Like any good loot-based RPG, Borderlands 4 won’t be over after it drops in a few weeks. Gearbox has a big plan to release a mix of free and paid DLC over the next year to keep the game’s extensive endgame fresh.
The first concrete details about the endgame and the next year of updates was revealed during a panel at PAX West today.
Unlike previous Borderlands, the new game’s ultimate vault hunter mode make you retread the campaign once you’ve completed it once. Instead, you get to skip all that and focus on completing increasingly difficult mission challenges to rank up. You can even start new characters at level 30 just to do the endgame mode.
A rotating selection of “weekly wildcard” missions will reward legendary loot and there will be a weekly boss to kill for better rewards. Basically, Borderlands 4 will send you around the world doing daily and weekly tasks to gear yourself up like you would in an MMO—and you can group up with friends or strangers during it all too.
The first limited-time “seasonal mini event”, called Horrors of Kairos, will be the first major free update. It will bring “tweaked gameplay” with some “spooky vibes,” the developers said. Alongside the event will be new legendary weapons, cosmetics, and a new weather variant.
After the free drop will be the first of four paid bounty pack DLCs, which includes new missions, a new boss, new legendary gear, new cosmetics, and a new vehicle.
Gearbox must be confident that most players will be through the campaign and well into the endgame by that point because it’s releasing the first “invincible boss” next. These high-level fights are like raid bosses and reward some of the best loot in the game. This update will also be where you can climb up another level in the endgame vault hunter mode.
A second bounty pack with the similar bundle of stuff is due out in early 2026, and then Borderlands 4’s first paid story pack will be released. This one’s called Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned and will give the world a cosmic horror spin with a new region of Kairos to explore. There you’ll find new main story missions and new side missions to complete. A new vault hunter will also debut here, but Gearbox wants to keep that a secret for now.
The next year is going to be packed with updates for endgame players according to the roadmap. And it’s nice knowing that even if you aren’t a build min-maxer, you’ll still have plenty of new storylines to play through as the months go on.
Borderlands 4 will be released on September 12.