Borderlands 4’s Bounty Packs Are Betting on the Wrong Horse

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Since its release, Borderlands 4 has been working hard to keep players engaged, regularly releasing updates to fix bugs, improve performance, and ensure the game is balanced for all types of players. While it’s not a traditional ‘live service’ game, Borderlands 4 is being supported with ongoing content and updates much like one. However, some players feel the post-launch content hasn’t been strong enough, and the upcoming ‘How Rush Saved Mercenary Day’ Bounty Pack suggests the developers might be focusing on the wrong things.

The upcoming Bounty Packs for Borderlands 4 will add new content to the game, but they’ll cost extra. While this could keep players engaged for a longer time, the Borderlands 4 community is worried the packs aren’t delivering what was promised. Even the first pack, scheduled for release on November 20th, is receiving criticism for what players see as misplaced focus.

Borderlands 4’s Bounty Packs Are Betting Too Much on Cosmetics

Bounty Packs were revealed as part of the plans for Borderlands 4 and are intended to be small content updates, similar to mini DLC. They’ll add new missions, locations, bosses, and rewards, and tie into the Vault Card system. Unlike the larger, story-focused expansions from previous Borderlands games, Bounty Packs are designed to provide regular bursts of content to keep players playing between major updates. The idea is to help Borderlands 4 stay popular long after it launches and offer an alternative to typical live-service seasons.

Here’s what each Borderlands 4 Bounty Pack includes:

  • New unique area, featuring new Missions and a unique Boss
  • Vault Card with 24 Cosmetics and 4 pieces of Legendary Gear
  • New Vault Hunter cosmetics
  • New vehicle with new cosmetics
  • New Legendary Gear

The truth is, most of these Bounty Packs don’t add much real content – they just seem like they do. A lot of what’s included is purely cosmetic, and since Borderlands 4 is mostly a single-player game, players don’t value skins as much as they would in a multiplayer experience.

The new challenges included in the Bounty Packs seem to be just the main story missions, as they’re described in a pretty general way. Each pack only features one new boss, and the promised “new area” doesn’t need to be very large to qualify as such. The “new legendary gear” is limited to four pieces that can be re-rolled, and considering the recent negative reaction to the legendary gear from the Horrors of Kairos event, these Bounty Packs will probably be considered a failure if they don’t offer significant improvements in that area.

The main issue with the game’s Bounty Packs seems to be a belief that players will be happy with post-launch content as long as it’s mostly cosmetic items. However, a recent discussion sparked by a post from @EpicNNG on X shows that’s not true. Many players reacted negatively to the focus on cosmetics, particularly under a post showcasing the ‘How Rush Saved Mercenary Day’ Bounty Pack. Several commenters stated the community is primarily interested in new, powerful weapons and feels there are already enough cosmetic options.

Many players feel the game has focused too much on cosmetic items since launch, with community challenges largely fueling that trend. Because players are already closely watching what the endgame will offer in a potential Borderlands 4, the community may start to lose interest and move on if the developers don’t soon provide more meaningful content.

The issue with Borderlands 4 might be that it’s trying to operate like an ongoing service game, even though it isn’t built for that model. It seems to be relying on constantly adding new content to keep players engaged, but based on feedback from places like Reddit and posts from users like @EpicNNG, that strategy isn’t working and players aren’t sticking around for long.

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2025-10-28 19:05