Rory Norris, Guides Writer
Last week I was: planning builds for every single skill tree in Borderlands 4, hoping it would help me pick a character, but actually leaving me more conflicted. After much deliberation, I think I’ve settled on Harlowe. No, wait, Rafa?
This week I’ve been: growing ever ravenous as I count down the days until Borderlands 4 launches.
One of the most surprising announcements in Borderlands 4’s recent endgame preview is that we can now skip the campaign on subsequent characters, immediately jumping up to level 30. Honestly, it feels like a long time coming, especially after all the cries for such a feature reached a peak in Borderlands 3. However, I’m as cautious as I am excited for such a change.
Don’t get me wrong, I love that we have the option to skip the campaign. Having replayed Borderlands 3 at least once for every character, I can say from experience that it was a slog. If I had the option back then, I probably would have skipped that game’s campaign. But, I haven’t always felt this way—I’ve beaten Borderlands 2 and its DLCs from start to finish a good fifteen times over the years.
Borderlands has always been about the builds for me. Levelling a character from level 0 all the way up to level 50 is one of the main draws, and this has always included replaying the campaign (not that we previously had a choice).
This series tradition has given each entry a much longer lifespan than it otherwise would, as you learn the ins and outs of each Vault Hunter. I’ve learned Borderlands 2 like the back of my hand, and have mastered the art of annoying people by randomly quoting it.
I don’t just want to see what a Vault Hunter plays like at endgame; I want to see how they fare as they gain power, but I also don’t want to be tortured by boring quest steps.
The criticisms levied at Borderlands 3’s campaign are fair; its characters are all rather annoying, it drags on towards the end, and there are way too many quest steps to return to Lilith, making you stand around for minutes on end. These issues are only felt more on repeat playthroughs as your exposure reaches critical levels. On the plus side, the endgame is worth it, and where the ‘real game’ exists for many.
Frustratingly, I fear that the failure of Borderlands 3’s campaign has resulted in Gearbox implementing a campaign skip in Borderlands 4 as a band-aid fix for poor replayability. Rather than ironing out many of the kinks people like myself had with that game’s structure in the sequel, it could be very much intentional that we never replay the campaign, and that starting from level 30 is effectively the new norm.
I don’t just want to see what a Vault Hunter plays like at endgame; I want to see how they fare as they gain power, but I also don’t want to be tortured by boring quest steps. With a rather skint endgame at launch, it’s a risky move, to say the least.
Likewise, the open-world structure of Borderlands 4 will either resolve many of these woes or amplify them tenfold, depending on how many checklist tasks you’ll have to repeat on every run.
Watch On
I hope I’m wrong, and that we can have both a great first run and solid repeat runs without using the campaign skip as a convenient excuse. It’s a real shame, as Borderlands 4’s Vault Hunters all look incredible, and I’ll certainly be playing all of them eventually. Plus, each character also has unique dialogue (even if small and ultimately insignificant), which you’ll miss entirely if you skip the campaign on subsequent runs.
Ultimately, if the campaign is enjoyable and replayable, then that’s what I’ll do, inevitably learning every line and secret via pure osmosis. If it’s not, then I’ll eventually skip it on later runs and be forever seething that I’m missing out.
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