Highlights
- Dead Island 2 and Borderlands share similarities in terms of four-player co-op, powerful characters, and a charming sense of humor, and Borderlands 4 should make sure one more trait is shared between the games.
- In Dead Island 2, players can keep and upgrade their favorite weapons through level matching, unlike in Borderlands where players often have to abandon great weapons as they level up.
- Borderlands could benefit from adopting Dead Island 2’s level matching system, allowing players to raise the level of their weapons to match their character’s current level. To do this, money or Eridium could be used.
Despite some wildly different premises, Dead Island 2 and Borderlands 4 have their fair share of similarities. Both offer four-player co-op where gamers control powerful characters, and even if immune survivors are inherently different from Vault Hunters, all the characters display a charming sense of humor. Loot is a focus in both games, too, as players will constantly be swapping out their guns when exploring Pandora in Borderlands, just as they will change their melee weapons regularly when trapped inside Dead Island 2‘s Hell-A. However, in Dead Island 2, players who get attached to a weapon do not have to abandon it.
Given how many weapons will drop when slaying the undead and completing quests in Dead Island 2, players may feel the need to swap weapons instead of keeping one. However, if they love the perks and stats they have on a specific Kukri or pair of Claws, they do not have to worry about finding another version of that same weapon that is a higher level than the one they have been wielding. With some in-game money and the press of a button, players can make their weapon of choice match their character’s current level, making it as viable as any other high-level drop. This is something that Borderlands should consider borrowing for its next game.
Predicting Borderlands 4’s Release Window
In the absence of an official announcement from Gearbox Software, here is a prediction of Borderlands 4’s release date based on known information.
Borderlands Can Benefit From Dead Island 2’s Level Matching
Borderlands Players Currently Have to Give Up a Lot of Great Weapons
While switching weapons constantly in a series that regularly advertises the millions of guns it offers makes sense, that does not mean that Borderlands players want to abandon the best guns in the game if they are lucky enough to acquire them. Borderlands’ Legendaries are not only powerful, but can roll with a number of stat differences that make some drops better than others. Unfortunately, if players get an excellent drop at level 30, it will quickly lose its power as players ascend to level 50. This is a genuine shame, as players can be forced to farm for a better version of a gun, shield, or class mod that they already have – something that level matching could fix.
Gear becoming outdated in Borderlands not only happens as players work toward the base game level cap, as the problem also returns when DLC releases. Once Borderlands‘ level cap is raised to 60, 65, 72, and so on, an entire vault of strong level 50 guns players farmed for becomes irrelevant.
How Level-Matching Could Work in Borderlands
Instead of players needing to retire great gear if they acquire it too soon, Dead Island 2’s level matching could be adopted in Borderlands 4. After all, the franchise uses money just like Dead Island 2, even if money drops in higher amounts and Borderlands’ vending machines are visually different from the human vendors players spend their money at in Dead Island 2. Come Borderlands 4, players could look at a weapon in their inventory and hold down a button to raise its level to whatever they are currently at, with all the item’s stats ascending. While this would not eliminate Borderlands’ farming, which is a good thing since that is a key part of the grind, players would not have to farm for the same items multiple times if they get a good roll early in their playthrough or if the level cap is raised.
Borderlands could even let players boost base game gear to their current Mayhem level or True Vault Hunter quality, though this would need to require more resources. Perhaps players could need to use Eridium to upgrade a weapon into Mayhem or True Vault Hunter territory, or they could need to merge it with a copy of that weapon earned in the higher difficulties. Alternatively, a much larger sum of money could be needed for the process. Regardless, once players purchase all the cosmetic items and storage upgrades, there is not much to do with Eridium and money in Borderlands 3, so using them for level matching on weapons in BL4 could be a great way to ensure they are always relevant.
