There’s Still One Concern About Borderlands 4’s World

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Summary

  • Borderlands 4’s seamless design implies a large map, necessitating a focus on quality over quantity for content.
  • The series is known for repetitive fetch quests, so Borderlands 4 must avoid bloat and meaningless content.
  • The game’s quests should deepen storytelling, offer character-specific narratives, and multiple outcomes based on player choices.

Open-world games often struggle with the issue of prioritizing quantity over quality in their design. Instead of focusing solely on the amount of content, it’s more beneficial to emphasize player exploration and storytelling within these vast worlds. Regrettably, the desire to fill an extensive open world with enough material to justify its size can overshadow the design philosophy, leading to a monotonous, overstuffed experience. At best, this excess content might be considered “filler.” However, it has been confirmed that Borderlands 4, despite being labeled as “seamless,” will not be fully open-world according to Gearbox.

Borderlands 4, while not strictly open-world, boasts a vast, interconnected map. To steer clear of the usual pitfalls plaguing many open-world games, Borderlands 4 must strive to maintain high-quality content without sacrificing it for a larger game space. Given the series’ previous titles’ mixed track record in terms of quests and other content, there are doubts about whether Borderlands 4 can achieve this balance effectively.

Borderlands 4’s Quests Can’t Succumb to Its Sizable World

Borderlands Has Been Known to Feature Repetitive Fetch Quests

In the Borderlands series, no game has offered a fully immersive open-world experience; instead, each title employs a semi-open-world design, where zones connected by loading screens create the gameplay environment. However, despite not boasting expansive open worlds, the Borderlands franchise is known for incorporating one of the most criticized quest types common in open-world games: fetch quests. Essentially, fetch quests are side missions that are often perceived as unnecessary filler content due to their repetitive “go here, grab/slay something, return” structure. Fetch quests are seldom seen as essential elements of a game’s storyline or world-building and are generally met with disfavor.

To prevent the usual trap that numerous open-world games often stumble upon, it is crucial for Borderlands 4 to maintain the quality of its content rather than expanding the size of the game world at the expense of its substance.

The Borderlands series has been criticized for its excessive reliance on repetitive fetch missions since its inception. These missions, while often enlivened by humorously quirky characters and outlandish scenarios, demand minimal thinking and can grow tiresome after completing numerous iterations of them. Borderlands 2 was filled with such quests, despite the captivating villainy of Handsome Jack providing a compelling backdrop. Borderlands 3 made some strides in enhancing the series’ quest design, but still struggled under the weight of many fetch missions. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, another Borderlands game, also fell into this trap despite its distinct premise.

Borderlands 4’s Quests Should Aim for Quality Over Quantity

In essence, if Borderlands 4 is as expansive as rumored, it may expand its world with unnecessary side missions. The inclusion of a summonable vehicle in Borderlands 4 hints that the game could value fetch quests as filler content due to players’ ability to travel swiftly between objectives. However, this also presents an opportunity to enhance the series’ formula by incorporating side quests that enrich the story, offering insights into characters, the world, or Borderlands history.

Essentially, it’s crucial for Borderlands 4 to emphasize quality over quantity when it comes to side quests. If the game’s world is too vast and its content lacks depth, it could feel overwhelming or underwhelming. To avoid this, the upcoming Borderlands game can focus on enriching the storytelling of each side quest, delving into individual character narratives, or providing multiple outcomes based on player decisions. It’s advisable to keep fetch quests minimal and use them sparingly in Borderlands 4.

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2025-01-11 02:23