Recently, content creators, journalists, and fans got access to an early build of Borderlands 4, and the reactions were quite good. Many praised the game for its more focused story, darker sense of humor, and level design. Of course, while there were many positives, one negative has remained: the lack of a mini-map. This has remained a consistent complaint since the compass system was shown off earlier this year. This is about to change, however, as Borderlands 4 CEO Randy Pitchford has confirmed the addition of a combat radar system.
Randy Pitchford confirms combat radar in Borderlands 4
In a massive 32-post long thread on X, Randy Pitchford explained why the team stuck with the compass system, saying, “The CPU and memory cost of a mini-map is quite huge. For a game like this, it just isn’t worth the trade-off. High perf and memory for other visual feedback elements and player data is much more important, especially given the evolution of the game design for Borderlands 4.”
Pitchford also stated that the mini-map became a problem for navigation thanks to the game’s verticality. During the recent press tour, however, many content creators such as Ki11er Six, stated that the compass became far too jumbled, especially during combat. The content creator said that he was shooting NPCs because he couldn’t differentiate between everything on the compass. His solution: a combat radar to easily tell where enemies are located.
The fans have gotten their wish because Randy Pitchford stated, “These guys splintered off and made something amazing happen. They added a combat radar feature to the game! And they just barely squeezed it in for a QA pass so that it can go into the main branch of our software in time to ship with Borderlands 4 on September 12.”
Pitchford also shared a small video showcasing the combat radar, allowing players to see enemies around them more easily. In one of the last posts of the thread, Pitchford stated, “The feature will be *off* by default at launch. And, it didn’t come online early enough to make it into our branch for the build we’re bringing to the Borderlands Fan Fest this weekend. But it is now officially in the game!”
So, players will need to turn the feature on if they want the combat radar, but this shows that Gearbox is dedicated to making this Borderlands game the best in the series.
