Summary
- Borderlands 4 releases on Sept 12, 2025, adopting Skyrim's exploration concept.
- Players can explore anything they see in Borderlands 4's new world Kairos.
- Randy Pitchford highlights seamless exploration in Borderlands 4, similar to Skyrim's concept.
Gearbox's Borderlands 4 is finally on the way, with its release date now firmly slated for September 12, 2025 after it was moved up from September 23. As it prepares for launch, fans were recently treated to a more extensive reveal of its new world, as well as its gameplay, during a special State of Play showcase for Borderlands 4. Shortly after the showcase, Randy Pitchford disclosed an interesting detail about exploration in Borderlands 4 that sounds identical to one of the most influential examples of the same concept.
Borderlands 4 is apparently not going fully open world, but that hasn't stopped it from adopting a trick from one of the most iconic open worlds in video game history: The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. Of course, Borderlands 4 isn't the first game to follow in Skyrim's footsteps after almost 14 years, but in doing so, some implications are made about the way exploration will work in the upcoming entry that reinforce what has already been confirmed about it. As Borderlands 4 prepares to be one of the most curiosity-driven worlds yet, its adoption of Skyrim's most notable characteristic makes perfect sense.
Borderlands 4 Is Borrowing One of Skyrim's Oldest Tricks
Skyrim Lets Players Explore Anything They Can See
While there are plenty of things to praise about Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, perhaps its biggest point of praise is its namesake, Skyrim itself. With Skyrim, Bethesda crafted one of the most famous open worlds in the industry, to the point that it has played a significant role in shaping the open-world model over the last 14 years.
Skyrim may no longer be the open-world standard, but it laid a solid foundation for future open-world games to base their own designs on, making it one of the most influential open-world games ever made.
What made Skyrim so monumental for its time is the fact that players could not only see the massive open world and all its environmental design, but they could even go there if they wanted to. This was a big selling point for the game, during a time when "bigger is better" actually meant something. Since then, the open-world genre has changed, but the memory of Skyrim's open-world philosophy remains intact.
Players Can Explore Anything They Can See in Borderlands 4
One of the key characteristics of Borderlands 4's new world of Kairos is that it offers seamless exploration. While Gearbox has confirmed that the game will not be without loading screens entirely, "seamless" means that if there are loading screens, there are very few. Regardless, this opens up exploration in Borderlands 4 in such a way that Randy Pitchford describes it as being very similar to the approach Skyrim popularized when it launched almost 14 years ago.
Essentially, if players see something in the distance in Borderlands 4, they can get there if they try. Speaking at a PAX East panel on May 9, 2025, Pitchford stated, "You see something anywhere on the screen, a mile away, up in the sky, you will be able to get there." This is eerily similar to a statement that Todd Howard made during Skyrim's marketing phase so long ago, when he went on record saying, "That mountain is not just a backdrop. You can walk all the way to the top of that mountain."
One of the key characteristics of Borderlands 4's new world of Kairos is that it offers seamless exploration.
It's interesting, to say the least, that Pitchford would make this distinction about Borderlands 4's new planet Kairos, since the game doesn't technically feature an open world, as these were once remarks made about an open-world game that has since become one of the most recognizable in the industry. Nevertheless, what it does do for Borderlands 4 is it reinforces the idea of luring players by piquing their curiosity, as opposed to handing them a plethora of map markers. Gearbox has already made it clear that exploring Kairos will feel more natural than it did for any previous location in the Borderlands series, and Pitchford's recent statements only make that clearer.
Borderlands 4
-
OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 82 /100 Critics Rec: 88%
- Released
- September 12, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- Gearbox Software
- Publisher(s)
- 2K
