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We caught up with lead level designer Jason Reiss and senior project producer Anthony Nicholson to learn more about the upcoming looter-shooter, and how Gearbox is going above and beyond with this instalment.
"Hello everyone and welcome back to Gamereactor.
Today, well you can tell where we are by the lovely background we've got here.
I'm here in the Gearbox section talking with a couple of the guys about Borderlands 4."
"So I've got Jason and Anthony here and well I had a chance to play a bit of the game earlier and it surprised me how sort of fresh it felt.
It's still got that Borderlands feel to it but it feels a little bit different, a little bit more modern, a little bit more fluid."
"So was that sort of the idea going into it?
Absolutely. I think a lot of that comes down to the new movement capabilities, the kinetic energy that you feel when you're like chaining all of the grapples to the jumps to all that kind of stuff and really like repositioning yourself over and over on the battlefield and the chaotic nature but we're embracing it with these new movement abilities."
"It feels like it's a conglomeration of all the Borderlands that's come before it.
You know, all these ideas that you've combined and merged together and really made it like a balanced product in the end.
Again, is that the idea to like take the years of experience and then bring it all together and create the ultimate Borderlands chapter here?
Absolutely. Every time that I talk with the team it's always about how do we get better?
We get better every day. What do we do to improve on it?
That same thing spans for the entire franchise."
"How do we do something in Borderlands 3? People really love this thing.
How do we make it better?
Maybe we didn't hit where we wanted to or fell a little bit short.
How do we improve that and make that better?
But I think that all of those things combined really give us the best shot of making the best Borderlands ever, which we feel like we have."
"So tell me a little bit about these new villains you've got then.
Timekeeper, these guys, they're a little bit different to what we've seen in the past for Borderlands because they're a bit more mature, a little bit more, I'd say a little bit more dangerous, a little bit more scary. Is that the idea?
Yeah, they're a little more serious, they're grounded."
"We like to say that we have serious stakes in this story and I think that goes down to our enemies as well.
They are ruthless and they are out there to get you and it feels great.
They're meaty, they're chunky, they have this whole feel to them that feels like they're there to implement their way of life, what they believe it should be, and you're there to mix it up with all the chaos and everything else you can bring to the table."
"And how does that match up to the series staples that we get in the Borderlands games?
Because obviously you're so used to Pandora and psychos and skags and all that, and now we're in a different place.
So will that match up or can we expect some series favourite enemies and whatnot to be roaming around?
I mean, it's still Borderlands and so you still have the Borderlands vibe, the energy that we bring to it, you're still fighting some psychos with masks on, you're still seeing the way that we build our world is still from the same people that have been making these games for so long."
"So it still feels like it, but we're just taking it in a new direction and it's a whole lot of fun and just a little bit different.
So the weapons, and this is something that really surprised me, the licensed parts, it really frees you up, right?
It allows you to do some creative things."
"Perhaps there's some weapon manufacturers in the past that people look at and go, love the weapons, maybe not so much the gimmick or something, and now it's like, anything can go, right?
Was that the game plan going into it?
Yeah, so we wanted to take a lot of the things that worked really well, that people thought were really, really cool, and our gun team has done an amazing job on the design side, the art side, animation, everything has been really, really well done."
"And so we wanted to see, what are those pieces that people love?
Like the Hyperion part of Hyperion, people love the shield whenever it's up.
So we take that licensed part, we don't have the full manufacturer, but we take that part and now you can have it on your Maliwan gun with Jacob's Crit and TD or Reload or whatever crazy thing that it may be."
"So it really is about making sure that the player feels like they're awesome every time they pick up a gun and that they can continue to shoot and loot and keep that going on all through the entire campaign.
There are some weapon manufacturers, I believe, that you are skipping in this time, that you have a core group that are returning that people will be familiar with, a couple of new ones added to that, but there are some that are stepping aside for Borderlands 4."
"How do you choose the ones that you want to feature in a game?
Oh, it's impossible. It's a give and take. We love them all.
And so we kind of find our different niches, the different play styles, and we make sure we cater to those."
"But it's actually extremely hard to pick.
And so it's great with the licensed part, because we still can bring some of those feelings to there.
Hyperion is still there, Atlas, you bring that licensed part here and you can still have their behavior, but you get to combine it with all these other ones, which I love because it makes our loot chase that much more relevant."
"It makes purples or epics that much more enticing and that much more exciting when those drop.
And so there's even more reward out there for the player to get.
One of the other core things that you guys are doing this time around is obviously the big Vault missions."
"It's a way to, I guess, provide more big endgame boss fights without necessarily having to be the end of a story, the end of a DLC.
What are the sort of surprises you have in store?
Because obviously we had a chance to play one today, but what are the sort of surprises you have in store with it?
If it's a surprise, I can't tell you."
"The game comes out September 12th.
That's just a couple of weeks away, right?
So we're really excited for people to be able to jump in and play it.
But you mentioned the Vault Guardians and being able to search them out."
"We're called Vault Hunters and we're actually allowing the player to be able to have that agency to go and seek these out if they want to.
And then they'll be rewarded with loot and a really, really awesome boss fight in the end."
"And will you be continuously building on that endgame experience, providing ways for players to, once they've got through the story once, come back and continue expanding and growing their character?
Yeah, always."
"We have a really cool endgame plan that we'll be talking about very soon.
But even after that point, Graham Timmons, who's the creative director, was the creative director of Live for Borderlands 3.
I'm obviously the producer of this game and I was the head of DLC for Borderlands 3."
"So he and I have seen how the community has grown and what they really like and what they enjoy and the things that we can do really, really well.
And so we want to continue to have that tell and continue to expand on those things."
"Whenever it comes to endgame and any of that live type of stuff, whenever we're reacting to the player.
So the seamless world, very different to what we've known from Borderlands in the past.
How do you expect this to significantly change how people play the game?
Well, so much of it is more player agency focused."
"There's a lot more non-linear options.
You can go all over the world, crisscross all over to the different regions and everything.
A lot less loading, for sure.
A lot less loading, very seamless."
"It's all about getting the player into the action that they want.
But one of our touchstones is exploration and I think we can actually fulfill that with the seamless world in a really big way."
"And so I think we're hitting even more targeted audiences on being able to open up the world for them.
Let them do what they want, do their Borderlands thing and find weapons galore all over the place in any different sort of way."
"I think it's incredible.
So as you mentioned a moment ago, the launch is nearly here.
PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, September 12th.
With Switch 2 coming a little later in early October."
"With that launch almost here, what's sort of one thing in Borderlands 4 that you're both really excited for fans to experience for themselves?
Throwing knives."
"They are insane and they feel so good when you throw that knife and you get that crit. It's amazing.
Our skill trees are so deep this time around.
There's so many different things that you can see."
"I can't wait to see how multiple Harlows look because yours will be very different from mine, from his.
It's really cool just because of the different ways that you can augment and the different capstones that you swap out on top of the abilities that you already have and being able to rotate each of those individual skills."
"So I'm really looking forward to player builds to be able to see how they're able to dig into our skill trees this time around.
Well, I personally can't wait to play the game in full and I also can't wait to try and break it because that's what makes the best part of a Borderlands game."
"But yeah, for more on the game, be sure to stay tuned to your local Gamer Hector region because obviously it's nearly here.
Thanks guys and we'll see you on the next one."
