Gearbox Entertainment has revealed more details about the next update for Borderlands 4, version 1.8, which will also serve as the introduction of Bounty Pack 3: A Zane to Kill For. While there will be plenty of new content in the paid DLC, the update itself will be free for all players and brings with it a new endgame raid – Takedown at Hadron Abyss. The update and Bounty Pack 3: A Zane to Kill For are both slated for release on June 25th.
The Bounty Pack will revolve around players experiencing a “neon-noir” arcade game. The Vault Hunters are tasked with solving an intriguing mystery: who murdered Zane’s Digi-Clone backup? The paid DLC’s missions are going to be repeatable, and will feature a new boss fight and two new mini-bosses. Regular enemies are also getting a boost with a new Glitched variant that can swap places mid-fight. The studio has also noted that each one of the new arcade machines is also a playable minigame, giving players an entirely new avenue to kill things for new guns.
The DLC will be accompanied by Bounty Pack 3: Vault Card 3, which brings in 24 new cosmetic items and four pieces of rerollable gear. The full contents of the new Vault Card include 4 rerollable pieces of gear, 4 Vault Hunter Heads usable by all Vault Hunters, 4 Vault Hunter Skins usable by all Vault Hunters, 5 Weapon Skins, 5 Vehicle Skins, 4 ECHO-4 Drone Skins, and 2 Echo 4 Attachments.
As for the raid, available to anyone with a copy of Borderlands 4, Gearbox has said that it represents “the ultimate endgame challenge” for players that have accomplished everything else across Kairos. The Takedown at Hadron Abyss raid will revolve around a brand-new zone – the Hadron Abyss – which is a secret, fully submerged lab facility that seems to be in the process of getting destroyed.
The main boss fight for the raid is the Child of Terramorphous, which players will be able to spot quite early as it swims past the lab. Before taking it on, however, the player will also have to fight through several enemies, including failed experiments from Research Center B-0451. The Vault Hunters will have an ally in the midst of the chaos – a now-reformed mad scientist named Dr. Audrey Thorne.
The overall challenge level of Takedown at Hadron Abyss will test players’ skills, survivability, and stamina, thanks to a scarcity of checkpoints and vending machines throughout the facility. Completing the raid, however, is quite profitable, since rewards include a Pearlescent weapon, 9 pieces of Legendary gear like shields, weapons, and grenades, and 5 new Class Mods. A sixth one will be added to the reward pool once the sixth Vault Hunter comes to Borderlands 4 with the release of Story Pack 2 in early September.
After wrapping up the raid itself, players can also take on challenge mode variants of Takedown at Hadron Abyss. Based on Mayhem levels, the more challenging variants of the raid add in new modifiers like time limits. Unlike previous time limits like what we saw with Subjugator and Thol the Invincible, here the limits are stricter, and the timer starts the moment you open the front door.
Borderlands 4 is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For details about its missing Nintendo Switch 2 version, check out what parent company Take-Two Interactive has to say.
