Gearbox has been revealing more and more details about Borderlands 4 in its recent marketing push. In a recent post, the studio showed off one of the in-game bosses that players can take on – Inceptus – noting that “nothing goes harder than Inceptus” because fans of the series asked for harder bosses.
Responding to this post, however, studio boss Randy Pitchford has indicated that Inceptus, while being “pretty hard,” still falls underneath some of the other bosses in the game in terms of difficulty. This would mean that there are likely quite a few end-game fights that players can take on that will offer suitable challenges to players that have already been decked out in the best gear.
“Actually… I can think of some bosses that go harder,” wrote Pitchford on social media platform X. “Inceptus is pretty hard, though.”
While plenty of Borderlands fans have responded to Gearbox’s and Pitchford’s posts with excitement, others are worried that Borderlands 4 might end up being too hard if the studio focuses too much on having difficult bosses. One poster wrote about how having bosses that are tough might be fun to fight the first time, but would be annoying to have to fight repeatedly when trying to farm for loot.
“I hope you guys didn’t dark souled the game i don’t like or need too hard bosses it’ll become too tiresome farming and wasting too much time on one boss that doesn’t guarantee legendary drop items,” wrote one user on X.
Creative director Graeme Timmins has also taken to the social media platform to reveal that Borderlands 4 will indeed be a bit harder than the previous games in the series. While he noted that on the difficulty spectrum, Borderlands 4 still falls closer to the “casual” side of things than the “hardcore” end, he still mentioned that it would be “more intense” than the previous Borderlands titles.
“The demo fast forwarded players, and as a result made the opening section a little more difficult than what you’ll likely experience at launch,” wrote Timmins in response to a question about the game’s difficulty. “BL4 is a little more intense than previous games, but still more casual than hardcore. You can lower diff if you need too if you like!”
Pitchford, along with Gearbox’s chief creative officer Randy Varnell, had revealed earlier this week that Borderlands 4 will feature massive skill trees that players can use to experiment with their character builds. They noted that the upcoming looter shooter will have more skills per character than in Borderlands 3 and 2 combined.
“You’ll find more skills per character than in Borderlands 3 and 2 added together,” said Pitchford, going on to joke that, “We’re working late on Fridays for you.” Pitchford’s line was a follow-up to Varnell’s explanation that the skill tree offers enough variety to allow four players playing the same character to still end up with differing play styles.
Borderlands 4 is in development for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2. The game is slated for a September 12 launch, and will be priced at $69.99.
