Gamescom Opening Night Live kicked off with a surprise reveal: Borderlands 4 is real and coming in 2025. It’s been a long wait for the next numbered sequel in the sci-fi looter shooter series, and the teaser confirming the game’s existence didn’t give a clear idea of what to expect from it. Fortunately, fans have been poring over the brief video and have already come away with a bunch of interesting clues and theories about what’s coming next year.
To recap, the Borderlands 4 reveal trailer shows a planet appear in space out of nowhere and begin moving toward the crystal barrier of another celestial body. It begins tearing through the shield as burning debris falls from the sky and pocks the surface. We then see a robotic arm reach out into one of the mini-craters and pick up a psycho bandit mask.
Fans immediately began to wonder if a tease at the end of the trailer was hinting at Handsome Jack, the main villain from Borderlands 2. He dies on Pandora, but Borderlands 3 is haunted by his memories, with tons of little lore nuggets excavating his past. A face and vault symbol that briefly flashes at the end of the Borderlands 4 trailer was interpreted as a nod to his return. Unfortunately, Gearbox Entertainment CEO Randy Pitchford has already shot down that theory.
“That’s not handsome jack,” he told one fan. “That is something far more dangerous and sinister.” In fact, Pitchford had to keep telling people over and over again that it wasn’t Handsome Jack. Some other players were even relieved to hear that the studio wasn’t going back to that well, and would instead be exploring a new threat. You can click through the above slideshow to see what else eagle-eyed fans have discovered so far.
Lilith is back?
Okay, this one didn’t take a magnifying glass to spot, but the trailer opens with the Siren Lilith’s Firehawk call sign right before a giant moon and/or planet teleports into view. She’s been in every Borderlands game (and is played by Cate Blanchett in the movie) and she flew away at the end of the third numbered entry so it’s not surprising, but it’s still nice to see her front-and-center in the first teaser. But what’s she up to exactly?
Elpis braces for impact
So what’s that big hunk of space rock flying through the air? Based on the markings it appears to be Elpis, Pandora’s moon. When Pandora is revealed to to be the Great Vault, and Elpis its key, the moon threatens to tear the planet apart, forcing Lilith to sacrifice herself to keep it away at the end of Borderlands 3. It seems like what she’s done for Borderlands 4 is teleport the whole thing somewhere else, at which point it begins crashing into something. But what?
What’s it crashing into?
The Eridians are an ancient alien race whose vaults are the basis for the Borderlands games. Is this one of their home worlds? Some players think it could be. It’s a race we’ve never seen but whose tech and history power the game universe’s lore. Some players are also wondering if our first glimpse of them is actually the shadowy figure seen in the bandit mask when it’s picked up at the end of the trailer.
Guardians vs. Eridians
Or maybe it’s a Guardian. Guardians were creations of the Eridians seemingly made to defend the vaults. They’re bio-mechanical and their appearance definitely fits with the robotic arm picking up the mask near the end of the trailer. At the end of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel there’s mention of a possible impending war. It’s unclear if that would be be with the Eridians, their Guardians, or some third, unknown alien threat. Or maybe Borderlands 4 has nothing to do with any of that.
All those flashing symbols at the end
Right after the trailer reveals the 2025 release window, a bunch of weird pictures, symbols, and apparent alien language flash on screen real fast. Players have been trying to decipher them and here’s what they come up with. We initially see a face that is definitely not Handsome Jack, and later what appears to be two entities facing off against one another. Maybe those are Eridians, either in the past or a glimpse at a future battle?
Decoding the hidden messages
The last bits of flashing images appear to be an alien language. Naturally, players are assuming its Eridian. Some fans ran it through a substitution cipher and got the following results: “HE IS WATCHING” and “BREAK FREE.” Not ominous at all! But is the “he” referring to the hand in the trailer or something else, perhaps hidden in the Great Vault or another Eridian installation? It’s got players thinking about The Watcher, a Guardian from Pre-Sequel who prophesized a great war.
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