During its release back in September 2019, Borderlands 3 received generally favourable reviews, making it the best-performing game in the Borderlands series when it comes to initial sales. It's been almost four years since Gearbox Software and 2K dropped the game publicly. However, fans of the game still haven't heard of any news on a Borderlands 4 release date.
As an action role-playing first-person shooter game, Borderlands 3 revolves around the four new Vault Hunters recruited by the Crimson Raiders of Pandor to stop Twins Troy and Tyreen Calypso and their insane cult followers from harnessing the power of the alien Vaults from spreading across the galaxy.
After reading this piece, please do check out our other articles on the game such as our news on the Borderlands movie release date and our Borderlands 3 black market location. We also have an article about Gearbox opening a new Montreal Studio to work on new games.
Borderlands 4 release date speculation
Currently, there hasn't been any information yet on a Borderlands 4 release date. However, there have been some hints that the game is on the mind of developers. Back in 2021, Randy Pitchford of Gearbox Software responded to rumours that future Borderlands games would be made by a different studio now. He dispelled rumours and said that the studio is "working on the big one." Players have speculated that he meant this to be Borderlands 4.
Additionally, it was revealed quite recently too that Gearbox has plans to release 10 games by 2026. Fans reckon that one of the games that may be included in that timeline of release should be a new Borderlands game, especially considering the strong sales the games of the franchise have created.
Since we still have no official confirmation yet on a future Borderlands game, players and fans can only hint at what a new instalment can offer to them. Some players have given their suggestions and possible features they want to see in the fourth game of the series.
Five things we want to see in Borderlands 4
Since the release of Borderlands 3, players have been giving suggestions and feedback on what they would like to see in a fourth game of the series.
Improved weapon balancing
In the initial release of Borderlands 3, there were a lot of weapon-balancing issues that came with the game. For quite a few months, Gearbox Software had to roll out several weapon-balancing updates to fix the issues players were having. This includes "fixing performance issues" of the Sand Hawk while leaving the Project Recursion as is. This frustrated players as it gave them the impression that the developers were doing a poor job with the weapons balancing updates. Furthermore, there was a perceived lack of playtesting for these updates which solidified the opinions of players.
Despite the clamouring of players to the developers on what they believe would help improve the player experience, things haven't improved much till today. However, perhaps a Borderlands 4 game could allow Gearbox to take more time in balancing all their weapons and testing them with players so there's a proper exchange of feedback and the visions between players the designers could match well too.
Implementing a loadouts menu
At the moment, the game doesn't have annointments for trinkets. If you have a gun that you like and want to try a different build, you should have the option to swap out trinkets. Having a loadouts menu or system would make farming for them more meaningful and cut down on the need for an iridium re-roll machine.
Moreover, it would make sense to remove the anointments or make them affect everything but damage. It's become quite difficult to make balance updates with the current system, honestly. However, having a streamlined loadouts menu would probably best solve these issues.
Smoother online co-op system
A major gripe to note in Borderlands 3 is the laggy online co-op system, especially for console players. Xbox and PlayStation users have experienced a lot of stuttering, long load times, and even text sizes being inconsistent. Players would feel that the online co-op wasn't even playtested at all.
Some players have it worse with their consoles shutting down completely for the game. Borderlands 3 could potentially corrupt devices just because the online co-op system wasn't fully checked out.
Better writing
Every once in a while when you play Borderlands 3, you'll come across dialogue that seems quite forced. Many players still prefer Borderlands 2 to the third game.
Plenty of new characters were introduced in 3, but they weren't developed well enough to become impactful to players. Additionally, the jokes in the game sometimes felt a bit overused, with a lot of weak punchlines. If the humour was more balanced, it would make the storytelling and personality of the game more natural to see and listen to.
More class choices
In Tiny Tina's Wonderlands' new DLC, a class was added: the Blightcaller, a Shaman-like class that uses spirits and summons storms to hit foes with poison and elemental damage. However, with this new addition, fans of the franchise raised eyebrows as to why Borderlands 3 didn't get additional class choices.
Players loved the meta that was established in the current Borderlands games. At this point, though, they may have grown stagnant, leaving players keen for new features to change things up. While new classes haven't made their way into the Borderlands games we have so far, hopefully, players can see and experience something fresh once a new Borderlands game drops.
That's pretty much everything you need to know about the Borderlands 4 release date and what features players would love to see in the near future. If you want more pieces like this, feel free to check out our other hubs such as Valorant 2 release date speculation and our Dying Light 3 release date speculation. While you're at it, we also have a Minecraft 2 hub if you're interested in that.