The latest Borderlands 4 update delivers significant enhancements across gameplay, progression, gear, and visuals, making the experience more engaging for players. The patch introduces Photo Mode, a rework of Harlowe’s Zero-Point skill, and an increase in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode levels that now raise dedicated loot drop levels. These changes come alongside new weekly activities and various quality-of-life improvements.
Players will also notice adjustments to contracts, challenges, and weapon behaviors that increase balance and consistency. The update addresses critical bugs affecting progression, multiplayer stability, and loot drops, ensuring smoother gameplay. Along with these fixes, several character specializations and action skills received targeted reworks to improve build diversity and performance in combat.
Key Takeways
- The update adds new content including Photo Mode and loot scaling in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode.
- Numerous gameplay and progression improvements address balance and bug fixes.
- Weapon and skill adjustments enhance character builds and combat effectiveness.
Main Changes in the Borderlands 4 Update
This update brings significant content and quality-of-life improvements. Players can expect new gameplay features, updated weekly activities, refined progression systems, and changes that directly affect Vault Hunters’ skills and rewards.
Highlights of the Latest Patch
The patch introduces Photo Mode, allowing players to capture detailed in-game moments with customizable camera angles, filters, and time-of-day settings. This mode is accessible via the Pause Menu and pauses gameplay in single-player for optimal screenshot capture. It is unavailable during cutscenes and splitscreen play.
There is a fundamental rework of Harlowe’s Zero-Point Action Skill, integrating the previous “Inertia” augment into the base skill and adjusting augment effects for synergy and balance. Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (UVHM) now increases dedicated loot drop levels, improving the quality of rewards as players level up in UVHM.
Additionally, tactical improvements were made across multiple weapons, enhancements, and character skills. Several bugs related to missions, boss mechanics, and multiplayer transitions have been fixed, providing a smoother experience.
Weekly Activities and Rotating Content
Weekly content updates include a rotated Big Encore Boss; currently, it features a tougher variant of Leader Willem, offering more rewarding loot. The Weekly Wildcard Mission changed to “All Charged Up,” featuring guaranteed Legendary drops with repeat farming potential, specifically rewarding the Borstel Ballista Jakobs Sniper Rifle.
Maurice’s Black Market Vending Machine has relocated and updated its stock. Its unique, player-specific inventory encourages players to share information on item locations. This dynamic keeps trading and gear hunting fresh within the community.
These weekly rotations ensure a variety of challenges and rewards, maintaining player engagement and offering consistent loot farming opportunities.
Progression and Rewards Adjustments
Several contract missions have been tweaked for better reliability, such as consistent enemy kills in the Patrol: Order Troops contract and improved interactions with quest objects. Vault Card Challenges were refined—weekly challenges like “Loot or Purchase 10/15 Legendaries” no longer reset inadvertently on save/load, ensuring fair progression.
The update resolved issues preventing DLC content access offline and fixed campaign and multiplayer reward inconsistencies. True Mode activation for new level 30 UVHM characters is now more stable, complete with a tutorial after campaign completion.
Overall, these adjustments improve challenge tracking, mission progression, and ensure rewards are delivered as intended, enhancing endgame stability.
Patch Impact on Vault Hunters
For Vault Hunters, action skills and specializations received balancing changes. Harlowe’s skill tree changes aim to increase build diversity, with adjustments to cooldown rates and damage bonuses in multiple skill lines.
Specific class features like Daredevil’s cooldown and damage mechanics were altered to be multiplicative rather than additive, refining performance calculations. Bug fixes addressed critical hit damage inconsistencies and various action skill interactions, including the synergy between Technomancer mods and the Siren Incarnate skill.
Furthermore, improvements to loot drops and respawn stations, such as converting a station near Umbral Foundry to a fast travel point, facilitate smoother gameplay flow. These updates help Vault Hunters maximize their efficiency in both solo and multiplayer sessions.
Detailed Patch Adjustments: Gameplay, Gear, and Performance
This update introduces significant refinements to gear balance, Vault Hunter skills, and overall game stability. Loot drop levels now scale with Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode progress, while numerous class and weapon adjustments improve combat dynamics. Performance and visual upgrades further enhance the player experience.
Gear Balance and Legendary Drops
Loot mechanics have been adjusted so that Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (UVHM) levels now increase dedicated loot drop levels, raising the chances of finding high-quality gear. The Borstel Ballista Jakobs Sniper Rifle is the featured guaranteed Legendary drop in the Weekly Wildcard Mission “All Charged Up.”
Weapon-specific fixes target manufacturer’s traits and functionality. For example, Tediore’s Legendary Auto-rifle Chuck has improved throw mechanics at high reload speeds, and homing glitches on the third gun have been corrected. Maliwan weapons now prevent energy shield consumption on Legendary SMG Ohm I Got when the overshield is active, and status effects spread properly only when intended.
Selected enhancements like the Underdog now correctly apply solely to Vladof underbarrel weapons, and Torgue pistols with specific licensed parts fire as intended. The update also addressed projectile behavior on weapons like the Order Sniper Rifle Rooker Needle and reinforced proper shield augmentation for Ripper Shield Whats 4 Dinner in multiplayer.
Vault Hunter Balance and Fixes
Several Vault Hunter abilities and skill trees are rebalanced for improved viability. Harlowe the Gravitar’s Zero-Point skill now incorporates the previous Inertia augment by default, modifying stasis resets and duration decay. The Inertia augment itself now boosts slam damage and creates mini projectiles that inflict Cryo or Radiation damage, stacking status effects.
Class balance adjustments include Daredevil’s action skill cooldown rate tuning with a multiplicative damage bonus and Runner’s melee bonus converting from additive to multiplicative. Vex the Siren received fixes preventing cooldown resets on Prismatic Ichors and refined passive skills to avoid unintended magazine resets.
Certain bugs affecting progression and reward delivery have been resolved. Notably, DLC content unlocks function correctly offline, True Mode tutorials trigger post-campaign, and all multiplayer character rewards are delivered properly after creation.
Stability, Performance, and Visual Improvements
The update brings targeted stability improvements addressing animation, audio, and collision issues to reduce crashes and gameplay interruptions. Subtitle timing has been refined to align more accurately with dialogue triggers, enhancing narrative clarity.
Visual performance benefits from shader cache optimizations on Nvidia GPUs with version 590.xx or newer, eliminating the need to clear caches on new game launches. Players also gain access to Photo Mode, allowing adjustable camera angles, depth of field, and visual filters to capture high-quality screenshots, though this mode pauses action in single-player and is unavailable during cutscenes or splitscreen play.
Respawn stations have been converted to Fast Travel points in key locations, improving traversal efficiency. Several world event bosses and environmental effects were adjusted for consistent spawn rates and damage responses, preventing exploits and ensuring smoother encounters.
