Evil Dead: The Game is no longer available to buy after its publisher began pulling it from digital storefronts.
The asymmetric multiplayer game based on the much-loved action horror franchise launched in 2022 across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. IGN’s Evil Dead: The Game review returned an 8/10. We said: “Evil Dead: The Game is an asymmetric multiplayer game of cat and mouse that’s compelling and exhilarating, despite being rough around the edges – much like the horror/comedies that inspired it.”
Now, three years after launch, Evil Dead: The Game is gone for good, but its servers will remain online for existing owners to continue playing.
In a statement published to the game’s Steam page, developer and publisher Saber Interactive confirmed the change:
We can confirm we’ve begun the process of removing the game from digital storefronts. Anyone who has purchased the game will still be able to play it as we plan to keep our servers online for everyone.
We want to extend a sincere thank you to our community, to those who have been part of the game from the very beginning, and those who have recently joined us. We appreciate all of your support.
There are a number of negative reviews left on Evil Dead: The Game’s Steam page lamenting the decision to pull it from sale, with most saying it’s effectively dead now. It retains a ‘mixed’ Steam user review rating overall.
“The end is nigh,” reads one recent positive review from a player with over 380 hours in-game. “It was fun while it lasted, lads. I mean that.”
Saber Interactive, which developed last year’s breakout hit Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, has a number of licensed movie games in the works, including John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando, Jurassic Park Survival, and an untitled Avatar: The Last Airbender game. Turok: Origins and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3 are also in development.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Pokémon TCG’s next big release, Destined Rivals, is out this month, and preorders are finally back in stock at Walmart. Stock has been going in and out of stock all morning, so YMMV.
You’ll need to log in and join the queue for each set available: ETBs, Booster Bundles, and 3-Pack Blisters. Prices will be automatically adjusted at checkout.
Destined Rivals US Preorders
Destined Rivals Brings Back Classic Villains and Stunning New Cards
Team Rocket returns to stir up trouble once again, Trainers’ signature Pokémon are back in the spotlight, and the card art? Some of the slickest in years. Whether you’re chasing eye-catching collectibles or just addicted to the thrill of cracking a fresh pack, Destined Rivals is engineered to tempt you.
Between May 17–25, pre-release events will pop up at select stores, offering early access via Build & Battle boxes and small-scale tournaments. Want in? Talk to your local league store yesterday. And maybe bring snacks—you’re negotiating with gatekeepers now.
What’s in the Destined Rivals Lineup?
We all tell ourselves we’ll buy just one item. That’s adorable. Here’s everything that’ll test your willpower on launch day:
Booster Packs
Booster Boxes (36 packs)
Elite Trainer Box
Pokémon Center Exclusive Elite Trainer Box
Booster Bundle (6 packs)
Triple-Pack Blisters
Build & Battle Box
Build & Battle Stadium
Expect premium collection boxes too—likely with alternate art promos starring fan-favorites like Misty, Cynthia, Ethan, or Marnie. You technically don’t need them. You’ll get them anyway.
Trainer Cards: Team Rocket’s Giovanni, Archer, Ariana, Receiver
Special Energy: Team Rocket Energy
Steven’s Starter Deck
Steven’s Metagross ex
Steven’s Skarmory, Beldum, Metang
Steven’s Carbink
Steven’s Claydol, Baltoy
Trainer Card: Granite Cave
Marnie’s Starter Deck
Marnie’s Grimmsnarl ex
Marnie’s Impidimp, Morgrem, Liepard, Scrafty
Marnie’s Purrloin, Scraggy
Trainer Cards: Energy Recycler (reprint), Spikemuth Gym
Destined Origins Cards I’ve Got My Eye On
There’s a good chance I’ll end up with multiple binders full of these, but a few cards have already secured a permanent place in my mental wishlist.
Cynthia’s Garchomp ex is a power move in every sense. Big damage, hand draw, and the smug energy of someone who always gets her turn one setup. This is peak Champion energy and I want three.
Ethan’s Ho-Oh ex is what happens when utility and sparkle collide. The ability accelerates Fire Energy like it’s no big deal, and Shining Feather heals your whole team while smacking for 160. It’s absurd, and I’m obsessed.
Team Rocket’s Mewtwo ex is pure drama. It refuses to attack unless you’ve built an entire Rocket-themed deck around it, but when it does, it throws energy around like a caffeinated Gengar. It’s also incredibly extra, which I respect.
Misty’s Psyduck is here to make you laugh and then probably lose a game in the most lovable way possible. It has an ability that lets you discard it to the top of your deck, for… reasons. I don’t care. It’s perfect.
Marnie’s Grimmsnarl ex brings the villain vibes with an aggressive Dark-type build that thrives on energy acceleration and being just annoying enough to work. It’s a disruption deck’s dream, and I plan to run it like it’s 2020 all over again.
Pokémon TCG Single Card Deals
That’s right, I’m hunting down single card deals now too. Hype it as an all time high right now, so that means prices are at their peak. That also means they’re ready to bottom out at any moment, as ridiculous pricing turns buyers away eventually.
The Pokémon TCG bubble is set to burst this year, either by scalpers getting too greedy or by massive reprints. Some prices are already dropping, with Journey Together slowly calming down:
Surging Sparks Single Cards
Journey Together Single Cards
Shrouded Fable Single Cards
Temporal Forces Single Cards
Stellar Crown Single Cards
Scarlet and Violet Base Single Cards
Twilight Masquerade Single Cards
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of “Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior”. Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.
Codemasters has confirmed that no further expansions will be released for 2023’s EA Sports WRC, and that the team has “reached the end of the road” working on the game. Unfortunately, alongside this news comes the additional confirmation that Codemasters is also “pausing development plans on future rally titles.”
“Our WRC partnership was a culmination of sorts for our Codemasters journey with off-road racing, spanning decades through titles like Colin McRae Rally, and Dirt,” reads the studio’s statement. “We’ve provided a home for every rally enthusiast, striving tirelessly to push the boundaries and deliver the exhilarating thrill of driving on the ragged edge. We’ve brought together incredibly talented racing developers, worked with some of the sport’s icons, and had the opportunity to share our love of rallying.”
The World Rally Championship itself has acknowledged the news on social media, with a largely vague comment noting the “WRC gaming franchise is going in an ambitious new direction with more news coming in the near future.”
Codemasters has been at the spearhead of rallying video games for almost three decades, dating back to 1998’s iconic Colin McRae Rally. The pioneering rally simulation kicked off a series of successful and highly esteemed racing games. Following the death of Colin McRae in 2007, the series retired McRae’s name and continued its evolution as Dirt. 2009’s Dirt 2 (known as Colin McRae: Dirt 2 in Europe and other PAL game territories) marked a transitional point for the series, which was reinvented again as a hardcore simulation in 2015’s Dirt Rally.
2023’s EA Sports WRC was the first Codemasters rally game to hold an official WRC license since 2002’s Colin McRae Rally 3. IGN’s review notes EA Sports WRC took the class-leading feel of 2019’s Dirt Rally 2.0 and stuffed it into an officially licensed World Rally Championship experience, like a steel rod in Timo Rautiainen’s backside, but its technical gremlins left it feeling like a “great racing game trying to fight its way out of an unfinished one.” Subsequent updates sought to improve its screen tearing issues.
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.
Since announcing the Switch 2, Nintendo has been updating its services, storefronts and even merch to reflect this new generation. Now, in the latest update, Switch to eShop cards are reportedly getting a “visual refresh”.
Some of these new eShop cards have apparently already been shared on social media and it seems Nintendo will be releasing different-priced eShop cards with some updated character art. Noticeably, this also includes Donkey Kong’s new look. Here’s a sneak peek courtesy of ‘Portal Super Mario’:
Nintendo’s Switch Online game trials aren’t always the biggest reveals, but in Japan this month, Nintendo will be doing something a little bit different. Between 2nd May until 25th May, there’ll be four surprise trials released.
The first one has been revealed as Toby Fox’s Undertale game, with his next lot of chapters for Deltarune recently confirmed to be arriving this June. This first trial for May will run until the 4th and will be followed by the next three games – scheduled for the following dates:
Editor’s note: La Quimera was originally set to fully release on April 25, but it was unexpectedly delayed that same day. A developer update on April 29 didn’t provide a new release date, but did say La Quimera would now be launching in Early Access whenever it did arrive. This announcement came well after our review of what we were initially told would be the full game was largely complete – however, the update post indicates that the content at its new launch will be the same as what we played, so we have decided to publish this as a review of the Early Access version.
I have to admit, I’m a sucker for direct-to-video sequels. There’s something about being five Tremors movies deep where all pretense is abandoned, and we all know what we are there for: To watch some ridiculous action and give our brains a break for a bit. La Quimera reminds me a lot of popcorn flicks like that. This FPS is not particularly good-looking, well-written, or innovative. The action doesn’t do anything memorable, and its acting ranges from mediocre to terrible. There is admittedly a certain charm to be found here, especially if you bring a friend or two along to share this rocky ride in co-op. But by nearly every metric, La Quimera is about as good a game as Tremors 5: Bloodlines is a movie. Which is to say it’s not.
Set in the fictional South American city of Nuevo Caracas, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Outside the city walls, some sort of robot apocalypse that’s never really explained is taking place. Inside, there are warring corporations and extreme poverty. That setup isn’t a socio-political commentary so much as a throwback to 80s sci-fi, complete with Power Loader-esque rigs that would look right at home on Ellen Ripley in Aliens. As a new PMC recruit, you and your squad get stuck in the middle of some nonspecific and uninteresting power struggle between corporations, leaving an equal mix of broken bodies and bots in your wake.
There is some legitimately cool environmental storytelling here. My favorite by far is the Bone Wall, a literal wall filled with what must be thousands of skeletons, that you get to see when one mission takes you deep through it. A voice in your ear describes the desperation that went into building the wall as all hell was breaking loose, and it’s neat to piece together how there was no time to slow down and help anyone who fell, whether that was due to exhaustion, injury, or dying from whatever encroaching threat drove the frantic construction.
In fact, La Quimera would have been better off if it let the environments do all the talking, because once its characters open their mouths, it is rough. The dialogue is awful, with obscenity-laced tirades that sound like someone watched a Quentin Tarantino movie once, and tried to mimic it without knowing how to make any of the lines land. The acting also ranges from a normal kind of bad to so awkward I can’t tell if it’s being purposefully campy or potentially using some sort of poorly implemented AI. Characters are very chatty too, and I found myself actively cringing on several occasions as allies shout out things like, “Oh perfect, robot dogs!”.
The dialogue is awful, and I found myself actively cringing on several occasions.
The story itself doesn’t make much sense, either. Apparently, saving a billionaire’s daughter gets your PMC conscripted because… you are afraid he will sue? Which, naturally, means the people in the PMC all have to get experimental and highly dangerous augmentations, too. I wouldn’t mind the nonsense, it’s fine enough as a vehicle to make me want to go shoot robots – but the story is so clearly unfinished, ending abruptly after just a few hours without resolving anything. Developer Reburn unexpectedly decided to delay La Quimera on the day it was supposed to launch, and then later announced its eventual release would have the Early Access label on it. Given development is largely based out of Kyiv in Ukraine, the fact that it’s still coming out at all feels like something of an achievement worth applauding. But while this campaign is planned to grow over time, the version that’s here now doesn’t have any semblance of a complete story.
Identity Crysis
La Quimera isn’t exactly shy about the influence Crysis has had on it. Early on, you and your crew gain access to exosuits, complete with energy-powered armor, cloaking, and scanning. That last bit is especially important – one quick ping allows you and your teammates to see any nearby enemies, even behind cover. That’s huge when your weapons operate like a poor man’s version of the FarSight from Perfect Dark, able to lethally penetrate shockingly thick obstacles. It’s extremely satisfying to drop a bunch of orange silhouettes in rapid succession from sight unseen.
That said, where Crysis tended to be more of an inverted funnel that pushed you toward open areas, La Quimera is decidedly about straight lines. Its levels are very linear, and your objective is almost always to clear enemies as you walk from point A to point B. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as a bit of a throwback like this can be a welcome palate cleanser in a time when wide-open gameplay is increasingly the norm, but it does all start to become a bland blur. That’s because so many areas repeat the same cycle of kill the enemies, open the heavy door, kill the next enemies, open the next heavy door, and so on. There are a handful of encounters that break that trend, most notably an extended gunfight on a slowly rising elevator in a corporate office building, but they are few and far between.
The gunplay itself is extremely basic, with your weapons effectively limited to a sidearm, shotgun, or rifle. You can’t change guns mid-mission, nor pick up any temporary options like a limited-use power weapon. You are given the choice between conventional firearms and electromagnetic weapons – the former works better against humans, while the latter tears through shields and robots more quickly – but you’ll be required to bring one of each into your missions anyway. Which one gets to be the more powerful primary weapon and which is relegated to your sidearm could have added a small strategic wrinkle, but the conventional arms are so poor against bots that there’s only one right choice, which is too bad.
The thing I like best about the fights themselves is the ammo economy. Bullets can become scarce, especially in later missions, which means you can’t just sit in one spot and pick off every enemy by shooting through walls the whole time. I had to keep moving to either scavenge rounds off of corpses or find more ammo boxes, which was just enough to create some badly needed forward momentum during otherwise slow fights.
Time is Money
As a PMC, you are, of course, paid for completing missions – but while there are things to buy between them, the progression is badly underbaked at this point. There aren’t enough items or upgrades for sale in the first place, and the stuff that is here isn’t very interesting. You could buy one of a very small number of generic guns, or invest in either of the two alternate versions of your exosuit’s head, arms, torso, and legs, each of which have differences like improved cooldowns or increased med kit capacity. But those effects are all so small that it’s hard to feel a need for any of them.
The way you get money is a little weird, too. In addition to completing missions, cash can also be found in containers mid-level – but you have very shallow pockets for some odd reason, hitting “max money” far too quickly (which is a problem I can say with all honesty I have never experienced in my life). That’s too bad, because collecting more would have given me a real incentive to go off the beaten path. There are some of the obligatory voice memos people seem to leave behind in every video game, but I can’t bring myself to opt into hearing more of this dialogue than I absolutely need to.
For as down as I am on La Quimera (and, believe me, I am), I did still have a strangely fun time with it. That’s due primarily to two things: First, you can play the entire campaign (minus the tutorial) in online co-op with up to two other people. A couple of buddies is the exact thing you need to transform cringey dialogue from something you’ll roll your eyes at into a hilarious shared experience. Having another gun or two covering your back makes the combat more exciting as well, and the ability to do things like alternate who is doing scans so that you are never waiting on that ability’s cooldown keeps the fights moving at a faster pace.
The other quality that keeps its many issues from becoming downright infuriating is how short La Quimera is. It took me right around four hours to complete my first playthrough. That could certainly be a negative if you put a lot of weight on “hours played per dollar spent” or whatever, but it does make a stronger case for going in with some friends, having a ridiculous time, and then getting out in a way that lets you enjoy the handful of high points while minimizing the impact of the lows. Of course, one of the reasons for this brief length is that La Quimera is outright incomplete in parts, and it would need to be significantly fleshed out to justify spending any more time than this in Nuevo Caracas anyway.
Wreak havoc across the dangerous new planet Kairos when Borderlands 4 launches on September 12, 2025. I’m Graeme Timmins, Creative Director at Gearbox Entertainment—and today, the team and I are thrilled to give you our deepest ever look at some explosive, carnage-filled gameplay, all running on PlayStation 5 Pro. We’re showing off two of our four new Vault Hunters and some of their Action Skills, intense looter shooter gameplay with details on all kinds of new gear, the deadly regions you’ll explore on the all-new planet Kairos, and much more.
Following the cataclysm seen in our teaser trailer and the contentious clash of our First Look trailer, the tyrannical Timekeeper is here to admonish us as we meet our four new Vault Hunters in this pulse-pounding Gameplay Trailer:
Ever since Gearbox created the looter shooter genre nearly 16 years ago, we’ve continued to refine the formula, delivering more loot and action with every entry. I’ve worked on every mainline Borderlands game since starting out as Lead Level Designer on the original Borderlands, and my Gameplay Deep Dive co-op buddy Anthony Nicholson, Senior Project Producer on Borderlands 4, has been with the series since Borderlands 2. With Borderlands 4, we truly believe that this team is creating the best, most ambitious Borderlands game to date.
This all-new adventure is the perfect entry point for new players—and for existing players, you’ll find the awesome gameplay you know and love cranked up to 11, with new movement abilities, our biggest and baddest enemies yet, a vast new planet to explore, and of course, billions of guns to loot.
Wreak havoc as a Vault Hunter
The Borderlands games are set in an unforgiving sci-fi universe, where life is cheap and guns are plentiful. You play as a Vault Hunter, a badass mercenary on the hunt for alien Vaults, wielding wild guns and devastating abilities. In the Gameplay Deep Dive, we’re showing off two of our four all-new Vault Hunters: Vex the Siren, who uses supernatural phase energy to empower herself and can conjure deadly minions, and Rafa the Exo-Soldier, a former Tediore trooper who wears an experimental exo-suit capable of digistructing an arsenal of weapons. Personally, I’m a huge fan of Vex’s spectral feline familiar Trouble, who can absolutely maul any enemies that try to attack my flank during a shootout.
Each Vault Hunter class in Borderlands 4 offers a unique playstyle that empowers you to choose from three signature abilities that serve as your Action Skills. We’re delivering our most advanced skill tree system yet, letting you enhance your Action Skills with special augments and capstone abilities. You can choose from three branching paths of passive abilities that enable an incredibly wide variety of distinctly powerful builds.
Download the image
Each Vault Hunter also has a unique Trait that shapes their playstyle; for instance, Vex’s Trait makes her Action Skills attune to the element of the weapon she currently has equipped, incentivizing an arsenal of elemental weapons to shock, burn, or freeze enemies based on the situation.
One of our guiding design principles for our Vault Hunters is that playing as them should make you feel like an unstoppable force on the battlefield, that unleashes Action Skills to control the flow of combat and blast through enemies with an arsenal of outrageous weaponry. You can also flex even more skill expression during battle with a wide range of new movement abilities, including gliding, dashing, double-jumping, and point-grappling.
Download the image
Welcome to Kairos
In Borderlands 4, we’re dropping you into the middle of Kairos, an all-new planet rife with warring factions, deadly fauna, and desperate inhabitants. For thousands of years, the oppressive Timekeeper kept the planet hidden, controlling its inhabitants with cybernetic implants called Bolts and an army of synthetic soldiers known as The Order.
But six years before the events of Borderlands 4, a rogue moon suddenly teleported into Kairos’ orbit, shattering the planet’s protective veil and plunging the world into chaos. Now the denizens of Kairos have started rising up, with some even ripping their Bolts right out of their skulls. That’s the situation our four Vault Hunters have crash-landed into: a planet with a population primed to explode, and you’re the spark.
In your quest to ignite a revolution against the Timekeeper, you’ll meet unique factions that you’ll need to recruit to your cause, including a slew of new characters and some returning faces that’ll be instantly familiar to Borderlands fans. We’re delighted to be bringing back fan-favorite characters like Claptrap, Moxxi, and Zane—but we’re also so excited for you to meet some of the charming allies and loathsome adversaries that await you on Kairos.
To help you get around Kairos’ sprawling, seamlessly connected spaces, you can now summon a personalized Digirunner vehicle at will and jet-boost your way towards the horizon. We’ve built a world that exudes craftsmanship and encourages you to explore it at your own pace—with the option for guidance provided by your ECHO-4 robot buddy—as you take on new enemies, encounter world events, and discover hidden treasures.
From Order patrols to world bosses, there’s always something to shoot and loot as you explore Kairos. You’ll also come across short gameplay experiences and new activities that auto-grant a tracked mission whenever you discover them—like Silos, which house old, decommissioned Order tech that you can hijack for the Crimson Resistance with the help of ECHO-4.
Once you’ve reclaimed a Silo, it will reveal the approximate location of a Vault Key Fragment. Collect enough fragments and you’ll unlock a hidden Vault—a high level dungeon with challenging combat and serious loot. Reclaimed Silos can also be used as Fast Travel points, or you can zipline up their hacked communications balloon to start gliding through the air towards your next objective.
Wreaking havoc across Kairos is awesome alone and even better with friends—which is why we’ve made it easier than ever to jump into co-op multiplayer, whether through 2-player splitscreen or via our improved lobby system with drop-in/drop-out action for up to 4 players online, with full crossplay at launch.* Borderlands 4 is designed for co-op from the ground up, with instanced loot for each player, dynamic level scaling, individual difficulty settings, and the option to Fast Travel directly to other players to keep the party together and having fun through the whole campaign.
Download the image
Gearing up for a fight
In the new gameplay footage, you can watch us go on the offensive across the Terminus Range, where one of the Timekeeper’s generals, Vile Lictor, has been conducting nefarious experiments. We’re breaking into his secret blacksite with the help of Amara, an allied Siren and former Vault Hunter.
You can also see the destructive power of some deadly weapons from our eight unique manufacturers: Order, Ripper, Daedalus, Tediore, Maliwan, Jakobs, Vladof, and Torgue, each boasting their own devastating strengths. Longtime Borderlands fans will notice that the first three of these manufacturers are brand new, with fresh characteristics:
Order guns focus on precision with high-powered bursts
Ripper guns charge up to go fully automatic
Daedalus guns are easy-to-use and incorporate multiple ammo types
Tediore guns are reloaded by tossing them as grenades
Maliwan guns specialize in elemental damage to burn, freeze, and shock
Jakobs guns can fire bullets as fast as you can shoot with ricochets on critical hits
Vladof guns have a high rate of fire and huge magazines
Torgue guns have heavy-duty explosive rounds that can switch to sticky projectiles.
With the new Licensed Parts system, you can find guns that incorporate the behaviors and abilities from multiple manufacturers into a single weapon, fueling our wildest loot variety yet. In addition, Borderlands 4 reworks our approach to the iconic Legendary guns that have unique effects you won’t find on any other piece of gear. In Borderlands 3, Legendaries dropped too often, devaluing them and making other loot feel less special overall. In our new system, not only do all guns feel great, but now Legendary drops will truly be special events.
We’ve added the magic back to our loot chase, and we know you’ll love grinding all the great gear on Kairos. Farming coveted gear is much more intuitive now that you can replay entire missions or use Moxxi’s Big Encore Machine to fight bosses whenever you’d like. Speaking of bosses, Borderlands 4 makes them bigger and better than ever—like Vile Lictor himself, a monstrosity you can glimpse at the end of the Gameplay Deep Dive. These boss fights will put all your new skills, gear, and abilities to the ultimate test, requiring that you think quickly and adapt to whatever each boss throws at you.
There are also new gear slots to specialize your builds even further:
Ordnance, a shared slot for Grenades and Heavy Weapons like rocket launchers, recharges on a cooldown to keep you locked and loaded during especially tough encounters
Enhancements, which replace the Artifact slot seen in Borderlands 3, augment your weapons based on their manufacturer, rewarding you with extra firepower when you optimize your gear loadout
Repkits add utility by letting you heal yourself or activate temporary buffs to help turn the tide of an intense battle
We’re incredibly excited to unveil more Borderlands 4 when we host our first hands-on event this June, with tons to show off ahead of the full launch on September 12. Wishlist Borderlands 4 now and stay tuned as we reveal more in the coming months!
*Online play requires an Internet connection, a SHiFT Account, and a PlayStation Plus subscription. Terms apply.
The presentation hops right into the action with the promise that the 2025 Borderlands entry is the studio’s best and most grounded outing yet, promising major gameplay changes that range from new traversal abilities to loot drop formula changes. Gearbox managed to fill the 20-minute showcase with reveals about how Borderlands 4 ups the ante with new mechanics and refreshed existing features, and we’ve got all the highlights right here.
Movement Abilities
Every Borderlands title updates its traversal mechanics in new ways, and Borderlands 4 looks to be no different. We’ve seen hints of some of the new looter-shooter tools players will have at their disposal when its release date rolls around this September, but today’s gameplay footage gave us a clearer look at what’s to come.
Vault hunters can take advantage of a very Destiny-like midair hover this time around, giving players the freedom to shoot while airborne or reach faraway ledges. There’s also a grappling hook that can be used for both combat and exploration, as well as a dash for those last-second dodges. Vehicles, of course, continue to be a major component in Borderlands 4, too, and this time around, it appears we’ll have the freedom to spawn our rides, including the new Digirunner, wherever we please.
Guns and Manufacturers
We’ve gotten a taste of the new Vault Hunter traversal mechanics in previous showcases, but today’s State of Play really put the gun manufacturers in the spotlight. There’s a total of eight companies supplying players’ adventure this time around, meaning three new ones – Order, Ripper, and Daedalus – will be behind some of Borderlands 4’s new toys.
Like the other returning manufacturers, each newcomer features unique weapon designs and abilities. Borderlands 4 is taking things one step further, however, by introducing a new spin on its existing gun mechanics: the Licensed Parts System. Gun can now be comprised of a variety of different parts from different manufacturers, meaning you can find an assault rifle with elemental components developed by Maliwan, an ammo clip made by Torgue, and a shield from Hyperion. Higher rarity weapons come with more parts, making that quest for big loot drops more crucial than ever.
Story
The Borderlands 4 State of Play follows two Vault Hunters: Vex the Siren and an exosuit-wearing former Tediore soldier named Rafa. The former playable character uses Siren abilities to conjure beings to help in battle, while the latter builds tools like Ark Knives to tear enemies apart on the fly. Today’s gameplay sees the duo fighting through cold, open arenas throughout the Terminus Range, one of four zones to explore on the planet Kairos.
Borderlands 4 will follow the series’ trend of running into old faces while introducing new ones. Some familiar names that showed up during today’s State of Play include Moxxi, Zane, Amara, and, of course, Claptrap, though there were also a few hints that we might learn more about Lilith, too. New characters include a towering, armored individual named Rush and a helpful robot named Echo 4. The handy robot companion will follow players for the duration of Borderlands 4, aiding with exploration by scanning environments, hacking, and leading lost Vault Hunters to their next objective.
Multiplayer
Borderlands 4 players will be happy to hear Gearbox has made an attempt to streamline the co-op process this time around. In addition to what it calls “an improved lobby system,” it should be easier to join up with friends at a moment’s notice. Crossplay will be available at launch, too, with all loot instanced for each player and dynamic level scaling meaning you’ll have freedom with friends on any platform.
Customization within your parties goes even further, as Gearbox has implemented a feature that allows everyone to have their own difficulty settings separate from one another. Making the journey with friends easier is split screen couch co-op, which will be available at launch, as well as an addition that allows players to fast travel to their buddies if someone gets lost.
Borderlands 4 also features a lower chance for Legendary loot drops, dense new skill trees, and so much more. Rep Kit gear will have players choosing between a quick revive and temporary combat buff, while Ordnances give fans the option to fill a cooldown weapons slot with either grenades or unique heavy weapons. There’s also Enhancements, which replace Artifacts in favor of gifting bonuses to guns from specific manufacturers.
Borderlands 4 recently moved up its PC via the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S release date 11 days from September 23 to September 12. A Nintendo Switch 2 version is due out at an unspecified point later in the year, too.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
Ubisoft today revealed the year one update roadmap for open world weather-appreciate-em-up Assassin’s Creed Shadows. It includes a steady drip feed of new quest and story updates, some fan requested features like NG+, and a few additional quality of life bits. However! None of this matters. Shoo, less important details. The real headline here is that the series built around making jumping between rooftops feel good is making jumping between rooftops feel even better. Excellent news.
