Highlights
- Borderlands is known for its unique art style and focus on loot-based gameplay, setting it apart from other shooters like Call of Duty.
- The iconic Psycho character on the cover of all Borderlands games signifies the series’ consistency and familiarity for fans.
- While Borderlands takes risks in presentation and writing, the core loot-based gameplay has remained consistent since the original game.
Borderlands is a series that both matured and found its footing on the PS3/Xbox 360, being one of the premium offerings in the first-person shooter genre not named Call of Duty or Battlefield. Instead of those, it was perfect for couch co-op or single-player gaming sessions and offered endless replay value due to the sheer volume of weapons available, which is a philosophy that Gearbox has carried to this day.
The gameplay loop was enough to keep people excited for Borderlands 3, but now that a fourth game is rumored, it’s easy to speculate what it will entail. What feels like a safe bet is what’s presented on the front cover, as Borderlands has stuck to a very specific school of thought since the get-go, and it’s hard to believe that it will deviate from the idea for Borderlands 4.
Borderlands 4 Should Pull The Trigger on a Promising BL3 DLC Tease
An open point from one of Borderlands 3’s DLCs can possibly be the catalyst for the series pulling a major move in the fourth title.
Borderlands’ Cover Art Shares a Common Consistency
The cel-shaded art style of Borderlands is unapologetically unique and striking in design, and it does well to differentiate it from other similar shooters like Rage and Far Cry. It’s not something that Gearbox has ever hidden, with it also featuring on the cover, being used on all three mainline games and the 2014 spin-off The Pre-Sequel. On all four games’ front is a Psycho, the defacto poster boy for the series.
Borderlands 3
was released in 2019, but more recently fans were able to enjoy the spin-off
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
, a 2022 tabletop RPG-inspired take on the formula.
It gives the franchise a layer of consistency and reassures players that what they’re plucking from the shelf is something that is familiar. It would be a strange deviation for Borderlands 4 to stray from the idea given how it has become an iconic image, and holding all four products up against one another and not seeing a pattern could be frustrating for those eagle-eyed gamers. It’s a safe bet to assume that Borderlands 4 will stay with it, as it has become something that is expected by players and feels like a smart move.
Borderlands’ Psychos are a Perfect Parallel for the Series
Though the vault hunters are always the ones tracking the coveted vaults on Pandora, their character development is always in the background. The likes of Lilith and Roland got fleshed out in later games, but when players assume the role of them, the first-person perspective can stifle how well they can evolve. Psychos have similarities to Splicers in BioShock in that they are unidentifiable people who have been corrupted by their surroundings. Having that on the front cover shows that the protagonists aren’t as important to Borderlands as the enemies they have to overcome, and the terrain they have to conquer.
Borderlands is Unconventional, But Only to a Point
Borderlands is a series that takes risks with its presentation and writing, but its loot-based gameplay has been consistent since the first game. One of the big criticisms is that it hasn’t been subject to a significant evolution since the 2009 original, and while Borderlands 4 will have to find a way to truly stand out, there is also the need to keep existing fans happy so that the core audience returns after the somewhat lukewarm general reception of Borderlands 3.
A big way to do that is to keep a sense of continuity in how the game is presented before it’s even booted up. Despite the old allegory, front covers are inherently designed to be judged, and as Borderlands is a series that is a source of comfort to many, keeping to convention with a Psycho front and center on the box is a small, but significant way to make Borderlands 4 feel like a safe bet for returning players. It’s highly unlikely that Gearbox will break this tradition in Borderlands 4, it’s more a question of how it will be implemented.
Keeping to convention with a Psycho front and center on the box is a small but significant way to make
Borderlands 4
feel like a safe bet for returning players.
Borderlands 3
- Released
- September 13, 2019
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer , Online Co-Op , Local Co-Op
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 4
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language
- How Long To Beat
- 25 Hours
- Metascore
- 91
- Platforms That Support Crossplay
- PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
- Split Screen Orientation
- Vertical or Horizontal
- Number of Players
- 1-4
- PS Plus Availability
- N/A
- Local Co-Op Support
- 1-4 Players
