Borderlands 4 dev breaks down the design of the most interesting vault hunter

Every time I play a new Borderlands game, picking the vault hunter I want to play first is tough. I gravitated towards Roland in the original game, but since then I've opted for characters like Zero, Moze, and even Claptrap. I'm having a very similar experience with Borderlands 4 already, as each of the game's new characters look like they've got incredible build variety. Thanks to a new behind the scenes video from Gearbox, however, I know now which vault hunter I'm picking first this time.

At launch, you'll have a few Borderlands 4 characters to pick from. Amon the Forgeknight has drones he can turn into weapons, Harlowe the Gravitar uses her tech and five PhDs to her advantage, Rafa is an ex-Tediore soldier in an exo-suit, and Vex is the Borderlands 4 Siren. A new video from Gearbox shows off what we can expect from the latter, and it's sold me on picking her first.

According to Gearbox, Vex is the studio's darkest take on the Siren so far. She's also the first vault hunter the team worked on, who they used to test the limits of what one of the best co-op games of the year can do. Associate art director Max Davenport also explains how Vex's action skills can change her tattoo colors and abilities. Let's say you use some kind of corrosive element or barrel, Vex's action skills will visually change to compensate for that type of damage, meaning you can go between colors on the fly. You can see her spectral animal companion change from purple to yellow in the trailer below, and I'm really excited to see how this influences the gameplay.

With the Borderlands 4 release date getting closer, I just can't wait to get my hands on all the vault hunters and experiment with them. Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has said the new game will come with "more skills per character than you found in Borderlands 3 and 2 added together," so the buildcrafting possibilities are going to feel almost endless.

You can even get started early, with a new build tool letting you explore all the skills of each character and invest level-up points into them as well. Once BL4 does drop, you'll want to bookmark this and keep coming back to it, because it's going to make buildcrafting easier than ever.

While you wait for launch, make sure you check out all the Borderlands 4 legendary weapons we know about so far. Otherwise, pick up some of the best FPS games.

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