Borderlands 4 is currently not in a good state especially because there’s barely anything to do once you beat the game. We are in serious need of endgame challenges and ways to play the game with excitement, one way they did this in the past was with a second or third playthrough known as true and ultimate vault hunter mode. As we know as fans of the franchise this is a reset of the entire main games story and has you face the challenges and quests again for more experience, more rewards and even tougher enemies, which they chose for some reason to not include in borderlands 4.
Now some could argue mission replay is a variation of that system just broken down, but you would have to manually go through each mission rather than continuing at your own pace without a barrier kicking you out of the location you finish. Many have criticized the story and playability of this game because it feels less fun to play through from a new character, but having it there as an option was always nice and if you got bored of what you’re doing you can go back through the game again. But what if the second playthrough allowed a better experience and more challenges and rewards? What if upgrading to a new game plus allowed you to feel not only a heavier weight to the challenge ahead but set your sights on a new rewarding experience?
This may not be implemented into 4 and might have to wait until 5 if they want to make it but I’m gonna stay optimistic and say it has the potential to be added to the current game. I present to you the new game plus you’ve been waiting for(with my own opinions and ideas for it): Trial Vault Hunting Mode! A new spin on TVHM, instead of just adding what tvhm was before let’s add some fun things. Obviously this would reset the campaign and have every mission and side quest available to play through again and would scale to whatever level you start it at.(30-60 as of right now). The enemies would be tougher, introducing a few variations of tougher enemies from each clan, and at the very least reward double experience than normal mode.
Now what is new with “Trial Vault Hunting Mode” you may ask? This mode will have many trials to face, such as danger rifts: these spawn rarely with a purple bubble and contain a boss with insane health, this rift will either have a timer to beat the boss or will randomly shrink to force strategic moves to stay close to the boss. He will drop new gear which we will get into later.
This will also contain mayhem encounters, while mobbing areas an enemy will randomly turn into a mayhem mob that if not killed within a certain amount of time will evolve into a stronger enemy, think of goliaths but stronger, and just like goliaths they have a chance to drop good loot on final form but they deal increased damage the higher they evolve.
Another feature added would be more encore bosses available, you can toughen up the fight with any boss now with the encore mode but in tvhm it will cost a thousand eridium unless it’s the weekly encore boss.
And this last feature may cause controversy but hear me out: TVHM will now have exclusive legendary and pearl items, first lets clarify that all pearls should be exclusive to TVHM, you can discuss in the comments if you think that should be the case with all of them or not I’m open to suggestions. But TVHM will have exclusive legendary items not only including guns but ordinance, shields, and classmods that open a whole world of build diversity. And there would also be exclusive pearls which if the general consensus is pearls should NOT be exclusive to TVHM then these few would be the only ones excluded from normal mode just to have an added benefit to playing.
Let me know your thoughts opinions tweaks or suggestions for what you’d want for endgame content or a new game plus.