

If you need to know how to start playing Borderlands 4 as a beginner, you start by picking your Vault Hunter. Throughout the game, you level them up and create a build, which is done by choosing specific talents, weapons, and enhancements.

Borderlands has the most advanced skill tree system yet in the series, allowing an incredible variety of builds. For instance, you could build Vex as a pure summoner (buffing her minions’ damage and survivability), or as an elemental gunslinger, or a hybrid of both. Augments and Capstones let you fine-tune how your Action Skill works – maybe you give Harlowe’s gravity slam a larger radius at the cost of longer cooldown, or you modify Amon’s Forgefist to steal health on hit, etc. New players might feel overwhelmed by the options, but the game will likely provide presets or recommendations. Returning players will appreciate the depth – it’s even more flexible than BL3’s system, meaning theorycrafters can truly min-max or invent creative synergies. And don’t worry, you can respec (reset and reallocate skill points) if you want to try a different build; in fact, BL4 adds an account-wide system called Specializations for long-term progression, which we’ll discuss in the Endgame section.

Core Gameplay Loop

At its core, Borderlands 4 is a fast-paced first-person shooter with RPG elements. The fundamental gameplay loop remains classic Borderlands: explore -> shoot enemies -> collect loot -> level up -> upgrade skills -> take on tougher enemies -> repeat. For new players, expect a blend of run-and-gun action with the strategy of managing your gear and abilities. For returning players, BL4 will feel familiar but with some new twists and refinements.

Combat in Borderlands 4 revolves around using your vast arsenal of guns in tandem with your Vault Hunter’s Action Skills and melee. You’ll constantly be swapping weapons to deal with different threats (shields, armored enemies, groups vs. single targets) and using your Action Skill whenever it’s off cooldown to tip the scales. A guiding design goal was that playing as a Vault Hunter should make you feel like an “unstoppable force on the battlefield,” unleashing skills to control the flow of combat and blasting through enemies with outrageous weaponry.

Each character’s skills allow for different combat styles – e.g. Vex controls crowds with her phase minions, Harlowe locks down groups with gravity, Rafa guns down priority targets with digistructed heavy weapons, Amon charges into the fray with melee force.

World Events

New to BL4 are dynamic world events that can occur as you explore. The developers have mentioned things like Order patrols, air raid encounters, and “Rift Champion” enemy spawns that happen dynamically.

For example, you could be traveling through the Fadefields and suddenly a dropship flies in, triggering an air raid where you must shoot down waves of enemies for a loot bonus. Or you might see a dimensional rift open and a powerful champion enemy emerges (defeating it yields high-tier loot). These events ensure that “there’s always something to shoot and loot as you explore Kairos” – even when you’re not on a specific mission, the world itself throws combat opportunities at you. Returning players will find this reminiscent of other open-world games with public events, adding more replayability to zones that might otherwise be empty after quests are done.

After each firefight, you’ll of course be showering in loot drops. The sweet, addictive loop of finding a better gun or shield and immediately trying it out on the next bunch of enemies is alive and well. Leveling up happens as you accumulate XP from kills and quests, and each level grants skill points to strengthen your Vault Hunter. As enemies get tougher, you’ll constantly tweak your loadout – for instance, equipping a corrosive SMG if you’re about to storm an Order fortress full of armored robots, or switching to a sniper rifle to pick off foes from afar after using your grappling hook to reach a high perch.

Gear and Looting: Guns, Manufacturers, and the New Loot Mechanics

Moving on with the Borderlands 4 guide, loot is the lifeblood of this game, and BL4 goes bigger and better with its billions of guns and gear pieces – while also introducing new systems to deepen the loot game.

Manufacturers

There are eight weapon manufacturers in Borderlands 4, each producing guns with distinct characteristics and quirks. Longtime players will recognize many, but BL4 brings three new manufacturers into the fold alongside the classics.

1. Order – (New) The high-tech weapons of the Timekeeper’s personal army. Order guns focus on precision and burst damage, often loading extra ammo into high-powered bursts for pinpoint accuracy and heavy punch. Essentially, Order guns favor careful aim and reward critical hits.
2. Ripper – (New) These guns have a unique mechanism where they charge up briefly to go fully automatic. Think of winding up a chainsaw: a Ripper gun might start semi-auto or slow, then after a moment of firing it unleashes a blazing full-auto stream. Great for sustained DPS once spooled up.
3. Daedalus – (New) Reliable, user-friendly guns that often use multiple ammo types. A Daedalus rifle, for example, might shoot shotgun-like bursts and also have an underbarrel grenade launcher. They tend to reload fast and adapt to different situations, making them versatile choices.
4. Tediore – Returning favorite. Tediore guns are known for being “disposable” weapons: instead of reloading, you throw the gun like a grenade, and it explodes (in BL3 they would spawn turrets or homing ammo upon throw; expect similarly wacky effects here).
5. Maliwan – High-tech energy weapons that always have elemental damage (fire, shock, corrosive, etc.). Maliwan guns can often toggle elements and typically require a short charge-up to fire, but deliver elemental mayhem to burn, freeze, or electrocute enemies.
6. Jakobs – Old-school, western-style ballistic weapons. They fire as fast as you can pull the trigger, and bullets ricochet to nearby targets on critical hits. Jakobs guns don’t do elemental, but they hit hard with pure damage – great for skilled sharpshooters.
7. Vladof – Communist-inspired bullet-hose guns with a penchant for high fire rate. Vladof weapons have huge magazines and can often mount alternate fire modes (like underbarrel rockets or mini-guns). When you just want to spray a wall of lead, Vladof’s your pick.
8. Torgue – Explosive experts. Torgue guns shoot explosive projectiles; in BL3 many Torgue weapons could switch between regular and sticky mode (stickies explode bigger in numbers). Expect heavy damage and area-of-effect from anything Torgue-made, trading fire rate for big booms.

A sniper rifle made by Jakobs will feel very different than one made by Maliwan. Learning the styles adds a layer of strategy – you may come to love certain manufacturers that fit your playstyle.

 

Licensed Parts System

Perhaps the biggest game-changer for loot in BL4 is the introduction of the Licensed Parts system. Traditionally, a Borderlands gun was made by one manufacturer and had parts (barrel, grip, etc.) within that brand’s pool. Now, with Licensed Parts, guns can spawn with parts from multiple manufacturers, effectively combining traits. For example, you might find a Daedalus SMG with a Jakobs-made part that gives ricocheting bullets. Or a Vladof assault rifle that has a Maliwan capacitor to add elemental damage. This means hybrid weapon behaviors – a single gun can have abilities of two or more manufacturers.

This system dramatically increases variety and lets you find truly unique firearms, like a gun that both explodes and shoots laser beams if it mixed Torgue and Maliwan parts, for instance.

Higher rarity weapons tend to support more parts, so a Legendary might integrate 2-3 manufacturers’ traits, whereas a Common probably sticks to one. For loot enthusiasts, this system promises that no two guns will feel quite the same, and it encourages experimenting with each new drop to see what quirky combo you got. As you gear up, you might purposefully hunt for hybrids – say you want a sniper with Dahl-like burst fire (if Dahl were in the game) and Jakobs power, etc.

Loot Rarity

Borderlands 4 retains the familiar color-coded rarity system: 

• Common (white)
• Uncommon (green)
• Rare (blue)
• Epic (purple)
• Legendary (orange)
• Pearlescent (cyan) tier – will be added as post launch content

One important change from BL3 is how Legendary drops are handled. In BL3, Legendaries dropped so frequently that they became less exciting over time. BL4 aims to make Legendary loot feel truly special again by reducing its drop rate and emphasizing its unique effects.

When a Legendary item drops now, it should be an event – something rare and extremely powerful or novel. The devs have explicitly said they’ve “added the magic back” to the loot chase, so that orange beam in the distance will quicken your pulse like it did back in Borderlands 2.

New Gear Slots

Besides guns, your character is equipped with several gear pieces: typically shields, grenades, class mods, and artifacts in BL3. Borderlands 4 shakes this up a bit:

Ordnance Slot

Grenades and heavy weapons (like rocket launchers) now share a combined slot called Ordnance. This slot works on a cooldown system rather than ammo. For example, instead of carrying 5 grenades as consumables, you have a grenade launcher or RPG in the Ordnance slot that recharges over time to fire again. This ensures you always have some heavy blast available during tough fights without worrying about ammo scarcity. It’s a quality-of-life change: chuck explosives freely, and they’ll recharge (likely influenced by your gear stats or cooldown modifiers).

Enhancements

This is a new type of item replacing the old Artifact slot from BL3. Enhancements are gear pieces that provide bonuses specifically tied to weapon manufacturers. They augment your weapons such that if you specialize in one manufacturer, you get extra performance. For instance, an Enhancement might say “+15% damage with Jakobs weapons and +5% critical hit damage” – encouraging you to build a loadout of Jakobs guns for a synergy bonus. Or one might boost elemental effect chances for Maliwan weapons, etc. Essentially, Enhancements reward you for optimizing your gear loadout around certain themes. This adds another layer to character builds: beyond skills, you now also mix-and-match gear for set bonuses (this concept is further amplified by the Firmware set system discussed in Endgame).

Repkits

Another new gear slot, Repkits provide utility and support abilities. The term “Repkit” suggests “repair kit,” and indeed these items often let you heal yourself or trigger buffs in clutch moments. A repkit might be an equippable item that, say, allows you to deploy a healing aura, or automatically restore shields when they break, or give a temporary damage boost when activated. Think of repkits like support gadgets that can turn the tide of an intense battle – maybe on a cooldown or with limited charges. They fill the role of BL3’s “support artifacts” but in a more active way.
With these new slots, your character loadout in BL4 might consist of: 4 weapon slots, 1 shield, 1 class mod, 1 Ordnance, 1 Enhancement, 1 Repkit. That’s a lot of gear to farm and optimize! Returning players will enjoy the added complexity – more slots mean more ways to min-max builds and chase perfect gear. New players might feel overwhelmed by so many item types at first, but the game will likely introduce them gradually as you progress (e.g. you might unlock the Enhancement slot at level X). By endgame, you’ll be tuning every slot for maximum destruction. BLOG20

Item Management and Loot Farming

Some of the old systems from previous games return to help manage the loot and gear:

The Lost Loot Machine (from BL3) is present – now found at certain safe zones you reclaim in the open world. If you miss picking up loot, it will go to the lost-and-found so you can retrieve it later.
You can now replay missions at will, which ties into farming specific bosses for their dedicated drops. There’s also Moxxi’s Big Encore Machine in BL4 – a device that lets you respawn any boss you’ve defeated without having to quit/reload the game.

Dedicated drops are emphasized – meaning specific enemies have specific loot in their pool, so you can target-farm items rather than relying purely on random world drops. For example, one boss might be the go-to source for a legendary shotgun, another for a class mod, etc. This gives more direction to your grind at endgame.
Borderlands 4’s loot system builds on the series’ strengths (crazy gun generation and fun item effects) while solving some past issues (giving Legendaries more weight, reducing tedium in farming). The Licensed Parts and new gear slots add depth for those who love to optimize. And for those who just love shooting stuff and grabbing loot, BL4 promises more variety than ever – you’ll constantly be surprised by what a gun in this game can do. Veterans will geek out over the possibilities for perfect gear sets, and newcomers will simply enjoy that nearly every enemy you kill vomits out some new toy to play with. After all, half the fun is picking up a weird new gun and seeing firsthand if it shoots bullets, rockets, or something absolutely bizarre (maybe a gun that heals you while dealing damage, or spawns pet turrets – who knows!).

Multiplayer and Co-op

Borderlands has always shined in co-op, and Borderlands 4 is no exception – in fact, it’s “designed for co-op from the ground up.” You can tackle Kairos solo, but teaming up with friends can make the experience even more chaotic and fun. Here’s what to expect from multiplayer and cooperative play:

Co-op Modes and Player Count

BL4 supports up to 4 players online in a co-op session, and it also supports 2-player split-screen on consoles (PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S) for local couch co-op. Cross-play between all platforms is fully enabled from launch, meaning PC, PlayStation, and Xbox players can all join each other’s games without issue. The game uses an improved matchmaking and lobby system for easy drop-in/drop-out play – friends can hop into your session seamlessly, and the world will adjust to accommodate them.

If you want to know how to start Borderlands 4 with friends, it can be done via the in-game interface.

Instanced Loot and Level Scaling

A huge feature (introduced in BL3 and refined now) is instanced loot for each player in co-op. This means when a loot chest is opened or a boss dies, each player gets their own loot drops, visible only to them. No more fighting over who grabs that Legendary first or worrying about one player hogging all the guns. Everyone gets a fair share of the spoils, scaled to their level. (If you prefer the old-school shared loot experience, Borderlands 3 allowed a toggle to classic mode; BL4 hasn’t explicitly mentioned a toggle, but the default is instanced for cooperation.)

Additionally, dynamic level scaling is in effect. In co-op, enemies will scale to each player’s level individually. For example, if a level 30 and a level 10 player are teamed up, on the level 30’s screen, the enemies might be level 30-something, but on the level 10’s screen, those same enemies appear around level 10 (with damage numbers and health bars normalized accordingly). This magic lets friends of any level play together without the higher-level player one-shotting everything or the low-level player being useless. The game balances the difficulty per client, so everyone is challenged appropriately and gains relevant XP. This worked well in BL3’s “Cooperation mode,” and BL4 sticks with it (which is great news for friend groups with disparate play schedules – you won’t out-level each other).

Individual Difficulty Settings

Interestingly, the game info notes “individual difficulty settings” in co-op. This could imply that each player can choose a personal difficulty modifier (perhaps one player on Easy, another on Hard, in the same session, and the game adjusts damage dealt/taken for each accordingly). Gearbox wants co-op to be welcoming, so if one player is more casual, they might effectively have an easier time while a hardcore friend can opt into a harder challenge, yet still play together. Details on this are scant, but if implemented, it’s a novel approach to let players of different skill levels enjoy co-op comfortably.

Fast Travel to Friends

To keep parties together, BL4 lets you Fast Travel directly to other players in the world. If your buddy wanders off to the other side of the map while you are busy looting a cave, you can open your map and fast-travel to them instantly (assuming neither of you is in combat). This saves the hassle of long regroup treks and reinforces sticking together during exploration.

Reviving and Teamplay

As before, if your co-op partner goes down (enters “Fight For Your Life” mode), you can revive them. Coordination of Action Skills can lead to devastating combos – for instance, Harlowe could lift a cluster of enemies and Rafa could mow them down with a digistructed minigun, or Amon could tank a boss up close while Vex’s minion flanks and you both unload gunfire. The game encourages synergistic team compositions: perhaps one player spec’s into support (Vex could take skills that heal allies), another into pure damage, etc., to cover all bases. A balanced team (Siren for elemental support, Forgeknight as tank, Exo-Soldier for ranged DPS, Gravitar for crowd control) can be very effective. That said, any combination of classes can work – even 4 of the same character is viable, it just might play differently.

Split-Screen and Network

For split-screen players, you can also take your pair online to join others, combining local and online play. Network performance and cross-platform multiplayer are powered by Gearbox’s SHiFT system, which has been further improved for BL4, so connecting should be smoother. (Make sure to link your SHiFT account if you want cross-play, as it’s typically required for that login.)

Co-op Campaign Experience

The entire story can be played in co-op. Cutscenes will show all players’ characters (usually whoever is the host takes the “lead” in dialogues, but others appear). Quest progression is shared; if a friend joins your game, they can help you with your missions. If there’s a big level gap in story progression, the game will prompt whose progress to follow (so you don’t spoil later chapters for a newbie by pulling them into endgame areas). 

For a first playthrough, ideally stick with friends at similar story points.

Cross-Play and Social Features

Cross-play means a wider pool of players to group with. There will be an in-game mail system (as in BL3) to send weapons to friends, and maybe events where global community challenges require cooperation. Also, BL4 likely continues the use of SHiFT codes and maybe Twitch EchoCast (for stream viewers to interact with your game). Playing co-op might yield bonus event rewards, etc.

Playing Solo

It’s worth noting that while co-op is a blast, solo play is completely viable. The game will scale difficulty and loot for a single player. Some Vault Hunters have skills to aid solo survivability (e.g. Vex can summon minions to effectively create her own “team”). So don’t worry if you prefer lone-wolf play – the entire game can be enjoyed alone and you won’t miss out on content. Co-op is an option for extra shenanigans.

Endgame Content and Systems: UVHM, Firmware Sets, and Specializations

So you’ve finished Borderlands 4’s main story – defeated the big bad Timekeeper and seen the credits. What now? The answer: a TON of endgame content awaits. Gearbox has put significant emphasis on keeping players engaged for the long haul, with deep progression systems and challenging activities. Let’s break down the endgame features.

Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (UVHM) – New Game+ on Steroids

Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode is BL4’s answer to extended difficulty progression. After completing the campaign once, you unlock UVHM, which allows you to replay content at higher difficulties for greater rewards. But UVHM in BL4 isn’t just a single harder mode – it has five incremental difficulty levels within it.

1. In UVHM, enemies globally scale to your level and beyond, meaning wherever you go, enemies are at least your level (and in higher UVHM tiers, a couple levels above, making them extra tough). They also gain buffed attributes – more health, deal more damage, possibly new resistances or behaviors. You, on the other hand, will have to leverage all your skills, gear, and game knowledge to survive.
2. To progress through UVHM tiers (1 through 5), you need to complete special challenges. Specifically, you must complete sets of challenges across Kairos, which culminate in a Wildcard Mission at each tier. A Wildcard Mission is basically a remixed mission filled with buffed enemies with extra lethal traits, acting as a “prove your worth” test. Survive the Wildcard and you unlock the next UVHM level. This design ensures you don’t skip straight to max difficulty without preparing – it gates the climb behind skill checks.
   UVHM adds a risk-reward loop: tougher fights yield appropriately improved loot drops, more XP, and more currency. For example, on UVHM, you’ll see higher chances of Legendary drops, and when Legendaries drop, they’ll be higher-level gear, enabling stronger builds.
3. The fact that UVHM has five levels means effectively BL4 has something akin to Mayhem Levels (like BL3’s Mayhem 1-11) but integrated into a more diegetic progression. You can stop at UVHM II or III if that’s your sweet spot, or push to UVHM V for ultimate challenge. Gear may be marked with level requirements accordingly (and possibly some items only drop in higher UVHM levels or have special effects that unlock fully in UVHM).

By the way, UVHM is optional. Casual players can stick to Normal mode or maybe UVHM I and still enjoy events, leveling Specializations, etc. But the hardcore crowd will relish pushing higher and higher.

Firmware Gear Sets – Chase Those Builds

BL4 introduces gear sets via the Firmware system – a brand new concept for Borderlands. Firmware is essentially a set bonus mechanic familiar from other ARPGs, now applied to BL4’s loot:

What is Firmware? Certain gear pieces (specifically Repkits, Ordnance, Class Mods, Shields, and Enhancements, i.e. not your four guns) can roll with a Firmware label. This label indicates it’s part of a set (like a “brand” or theme). If you equip multiple items from the same Firmware set, you unlock bonus effects.

• Set Bonuses: Each Firmware set provides up to three tiers of bonuses:
  • Minor Bonus for 1 piece equipped (basically a small buff, active when you have any one item of that set).
  • Major Bonus for 2 pieces of the same set (a bigger buff, stacking on top of minor).
  • Full Bonus for 3 pieces (the ultimate bonus, often a unique, powerful effect).
• Example: A Firmware set might be called "Meteor" with bonuses like – Minor: +5% explosive damage; Major: +15% explosive damage; Full: every kill launches a homing micro-missile. If you equip three items with the Meteor tag, you get all three bonus tiers active (which can significantly boost a specific playstyle).

The Full bonuses are the real game-changers: things like “dropping missile strikes when you score a kill” or “if your health gets low, gain huge damage + lifesteal for a short time”. These can define endgame builds and add that satisfying layer of buildcrafting beyond the skill trees.

• Limitations: Firmware never appears on guns, only on those five other gear slots. So you can equip at most 5 Firmware pieces (one in each slot), meaning at most you could even try a 3-piece set and a 2-piece set simultaneously (for a Full + Major of two different sets), or three pieces of one set + the other two pieces of unrelated or two of another set, etc. You have to make tough choices: do you go all-in on one set to get the Full bonus plus a minor/major? Or mix two sets to get two moderate bonuses? You can’t just have everything; it forces specialization.
• Obtaining Firmware Gear: Firmware pieces start dropping around mid-game (level 25 or so), but the most powerful sets (with the juiciest Full bonuses) are likely only found in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode. It’s an endgame pursuit to collect and perfect these sets.
• Transferring Firmware: If you find a piece of gear with a firmware bonus you love, but it’s on a low-level item or an item with bad stats, you can transfer that Firmware to another item of the same type using a special machine. However, this destroys the source item and replaces any existing Firmware on the target. So you can, for example, carry over a rare set bonus from a shield you outleveled onto a new max-level shield. This helps mitigate the pain of “I finally got the Full set bonus, but now this gear is low-level.” It’s costly (likely uses Eridium or other resources), so you’ll do it sparingly, but it’s an awesome way to preserve your build as you upgrade items.
• Firmware sets essentially function like Diablo-style gear sets or Division gear sets, which is a first for Borderlands. It encourages chasing a complete set of gear and synergizing your equipment beyond just generic stat boosts.

For build enthusiasts, Firmware is huge. You might identify that “Set X would perfectly complement my character build” and then target farm activities that drop those pieces. It adds a meta-layer: not just finding individual Legendary items, but assembling an optimal ensemble of gear that together grants additional power. BLOG20

Specializations – Account-Wide Progression (Badass 3.0)

After you hit max level and finish the story, Borderlands 4 unlocks Specializations, an endgame progression system akin to Borderlands 2’s Badass Rank or BL3’s Guardian Rank, but more elaborate.

Once unlocked, you have a Specialization XP bar that can level “hundreds of times.”. Any playtime on any character contributes to it (it’s account-wide, not per character, so all your Vault Hunters benefit).

As you level it up, you gain Specialization Points which you use in a Specialization skill tree. This tree has four basic stat nodes you can dump points into (like Survivor, Brute, etc.) that give straightforward buffs – e.g. +Health/Shields, +Gun Damage, etc.

Investing enough in these basic nodes will unlock passive Specialization Skills that you can then slot into Specialization Sockets. Initially, you have 1 socket to equip one of these perks, but as you continue leveling Specialization, you unlock up to 4 sockets total. These passive skills are likely small bonus effects (e.g. “kill skill: regen grenade ammo” or “take 10% less dmg while airborne” – minor things that can tailor your build further).

Finally, at high Specialization levels, you unlock Prestige Nodes – three top-tier perks that require significant investment to reach. These are like capstones for the Specialization system, e.g., one might greatly buff Ordnance (the example given: “Gadgeteer” node buffs your Ordnance gear), requiring heavy points in multiple base nodes to access.

You can respect this Specialization tree if you want (costs Eridium) and reallocate points if you want to change your global bonuses. Also, you can choose to leave sockets empty or even not spend points if you want an extra challenge once you’ve gotten super strong – but most will probably use them to push their builds.

In essence, Specializations provide a perpetual endgame progression. Even when your character is max level and fully geared, you can still gradually increase overall power via these incremental stat boosts. It gives completionists something to grind infinitely (or at least a very long time). If BL2’s Badass Rank is any indicator, you could get hundreds of small improvements that eventually add up significantly.

The key difference: Specializations offer meaningful choices (which perks to socket, which nodes to focus), whereas Badass Rank was just generic stat increases. It’s more like a simplified Paragon system from Diablo or the Guardian Rank perks in BL3, but expanded. And because it’s account-wide, if you level one character a lot, your other characters start with those benefits too, helping ease making alts.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this beginner’s guide provides a structured overview of Borderlands 4’s most important aspects for new and returning players. We covered the setting and story premise on Kairos, the open-world structure and traversal improvements, the new characters and their abilities, core gameplay and loot systems, the revamped HUD and navigation without a minimap, how co-op works including crossplay, the goodies to find while exploring, dynamic events and scaling, and the rich endgame Gearbox has built with UVHM, weekly challenges, gear sets, and progression systems. Use the section headings to jump to any topic of interest. Borderlands 4 is shaping up to be the biggest, most feature-packed Borderlands yet, but with this guide, you’ll be well-prepared to dive in and start blasting baddies and grabbing loot from day one.

F.A.Q.