On March 26, 2026, Gearbox released the Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned DLC for Borderlands 4. While this is not the first DLC that game has recieved since launch, it is the first story expansion, and it also added a new Vault Hunter named C4SH to the game. Unfortunately, the DLC has not done much to help the current state of Borderlands 4, as many are upset by the amount of content in the expansion and the price that Gearbox is charging for it.
Borderlands 4 Mad Ellie DLC Price Angers Fans
Borderlands 4 has received three DLCs to date, with two of them being smaller bounty pack DLCs and one being a story expansion. The first bounty pack, titled How Rush Saved Mercenary Day, did nothing to boost player counts, despite Gearbox making it free for everyone. The second bounty pack saw a slight increase, but player counts quickly fell down to around 3,000 players per day.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though the first major story expansion for Borderlands 4 is fairing any better. Upon release, many immediately critisized the DLC for being riddled with bugs. Of course, most of these have been quickly patched out, and as far as we can tell, the DLC is running fine now. Despite this, player counts have not risen by a tremendous margin, with SteamDB showing a spike of 17,000 players on the day the DLC was released. This is roughly the same number of players Borderlands 4 had around November 2025, but still far less than the peak of 304,000 when the game first released back in September.
One of the biggest complaints about the DLC is the amount of content players get for the price. For context, the Mad Ellie DLC comes with the story expansion and one new playable Vault Hunter. Along with this, it raises the level cap to 60, giving players 10 more skill points to add to their skill trees. Those who are purchasing the DLC separately will be charged $30.
A post on Reddit about the DLC reads, “I was hyped to start playing after the DLC launched, preparing for a few evenings of fun new exploring. Then I suddenly had finished the main story within 2.5 hours without rushing through it. There was effectively one mission that was memorable and that’s it. After finishing the story, I was like “there’s no way that’s it” – but yeah, it is.”
The biggest complaint players seem to have is the DLC length. Many have stated they completed the DLC within three of four hours, which is far less than expected. Many have also called the expansion “mid,” and said that Gearbox “lost their creativity.” Those who have explored deeply have stated that they have received about seven or eight hours worth of content from the DLC.
Some have compared these prices to past games, with the primary example being Borderlands 2. A DLC for this game back in 2011 was $10, with an additional Vault Hunter costing $10 as well. When they split up the pricing for the content, they broke it down as $15 for the Mad Ellie expansion and $15 for the additional Vault Hunter. When you compare the price like this, it doesn’t seem as bad. Still, many are against the $30 price tag, especially since they didn’t receive what they felt was about a quarter of the game as was expected.
