Borderlands 4 gives players a variety of deadly Vault Hunters to toy around with, but it’s missing one key archetype: the assassin. That was a standout role in Borderlands 2 thanks to Zer0, a mysterious sniper with stealthy powers, and the gap will finally be filled come Sept. 10 when Borderlands 4 gets its sixth playable character, Loveless the Hacker.
Launching alongside the FL4K and the Last Resort expansion, Loveless will bring some high-tech powers to the looter-shooter, as well as some entirely new combat mechanics. For the team at developer Gearbox, a new Vault Hunter was an opportunity to both play with lore and find a creative way to rethink the assassin archetype — all while squeezing in a bit of topical humor for any techies navigating our current RAM crisis.
Loveless is a cyber hacker that’s meant to fill the same niche Zer0 once did. Sniping and melee attacks are her specialty, and she’s a character focused on dishing out damage over time. That’s your basic looter-shooter archetype, but her backstory is what makes her unique. Loveless was a cybersecurity expert working for Anshin, one of Borderlands’ weapons manufacturers. (Well, a cybersecurity expert who also did a bit of dirty work too.) It turns out that Anshin had been working on a mind-controlling virus while she was working there, but it broke containment. To stop it from wreaking havoc on the world, Loveless was forced to assimilate with the virus, infusing her with tech powers.
For game designer Ryan Bailey, those powers gave the team at Gearbox a fresh sandbox to play in. Not only did the team get to play with Anshin’s Asian-inspired iconography to build Loveless, but they also got to experiment with how an experienced, high-tech character fits into a cast that’s proficient with machines in their own ways.
“When I think of the tech of the main cast, I think of Harlowe and all of the sciency stuff. All of that was much more grounded. Or Amon, it’s a lot of tech, but tech to punch with,” Bailey told gamexplore in a video interview. “I wanted to make sure that Loveless’ tech felt a little more refined and directional… It was more about putting the physical and technical ends with a little more precision, and making sure she had more mastery over those things, I didn’t want it to feel like she was figuring it out. Nothing is being done for the first time; this is all for the thousandth time.”
That philosophy inspired Loveless’ action skills. Visual Paradox Nexus (or VPN, for short) is a high-tech version of a stealth cloak, allowing Loveless to get around undetected. Plague Star, on the other hand, is an oversized shuriken that can inflict a new status effect called contagion. It’s basically a disease that can spread to other enemies when someone infected with stacks of contagion dies. Loveless’ skill trees offer lots of room to tinker with those abilities, too. You can change Plague Star so you have multiple shurikens that spin around you, or gain access to a kusarigama that you can break out during VPN. Character design director Nick Thurston was especially excited about the possibilities a techy character opened up for him.
“I love melee weapons a lot, and putting them in the game,” Thurston told gamexplore. “We talked about what kinds of weapons we have not explored. There’s the kusarigama, which is something you might see in a lot of other games that we’ve never done before. That’s very exciting, and a part of VPN. The empowered melee attack isn’t just a melee attack. We have a really sick digital claw that I think we’re calling the technocoggie? So you’ll see a lot of weapons that you haven’t seen before.”
More striking than Plague Star or VPN is Loveless’ pet worm. The hacker has a summonable companion that looks like a Chinese dragon built from metal and cables. It’s basically a murderous pet that players can issue commands to. Loveless can lose control of it too, causing a bit of chaos on the battlefield when left to its own instincts.
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On top of those powers, Loveless has a wholly unique mechanic. She can gain RAM from landing critical hits or inflicting status effects. The more her RAM gauge fills, she’ll get a bit of a power boost. When that gauge is filled up, her next melee attack becomes empowered. That, of course, begged a topical question: How much is all that power costing her, giving the current price of RAM? Always count on Gearbox to jump on a topical joke.
“She’s got it all optimized! Nearly endless amounts!” Bailey joked. “There were a lot of expensive RAM jokes that were definitely made, and a couple made it into some passive names if I recall.”
For old Borderlands players who have missed being able to play like an assassin, Loveless should hopefully suffice as a successor to Zer0. Her tech powers bring a bit of stealth to the shooter, while giving players who love inflicting status effects a new virus to play with. Considering that FL4K and the Last Resort will bring a brand-new island to Borderlands 4, that seems like as good an excuse as any to see what levels of hell a new Vault Hunter can inflict with her cyberworm.
