Borderlands 4’s first story DLC, “Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned,” was released on March 26th! Simultaneously, Borderlands 4 version 1.5 update was also released, allowing players to experience the new content even if they don’t plan to purchase the DLC.

Borderlands 4 initially faced criticism from players due to performance and stability issues. However, the developers have shown they didn’t ignore these problems but actively listened to feedback and continuously improved, bringing new performance optimizations and content updates in version 1.5.

Let’s take a look at the basic overview of the latest DLC and the major changes in version 1.5, and see if they truly optimize the player experience.

First Story Pack Released

The first story pack to launch: Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned. To experience its latest content, players need to own the pack and complete “A Lot to Process” quest in Fadefields, or create a new Vault Hunter starting at level 13.

The gameplay involves playing as a new Vault Hunter—C4SH—following Ellie into Vault of the Damned to fight terrifying cosmic monoliths. It includes a brand-new Whispering Glacier map with new quests and events; two dynamic events: Ice Fishing and Nightmare Rift; two new events: Dahl Bunker and Scav Fuel Site; two large boss battles and 16 smaller boss battles; and new enemy types.

Playing the game unlocks more Borderlands 4 items, including 3 new collectibles, 17 Legendary gear items, Classmods, 28 new cosmetic items, and 3 new Pearlescent Weapons available only in story packs.

Version 1.5, available to all players, also features significant updates and optimizations, resolving some current game issues and introducing major new changes.

Level Cap Increase

The character level cap has been increased from 50 to 60, giving players more room to upgrade their characters and accomplish more.

Shared Character Progression

Shared Character Progression system has been updated, allowing players to retain game progress across different characters. This eliminates the need for players to repeatedly explore the map with different characters, allowing all characters to share Borderlands 4 items.

Once one character completes an activity, all characters will share that activity’s progress: including collectibles, activities, SDU points, and map progress. This content is now completely consistent across different characters. This significantly saves players Borderlands 4 money, as you no longer need to repeatedly redeem items you already have for your other characters.

Bounty Pack 2 Optimizations

Targeted upgrades to Bounty Pack 2: Legend of the Stone Demon:

A Fast Travel station has been added to Cursed Mine area, and ECHO location guidance has been optimized to improve player efficiency in exploration and resource acquisition;

Bugs such as safe spots that could avoid damage during combat and characters getting stuck outside the arena have been fixed. Teammates can now restart boss battles even while in loot rooms, making resource acquisition fairer;

Another optimization has been made to issues such as abnormal enemy spawning and movement within designated areas. Some background elements have been removed and their effects optimized, making the game’s visuals more realistic and conducive to combat;

Improved issues such as accidental damage and model clipping.

Vault Cards and Challenges have also been optimized. An option to disable the progress pop-up has been added. Menu usage and challenge progress calculations have been improved. In Kill X Vile Enemies challenge, defeating Ordonite enemies no longer counts towards the challenge count, ensuring that challenge rewards are distributed correctly and players do not lose already claimed rewards.

Basic Game Improvements

Fixed frequent issues such as weapon disappearance, abnormal character models, and loading screen freezes to prevent players from losing acquired resources or purchased items due to bugs; optimized visual effects for actions like switching Heavy Weapons after using Grapple Points, and switching weapons while climbing ladders or walls; corrected inaccuracies in map objective and waypoint positioning, making resource farming smoother.

Character and Weapon Changes

This update modifies the skills of four characters: Harlowe, Rafa, Vex, and Amon, optimizing skill effects, skill bonuses, and success rates to ensure proper skill synergy and maximize skill damage.

Not only characters, but weapons have also been modified, such as Jakobs and Tediore, for a more polished gaming experience. Weapon sound effects have been optimized, with some bullet trajectory sound effects updated and shooting sounds enhanced; visually, the firing indicator has been improved, and issues such as missing projectiles and beam obstruction by rare Pearlescent items have been resolved, while ensuring that enhancement effects fully increase weapon power.

Splitscreen Fixes

Splitscreen has been fixed. After the fix: When a player exits the game on the character selection screen, other players will not lose their game progress; When the main player joins with a new game account, other players’ characters will not disappear; Only the host player can modify True Mode settings; Flipping item cards to view details will only affect the player who clicked the card; Other menus will not overlap with the pause menu when interacting with in-game objects; Sound will play correctly when a new player joins on PS5 with a new save file.

Audio & Visual Fixes:

Audio: Fade-in/fade-out effects added to audio transitions; Voice settings change immediately when a player switches configurations.

Visual: Physics effects optimized for greater realism; weapon HD display and switching effects optimized; Screen display clarity and loading screen optimized.

Photo Mode Updates

In photo mode, the visibility option has been improved. Turning visibility off now has an immediate effect, including on newly spawned creatures. Turning off player visibility will cause other effects and vehicles to disappear as well. Depth of field effects have been added, allowing NPCs to remain stationary when the game is paused. Statistics and other menu details are now hidden during the results screen for a more shareable visual effect.

UI & Menus Improvements

Fixed grammar and spelling errors, and an issue where left-clicking a character in the main menu could open the shop page. Optimized tooltips: such as skill damage values, icons, and quest log positions, ensuring all tooltips are up-to-date. Reset menu options to prevent players from changing host settings in multiplayer. Resolved an issue where skipping the opening animation disconnected the controller.

Further Optimizations to Enhance Player Experience and Drive Game Progression

To further enhance the overall player experience, this update also improves cloud save handling to prevent save file overwrite errors that could lead to the loss of hard-earned Borderlands 4 items. Game stability and performance have been optimized, and for the newly released DLC, players are now matched only with players who possess the same content, preventing exits to the main menu due to inaccessibility of DLC and impacting the game experience.

From the rich content of the new paid story DLC to the core feature upgrades that are free for all players, and the comprehensive bug fixes and experience optimizations, Borderlands 4’s 1.5 update fully responds to player needs, bringing a brand-new adventure experience to paying players while ensuring a smoother and more polished gameplay for all players. The developers also stated that they will continue to listen to feedback from the player community and continuously optimize and update the game’s content, performance, and stability to provide players with an even better experience.