The new Licensed Parts, equipment slots, and overhauled drop rates are aiming to make loot more exciting in Borderlands 4

April 30, 2025 | 11:01am

Borderlands 4's New Loot System Offers More Variety Than Ever Before

The new Licensed Parts, equipment slots, and overhauled drop rates are aiming to make loot more exciting in Borderlands 4

Borderlands 4 Loot Manufacturers:

Jakobs - Critical hit friendly
Maliwan - Elemental focused
Vladof - Less accuracy, more bullets
Tediore - Toss to reload
Torgue - Explosive
Order - charge shots
Ripper - Fully automatic
Daedalus - Easy to use, multiple ammo types

As detailed on the PlayStation Blog, Unlike the previous Borderlands games, the weapon manufacturers are going to overlap in Borderlands 4 as part of the Licensed Parts system. This system causes weapons to feature parts from different manufacturers, giving you multiple specialties on a single weapon. The example shown was a Vladof gun with a high ammo capacity using Torgue explosive bullets. It sounds like weapons will drop this way, as there was no mention of crafting or changing out parts on guns.

In addition to the new guns, there are also three new equipment types in Borderlands 4. Ordnance is a new shared slot for grenades and heavy weapons. Heavy weapons now operate on a cooldown system instead of using ammo. Enhancements replace Artifacts and now focus on providing boosts to specific weapon manufacturers. Lastly are the Repkits, which can provide healing or buffs on a cooldown.

Gearbox also discussed how it would be changing the loot drops in Borderlands 4 to make the loot chase more exciting. This primarily means reducing how frequently legendary weapons drop and improving their individual stats and unique abilities to make finding them feel more exciting. Loot will be instanced for each individual player in co-op in Borderlands 4, and to help out with the loot grind, you will be able to replay missions and boss fights for more loot drops.

Borderlands 4 recently had its release date moved up to September 12, when it will release on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

The Most-Anticipated Shooter Games Of 2025 And Beyond