The Bounty Pack will revolve around players experiencing a “neon-noir” arcade game. The Vault Hunters are tasked with solving an intriguing mystery: who murdered Zane’s Digi-Clone backup? The paid DLC’s missions are going to be repeatable, and will feature a new boss fight and two new mini-bosses. Regular enemies are also getting a boost with a new Glitched variant that can swap places mid-fight. The studio has also noted that each one of the new arcade machines is also a playable minigame, giving players an entirely new avenue to kill things for new guns.

The DLC will be accompanied by Bounty Pack 3: Vault Card 3, which brings in 24 new cosmetic items and four pieces of rerollable gear. The full contents of the new Vault Card include 4 rerollable pieces of gear, 4 Vault Hunter Heads usable by all Vault Hunters, 4 Vault Hunter Skins usable by all Vault Hunters, 5 Weapon Skins, 5 Vehicle Skins, 4 ECHO-4 Drone Skins, and 2 Echo 4 Attachments.

As for the raid, available to anyone with a copy of Borderlands 4, Gearbox has said that it represents “the ultimate endgame challenge” for players that have accomplished everything else across Kairos. The Takedown at Hadron Abyss raid will revolve around a brand-new zone – the Hadron Abyss – which is a secret, fully submerged lab facility that seems to be in the process of getting destroyed.

The main boss fight for the raid is the Child of Terramorphous, which players will be able to spot quite early as it swims past the lab. Before taking it on, however, the player will also have to fight through several enemies, including failed experiments from Research Center B-0451. The Vault Hunters will have an ally in the midst of the chaos – a now-reformed mad scientist named Dr. Audrey Thorne.

The overall challenge level of Takedown at Hadron Abyss will test players’ skills, survivability, and stamina, thanks to a scarcity of checkpoints and vending machines throughout the facility. Completing the raid, however, is quite profitable, since rewards include a Pearlescent weapon, 9 pieces of Legendary gear like shields, weapons, and grenades, and 5 new Class Mods. A sixth one will be added to the reward pool once the sixth Vault Hunter comes to Borderlands 4 with the release of Story Pack 2 in early September.

After wrapping up the raid itself, players can also take on challenge mode variants of Takedown at Hadron Abyss. Based on Mayhem levels, the more challenging variants of the raid add in new modifiers like time limits. Unlike previous time limits like what we saw with Subjugator and Thol the Invincible, here the limits are stricter, and the timer starts the moment you open the front door.

Borderlands 4 is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For details about its missing Nintendo Switch 2 version, check out what parent company Take-Two Interactive has to say.

Well, we’re getting another memorable addition to that list of great fights, as the upcoming Update 1.7 for Borderlands 4 is bringing a new Raid boss to the table. The Subjugator hovers above you, dealing damage from a distance when you begin the battle, before it retreats to let Thol the Invincible take the center stage. They’re going to take turns trying to rid themselves of you, before the demise of one empowers the other, giving it new attacks and a major boost to its powers.

You might want to be strategic about taking down either of them, choosing the right moment to ensure you keep the fight as manageable as possible. They’re endgame enemies after all, and are not to be taken lightly. Beating them comes with a bunch of rewards you’ll want to grab. The official announcement on Steam comes with a lot of other cool additions that you’re going to want to check out when the update drops.

From the looks of it, the new update could make Borderlands 4 as addictive as it’s ever been.

But what about Borderlands 4 on the Nintendo Switch 2? Well, an interview with Game File has shed light on why it isn’t happening anytime soon, after development on the port was paused earlier this year. Zelnick has elaborated on the reasons, citing optimizations on existing platforms as a priority.

“We want to make sure that we’ve fully addressed Borderlands 4 from a consumer’s point of view before we bring it to more platforms.”

Zelnick is referring to the PC version, a facet of the experience we even commented on in our review of the release build, where we called performance a mixed bag. Ironing out those kinks seems to be keeping the developers occupied at the moment, although Zelnick remains firmly optimistic that a Switch 2 port is “doable”.

Well, there’s still a lot of content and new additions from a very extensive 2026 roadmap to look forward to if you’ve not been able to get enough of the latest addition to the franchise. Let’s hope that it eventually makes it to the Switch 2 and brings a whole new bunch of players to the table as the year goes by.

After getting several replies pointing out the absurdity of the generated image, Pitchford responded by posting, “The point was to make the AI make a picture of how it saw itself to put a lens on the absurdity of the idea of AI having an identity.” A day later, Pitchford would offer more clarification through a lengthier post, where he noted that the result of his prompt “was somehow more embarrassingly hilarious than I expected and I wanted to share that.”

“ChatGPT has no information from me about anything from my work because I don’t use AI for work and our policy is no AI in any work that could ever be seen by any customer,” he continued. “I’m using my personal phone and not my work computer (which is isolated from personal systems). It got whatever it generated from whatever public knowledge of Gearbox it has access to (hence my very clear disclaimer) and the timing or content of this has exactly zero to do with whatever feelings you’ve spun yourself up about with patch notes.”

The mention of patch notes refers to a recent update for Borderlands 4, which many believe was written out by generative AI.

“I use ChatGPT essentially as a search engine,” Pitchford explained. “I recently started fooling around with the image generation as some friends were goofing around with making it try to make pictures of itself.”

Pitchford’s posts about generative AI come at a time when many companies have been discussing the use of the tool for game development. One of the biggest upcoming titles, for example, Grand Theft Auto 6, even had its studio’s parent company’s CEO talking about how generative AI has “zero part in what Rockstar Games is building.”

Bethesda Game Studios boss Todd Howard has made similar statements about the use of generative AI for the studio’s massive RPGs. In an interview, he referred to the “element of artistic intention” as being “essential”.

“For us, we’re being incredibly cautious,” said Howard. “[We’re] kind of viewing [it] as a tool, like an analyst, to look at the data in our games. We’re not using it to generate anything. I think there’s an element of artistic intention that is essential to what we do and what others do.”

On the flip side, other studios have also been exploring the use of generative AI for earlier parts of development. In an interview from March, Owlcat Games PR manager Katarina Popp confirmed that the studio has been “using it a lot for prototyping, trying things out, placeholders,” for upcoming sci-fi RPG The Expanse: Osiris Reborn.

In the meantime, Borderlands 4 is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. While there were plans for a Nintendo Switch 2 release, development on the port has since been paused.

It puts the new playable Vault Hunter C4SH front and center, and he’s quite compelling with his confident swagger and slick moves in the field. We’re especially interested in his deft use of throwing cards and melee capabilities aside from the use of some brand new weapons. They’ll be essential against some of the new nasty-looking bosses.

That takes care of the new part, but the old part of things is equally interesting, as Mad Ellie is making her comeback alongside Crazy Earl and a few other familiar faces. We’re hoping that the missions are as insane as they seem (pun intended) with the two of them on board. C4SH looks like he’s going to fit right into their dynamic, which is always good news for any story that counts on some fun banter between its main actors.

The expansion is out now for the PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, and is a great opportunity to test out those improved frame rates on your PCs. The trailer is below if you want to check it out before you dive in.

“Our primary objective is to strike the balance between making sure players can notice the frame rate improvements we’re making without disrupting their experience,” wrote the studio. Its efforts in this department have resulted in improved average frame rates by about 20 percent across systems running on a variety of hardware, ranging from minimum to recommended specifications.

In a series of bar graphs comparing frame rates across different PC setups between the launch version of Borderlands 4 and its 1.5 version from this month, the company has shown off how many improvements were made. On minimum specs with visuals upscaled to 1080p, it was capable of 53.1 FPS at launch, compared to 67.02 FPS now. Recommended PC specs upscaled to 1440p visuals could run at 64.02 FPS at launch and 75.72 FPS now. High-end hardware, like a PC with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080, could run the game at 86.87 FPS at launch, compared to the current 107.07 FPS.

For native resolutions, the minimum specs could manage 37.32 FPS at launch, while Borderlands 4 version 1.5 is now capable of running at 52.79 FPS. Recommended specs went from delivering 44.89 FPS to 56.54 FPS, and a PC running it on an RTX 4080 jumped from 54.96 FPS to 78.43 FPS.

“The roughly 20% increase in average FPS comes from combined efforts focusing on GPU, CPU, and general efficiency, with the Optimization Team identifying specific refinements to improve performance without being too noticeable in terms of visual fidelity,” wrote the company. These refinements were made to Shader PSOs (Pipeline State Objects), how GPU drivers identified randomized gun parts, and HLOD (Hierarchical Level of Detail), that manages how distant parts of the map are rendered.

There were also many tweaks to smaller aspects of Borderlands 4’s visuals to help boost frame rate, like trimming the polygon count for effects like thruster exhausts, particle effects for Action Skills, and Airship drop world events, among others. CPU strain was reduced thanks to refinements made to damage effects for the Cryo element, collision physics, and cloth simulation. Similarly, the team utilized Unreal Engine 5’s Virtual Shadow Maps technology to improve lighting effects throughout the game while reducing the GPU’s load.

“We’re proud of the work the team’s done to improve Borderlands 4‘s PC performance since launch, and we also recognize we have more to do,” wrote the studio. “We’re in it for the long haul!”

“We are doing all of this without removing the ability that players have had, and will continue to have, to self-tune their experiences to fit their playstyle preferences using the in-game graphics options and graphics card-based drivers and tools.”

Borderlands 4 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. While a Nintendo Switch 2 release was originally planned, it eventually faced a delay. A report from last month then revealed that Gearbox Entertainment had decided to pause development of the port.

The story sees the Vault Hunter working with Ellie as they venture into The Whispering Glacier in search of an “alien monolith” to find the titular Vault of the Damned. A “cosmic entity” that wants to ruin Kairos is apparently within, and the duo are keen to prevent that. Alongside the return of Mancubus, there’s Pickle and even Crazy Earl.

The Whispering Glacier holds plenty of secrets, including new areas hidden by massive flesh grows and an alternate dimension where a random World Boss awaits. Aside from the various bosses and mini-bosses (which include Scavs, Kraggons and even the DAHL Legion), players can look forward to 11 new Legendaries and three Pearlescent weapons. There are also 28 new cosmetics to unlock.

Of course, to access the content, you’ll need to have finished “A Lot to Process” in the base game, which means being level 13 or higher, or starting a new character and skipping straight to the DLC. A full reveal of C4SH’s gameplay and even a new cinematic short will be released next week, so there’s plenty to help with the wait.

Borderlands 4 is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Its Switch 2 version was originally in development, but has since been paused, allegedly proving a challenge for the team.

The post is a the latest iteration of the Xbox Excellence Awards, which was created last year to celebrate how players engaged with various releases on Xbox. The Store Rating category lists 2025 games with the best ratings on the Microsoft Store, with an added requirement of the title having at least 500 ratings. Player Engagements is about the average number of hours spent on a game by each player within the first six weeks of a game’s release. Daily Active Users celebrates titles, expansions or updates with the highest single-day active users throughout the year. And finally Units Sold is fairly self-explanatory.

Going down the lists, you’ll find many of the biggest releases of the year, from ARC Raiders and Battlefield 6, as well as award-winning RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Indie titles have also been well-represented, with games like Crime Scene Cleaner and Satisfactory making it into the lists. There also doesn’t seem to have been a singular genre to dominate the lists, since everything from sports games like EA Sports Madden NFL 26, to fantasy adventure life sims like Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, and even fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics are well represented.

Curiously, none of the games was present in all four of the categories. At most, we got to see titles like Borderlands 4 being able to make it on to three of them: Player Engagement, Daily Active Users and Units Sold. Even ARC Raiders, which has seen quite a bit of success, is only on the Units Sold and Daily Active Users lists.

Microsoft has also emphasized that the lists represent a diverse collection of games developed by studios of varying sizes. All in all, it represents 48 unique developers based out of 13 countries, with 24 publishers having had a hand in their release. 19 of the games were self-published. “Taken as a whole, it’s an encapsulation of development on Xbox – we want gaming to reach you wherever you are, and for the teams making those games to find you from wherever they are,” wrote the company.

Full list of games:

Store Rating:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• Crime Scene Cleaner
• Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dreamcore
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Final Fantasy XVI
• Lies of P: Overture
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• Little Nightmares III
• Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics
• Minami Lane
• Mullet MadJack
• Poppy Playtime Chapter 4
• Satisfactory
• Silent Hill 2
• Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Player Engagement:

• Borderlands 4
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Farm Together 2
• Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles
• Helldivers 2
• Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• NHL 26
• Rust
• Satisfactory
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Daily Active Users:

• Arc Raiders
• Avowed
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• DOOM: The Dark Ages
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fortnite
• Forza Horizon 5
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Grounded 2
• Helldivers 2
• Marvel Rivals
• Minecraft
• NBA 2K26
• Rematch
• Roblox
• Rocket League
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Units Sold:

• Arc Raiders
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• EA Sports Madden NFL 26
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Helldivers 2
• Hollow Knight: Silksong
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• PGA Tour 2K25
• Ready or Not
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• WWE 2K25

Bounty Pack 2’s release later this month will be accompanied by a major update for Borderlands 4 that brings with it a new tier of loot rarity—Pearlescent. This new tier has been described as being “superior to even Legendary gear”, and will be available to all players regardless of which DLC they may or may not own. Bounty Pack 2 players will also get their own exclusive Pearlescent-tier gear.

Story Pack 1 will introduce an entirely new region to the game, complete with new story missions and the first post-launch Vault Hunter addition—C4SH. The character was teased back in September, giving us hints about his various abilities. C4SH is themed as a gunslinger, along with slight nods towards potential necromantic abilities. The tease was accompanied with a look at C4SH’s kit, which includes a pair of revolvers and some strange-looking artefacts.

Legend of the Stone Demon is the second of five planned post-launch Bounty Pack DLCs. It can be picked up as part of the Bounty Pack Bundle, or as part of the Deluxe and Super Deluxe Editions of Borderlands 4. Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned, on the other hand, is the first of two planned Story Pack DLCs, and can be picked up individually, as part of the Vault Hunter Pack, or as part of the game’s Super Deluxe Edition.

Initially, Gearbox had also planned to bring Borderlands 4 to the Nintendo Switch 2. However, poor performance of the title on PC led to the studio pushing back the Switch 2 launch in favor of ironing out its technical issues on other platforms. While things had largely been quiet since then, earlier this week, Take-Two Interactive spokesperson Alan Lewis had confirmed that development on the port had been paused.

“Our focus continues to be delivering quality post-launch content for players on the ongoing improvements to optimize the game,” said Lewis. “We’re continuing to collaborate closely with our friends at Nintendo. We have ‘PGA Tour 2K25’ coming out and ‘WWE 2K26’ [for Switch 2], and we’re incredibly excited about bringing more of our titles to that platform in the future”

A follow-up report has indicated that development on the Switch 2 port had been “paused for a couple of months.” According to notable leaker NateTheHate, the port has “proven to be a challenge and has likely crossed over into the realm of investment/time needed to port it well being too high in comparison to sales potential.”

In the meantime, Borderlands 4 is still available on other modern platforms, and Gearbox has recently unveiled an updated roadmap for its post-launch content plans. Also check out our review for more details on the co-op looter shooter.

Although there was speculation about a February 2026 release, leaker NateTheHate revealed on ResetEra that the Switch 2 version had been “paused for a couple of months now. It’s proven to be a challenge and has likely crossed over into the realm of investment/time needed to port it well being too high in comparison to sales potential.” Take-Two previously announced that launch sales were “a little softer” than it would have liked, even though it reaffirmed Gearbox’s support for the title.

It’s rather unfortunate that Switch 2 players may not get to experience what, in our opinion, was a solid addition to a franchise that has managed to stay relevant over the years with its unique brand of satirical humor and excellent mechanics backing a riveting story. However, it does make sense to hold off on a port that may not live up to the high expectations of its players.

Time will tell if Borderlands 4 can manage to find its way to the Switch 2, but for now, it does seem like a bleak prospect. On the bright side, other platforms can look forward to plenty of free updates and paid content, including the first story expansion, Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned.