Welcome to Kairos, Vault Hunters! Borderlands 4 is available now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store; the game will also come to the Nintendo Switch 2 on October 3, 2025. As you, your co-op partners, and the rest of the Crimson Resistance get ready to undertake your mission to topple the Timekeeper's reign, check out this list of spoiler-free tips to help you loot and shoot to the fullest. 

If you'd prefer to start by getting a sense for what awaits on this mysterious, hidden planet, you can get a general overview on the Borderlands 4 Game Info page, dive right into theorycrafting the perfect builds for Vex, Rafa, Amon, or Harlowe via their Vault Hunter pages, or meet the talented actors behind each of their English-language voice performances! 

Remember to use your Repkit when taking damage

Whether you're running low on health or just need a temporary buff to survive a firefight, don't forget to take full advantage of your Repkit. Along with instant restoration of some health points and an additional amount of regeneration over time, Repkits can provide helpful survivability boosts like reducing incoming damage for a short duration. Just keep an eye on its cooldown in the lower-left corner of your HUD and remember there's no downside to triggering it as often as you might need.

Utilize your Ordnance as often as possible

In Borderlands 4, the new Ordnance slot is where you can equip your hardest-hitting munitions, including different types of Grenades and Heavy Weapons like rocket launchers, massively powerful machine guns, and colossal energy cannons. Unlike previous Borderlands games, these don't consume ammo and can be activated any time they're off cooldown! To maximize your damage output, let that Ordnance fly as often as possible to make short work of the opposition!

Use your movement abilities to dodge incoming attacks

Borderlands 4's Vault Hunters can move like never before, darting around the battlefield by double jumping, gliding, dodging, grappling, and more. Dodging is especially important during boss fights, as incoming damage will be especially dangerous—but a lateral dash or a quick double-jump can get you out of harm's way without interrupting your barrage of bullets!

Use elemental damage to tear through enemies

Elemental damage types are among the most common modifiers you'll find on the bazillions of guns in Borderlands 4. At the most basic level, all guns can deal six types of damage: Kinetic, Incendiary, Shock, Corrosive, Cryo, and Radiation.

Think of Kinetic Damage as the baseline, as it will deal the same amount of hurt to enemies regardless of their type. But properly matching elemental damage types against the different kinds of enemies you'll encounter can give you a big boost in lethality. Note that minding elemental types is less important if you're playing on Easy difficulty, and extremely important if you're playing on Hard difficulty (which is the default for the endgame Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode) where enemies have tougher elemental resistances but are more susceptible to their elemental weakness.

• Incendiary is most effective against enemies with red health bars denoting Bio. Burn your targets with damage over time until ashes are all that's left.
• Shock damage is most effective against enemies with yellow health bars denoting Shield. Stun these shielded hostiles into submission with the voltage of Shock. 
• Corrosive damage is most effective against enemies with blue health bars denoting Armor. Melt through your opponents' defenses and disintegrate their hopes of survival.
• Radiation damage causes enemies to explode and is also effective against enemies with yellow health bars denoting Shield, albeit slightly less so than Shock. Blasting a barrage of Radiation is excellent for taking out large groups, as it deals damage over time in an area and makes affected enemies violently explode when killed.
• Cryo damage can freeze enemies and is also effective against enemies with blue health bars denoting Armor, albeit slightly less so than Corrosive. This chilling damage is ideal against tanky targets: freezing tougher enemies will make them lose health over time relative to their maximum HP.  

Reclaim Silos to aid your search for Vault Key Fragments

From Order patrols to world bosses, there’s always something to shoot and loot as you explore Kairos. You'll also come across short gameplay experiences and new activities that auto-grant a tracked mission whenever you discover them—like Silos, which house old, decommissioned Order tech that you can hijack for the Crimson Resistance with the help of your ECHO-4.

Once you've reclaimed a Silo, it will reveal the approximate location of a Vault Key Fragment. Reclaimed Silos release a hacked communications balloon that you can zipline up to start gliding through the air towards your next objective, and they can also be used as Fast Travel points!

Collect Vault Key Fragments to open Primordial Vaults

Through exploring and treasure-hunting, you'll eventually track down enough Vault Key Fragments to assemble your very own Vault Key. From there, you'll need to track down what the Vault Key was made for: opening the gates to a Primordial Vault, a high-level dungeon hidden within that region of Kairos. Be ready for a challenge when you open a Primordial Vault... and the possibility of extremely powerful loot if you prevail. Completing the Vaults also improves your glide pack, which is a hugely impactful reward for overcoming these difficult dungeons.

Seek out side missions for extra rewards

It's always fun getting to customize your Vault Hunter's look with cosmetic items that match your personal style, and some of the most prestigious cosmetics can be earned simply by completing side missions on Kairos. Of course, you'll also get bonus cash and typically some new loot, along with additional XP to level up faster and unlock those new skill points that'll further strengthen your Vault Hunter's build! New side missions become available as you explore Kairos and complete more of the main campaign, so be sure to check your map frequently for newly available side missions in your search for added rewards.

Don't be afraid to alternate between solo and co-op play

Borderlands has always been known for its best-in-class support of both solo and co-op play, and Borderlands 4 makes freely switching between them more accessible and seamless than ever. You can expect the same drop-in/drop-out, individually balanced multiplayer experience, and progress made in another player's game will be recognized upon loading back into your own (with the option to skip the content you've already played, if you'd like). 

Along with vital quality-of-life features like these, plus other new additions like full co-op party participation in cutscenes, read on below to learn how else it's easier than ever to team up with other Vault Hunters while looting and shooting across Kairos.

Reunite with teammates instantly using Fast Travel

Along with the standard option of using Fast Travel to teleport to hub areas and any discovered waypoints, you'll also have the option to Fast Travel directly to other players, which can be extremely helpful when navigating Borderlands 4's huge, seamless world. The regions of the dangerous new planet Kairos interconnect to create the biggest expanse ever in a Borderlands game, and you might end up exploring in a totally different direction than your co-op party. 

The fact that you can cruise around on your personalized Digirunner vehicle at any time, along with the new layer of verticality in the environments, makes it so that you might inadvertently put a lot of distance between you and your squad. With party-based Fast Travel, you can almost instantly join back up after a joyride in the opposite direction or a flubbed jump off the side of a cliff.

Configure crossplay with the Sessions Settings on the main menu

First, select the Session Settings button in Borderlands 4's main menu and set your preferred Party Privacy option, whether that's Friends Only, Invite Only, Public, or Local Only. Then, toggle Personal Crossplay on or off to decide whether you'll allow players from other platforms into your party. Please note that if anyone in your party has this toggled off, the whole party will have crossplay disabled for that session.

The Session Settings menu is also where you can set your individualized Difficulty level, which will scale appropriately so that everyone in your multiplayer party can make things as forgiving or challenging as they like without affecting their co-op partners' games.

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With these quick tips and your badass Vault Hunter skills, you're ready to take on the Timekeeper and collect tons of Legendary loot in the process. Whether you savor your adventure on Kairos or race towards the endgame as fast as possible, be sure to check out our robust Post-Launch Roadmap, which includes paid and free content packed with new loot, story content, and so much more. We'll see you on Kairos, Vault Hunter!