11 hours ago
‘Borderlands 4' Adds A Hugely Requested Feature Months Before Launch
Borderlands 4 Gearbox
Borderlands 4 has officially become my most-anticipated game of the year, between how good its previews have looked and the glowing hands-on reviews that have just hit the internet this past week.
Now, I am deeply impressed by what Gearbox has just announced. Due to a load of fan feedback and debates about the issue, they have added a feature to the game that will launch with it in September, a demonstration of both listening to the playerbase and nimble development.
The debate was whether or not the Borderlands 4 'compass' system of locating objectives and enemies was better than a 'minimap' system that did the same thing but in a different format. Gearbox adamantly defended the compass decision, but the conversation was so pervasive that it has just been announced that Borderlands 4 will indeed launch with a combat minimap option. Here's Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford showing off the system during a 32-tweet thread covering the issue:
Randy credits the community for helping to reinforce how important this issue is and that it needed to be addressed: 'This happened because of the best elements of our community. I'm talking about the real fans who sincerely want the best for the game and gave constructive notes and made reasonable arguments. You know who you are and you rock! You made this happen!'
I'm not exactly sure which side of this I come down on. I think perhaps the compass, as it seems less intrusive in the UI, but I'll try both out to be sure. Regardless, it's great that there's an option, and you really do not see this sort of thing happen this quickly and way ahead of launch, rather than a 'yeah, we'll look into that for the future' sort of thing.
It seems like it's all green lights for Borderlands 4 so far. The only negative things I've heard about it are not about the game itself, but people saying they didn't like Borderlands 3 , so they're not excited about 4. But a lot of the praise about Borderlands 4 is that it's fixing many of the issues of 3, from combat movement to looting to even the tone of its writing. That, combined with what appears to be a very reactive dev team on top of their game, I think this is going to be a big fall launch, particularly with a number of other games moving out of its way. Can't wait to play.
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