Borderlands 4 lets players of all skill levels wreak havoc across Kairos, and while the series isn't exactly known for having difficult encounters, it's still likely that players will find the game's chaotic firefights to be either too easy or too hard.
Thankfully, there are difficulty options in Borderlands 4 that open the game up for the casual and daring members of its playerbase, and of course, it includes an endgame that's designed to push builds to their absolute limits. Here's a look at how difficulty works in this game and how you can adjust it to your taste.
Borderlands 4 is Giving an Overlooked BL3 Feature a Second Wind
One Vault Hunter's skill tree is transforming an overlooked feature from Borderlands 3 into a devastating force in Borderlands 4.
Borderlands 4: Campaign Difficulty Modes
Players get to choose between three different difficulty modes when they start a new campaign: Easy, Normal, and Hard. This isn't that different from previous Borderlands games, and the differences between each of the difficulty levels aren't that crazy either.
- On Easy, enemies take more damage, and elemental weaknesses matter less.
- Normal mode is the baseline difficulty.
- In Hard mode, enemies hurt much more, and elemental affinities are much more important. To compensate, enemies also reward more Cash and better loot.
We recommend just playing through the game on Normal mode. There's still a decent challenge to be had there, but without the frustration of needing the right elemental weapons all the time. The latter can feel especially troublesome if you're experiencing terrible luck with weapon drops.
Also, if you plan on playing on Hard mode, you'll need to dedicate some extra time and effort to complete more side quests and activities than usual. If you focus on only doing the campaign, you'll eventually reach areas where enemies are roughly five levels ahead of you. They're manageable on Normal and Easy, but on Hard, they'll be a major hassle to deal with.
You can change the difficulty at any time by selecting the Sessions option in the pause screen or the main menu.
Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode
Once you finish the main story, you'll automatically start a short chain of quests that will introduce you to Ultimate Vault Hunter mode (usually just referred to as UVH or UVHM). Instead of forcing you to replay the whole campaign, UVHM in Borderlands 4 acts like a selectable difficulty mode that does the following:
- Enemies become stronger, and more enemies appear with modifiers.
- The quality and quantity of loot increases.
- Various endgame activities become available.
You can still replay campaign missions via the ECHO menu if you want, but if you'd rather not, all of Kairos remains open for you to explore. Do side quests, raid mini dungeons, fight off Rippers, and farm to your heart's content. If you're craving for an even harder challenge, you can increase your UVH rank by completing challenges found in the Challenges tab of your ECHO menu.
UVH Rank in Borderlands 4 caps at UVH5 as of the release version of the game.
Borderlands 4
- Released
- September 12, 2025
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- Gearbox Software
- Publisher(s)
- 2K
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op, Online Multiplayer
- Cross-Platform Play
- Yes - all platforms
- Prequel(s)
- Borderlands 3, Borderlands 2, Borderlands
- Franchise
- Borderlands
- Number of Players
- 1-4 players
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unsupported
- PC Release Date
- September 12, 2025
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- September 12, 2025
- PS5 Release Date
- September 12, 2025
- Nintendo Switch 2 Release Date
- October 3, 2025
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, PC
- Local Co-Op Support
- Yes
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
