There is no denying that Borderlands 3’s story fell short by a mile and that the DLCs were the saving grace when it came to storytelling. The game was such a disappointment that many are questioning whether Borderlands 4 will even be worth getting. After all, players don’t want to be subjected to more terrible villains and cringy side quests. Instead, they want a villain the caliber of Handsome Jack. So how do we make this happen? How do we make the Borderlands 4 story great when the game before it fell short in that regard? Well, one user on Reddit claims to have the answer.
User RoyalSoldierx broke down exactly how to make the Borderlands 4 story great. Let’s break down the list and see what they have to say about the upcoming game’s story. First on the list, they have to “include vault hunters in the cutscenes.” While this isn’t story-related to the greatest degree, it would be nice to see the main characters be included in the game’s cutscenes even if it is to simply react to what is happening.
Next on the list, the user said “crediting everyone for killing the villain.” After that, we have “meaningful deaths.” This is a point that many have made and something we think about a lot in Borderlands 3. Maya’s death came as a shock because we didn’t think Maya would be killed off. Ultimately, her death meant nothing, however, because Ava ended up getting Maya’s powers and all was made right. Compare this to the death of Roland in Borderlands 2 and you can see where it fell short. Roland was beloved and killing him sent shockwaves through the Crimson Raiders and created wounds that characters still feel. Sure, they could have replaced Roland but not replacing him is what made his death memorable.
Fourth on the list is a “well-written villain.” There is no doubt that Borderlands 4 needs this. Tyreen and Troy just didn’t make good villains in Borderlands 3 and they were one of the main contributors to the story’s failure. The team relied too much on making the villains modern and match trends that the team forgot to add depth and character to them. Troy and Tyreen became standard internet trolls with little personality beyond it. the next game needs a character that is menacing while also fun to deal with.
Finally, we have “no dragged-out areas.” This was big in Borderlands 3 as many were stuck in locations such as Pandora for a long time before they could finally do something else. Long stretches of the story in Borderlands 3 made it boring at times. For Borderlands 4 to succeed, it needs to rely on a mechanic from the Pre-Sequel and allow players to take quests and hear the dialogue via their Echo Device instead of being trapped next to the character giving you the quest as they talk for five minutes.
We aren’t sure yet what will be going on in Borderlands 4 but we do know that there will be four new vault hunters to play as. Many have been guessing which vault hunters will be in the game as well.
