Borderlands 4′s New $30 Expansion Pack Isn’t Winning Over Fans

Borderlands 4 has struggled to get a foothold with players in the same way Borderlands 2 or even its lesser-loved sequel did years ago. The looter shooter’s first big expansion since launching last year, Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned, is meant to bring people back. But some fans aren’t happy that they have to shell out $30, nearly half the cost of the full game, to play it.

On March 26, Gearbox and 2K released the first of two large DLC expansions for Borderlands 4. This first “Story Pack” includes content like a fresh region to explore, plenty of new guns to loot, and a new playable Vault Hunter: C4SH, a “CasinoBot” given a new lease on life after winning big and finding a magical deck of cards that gives him powerful abilities.

This all sounds great, and as someone who enjoyed Borderlands 4 last year, I’m excited to hop back in and check out Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned. But players online who have hopped in already are reporting that the DLC’s main questline can be completed in about two to three hours, which does seem short. Gearbox itself has also explained that the new region is only a fraction of the size of the main game’s opening area, so it won’t be a place you can explore for a dozen hours like the main game’s big open world. For some, this all seems like too little for the DLC’s $30 price tag.

Over on Reddit, there’s a lot of discussion as to whether this new expansion is worth the price. While some have praised what’s here and the expansion’s creepy, spooky atmosphere, others don’t like the idea of paying nearly half the price of Borderlands 4 and getting one small new region, a few missions, some new guns, and one new playable character. The new DLC also has a “Mixed” rating on Steam, which goes along with the main game’s “Mixed” rating. On PSN, the DLC has a higher 4.3 out of 5 rating. On SteamDB, Borderlands 4 has more active players than it has seen in months, but still far shy of the 300k at launch.

According to the expansion’s lead game designer Josh Jeffcoat, the whole point of this new DLC is to offer players a new adventure, and he’s less concerned about endgame grinding and loot farming.  “It’s very, very specifically for speaking to those customers that want that adventure,” Jeffcoat told IGN.

“And so I loved being able to build it, and I hope people love it. I love that we got to play around with horror this time. That’s actually something that we don’t touch on very much…So we’re trying new things, new ways of exploring the world around you. I was really glad that we got real swimming in the DLC finally, because it was important to me to be able to explore worlds in a new way. And we have very limited swimming in the main game, but we have, like, entire underwater areas that you can explore and go find secrets in now. So, come back for the adventure! That’s why I built this, because I want to give people that opportunity to tell a story and go see a new place and have fun in it.”

Borderlands and its history of DLC pricing

Historically speaking, the new DLC’s price isn’t that far off from those of previous Borderlands add-ons. Post-launch expansions in Borderlands 2 cost $10 a pop and included around two to four hours of content, depending on how fast you moved and how much side stuff you engaged with during a playthrough. Borderlands 2 also sold DLC Vault Hunters for $10 each. Meanwhile, Borderlands 3 and its DLC expansions cost $15 each and were comparable in size to what was on offer in Borderlands 2. The third game never got DLC characters. Doing some quick math, buying a character and a DLC expansion in Borderlands 2 would have cost you around $20.

In Borderlands 4 in 2026, you don’t have an option to buy the new Vault Hunter separately. So it’s $30 for an expansion and character, which is more, but not outrageously more. Still, a lot has changed since Borderlands 2 launched in 2012. Games today are expected to expand and update over time, often for free. And I think this has made it harder to convince people to spend any amount of money for a post-launch DLC, much less one that costs nearly half the asking price of the full game.

If you are interested in playing Borderlands 4‘s Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned expansion pack and suspect you’ll want to play the other story DLC, too, then it might be worth buying the Vault Hunter Pack for $50. This includes access to both story packs and the two new playable characters, once launched, for $10 less than buying them separately.

Will this new $30 expansion be enough to bring back people who fell off Borderlands 4 last year? I’m not sure. But it seems Gearbox is hopeful.

“It’s definitely a good reason to come back,” said Jeffcoat. “It’s a brand new area of the game. It’s all new content, plus with the new Vault Hunter. If you were looking for a different style of gameplay, you can start the DLC directly with a new Vault Hunter right away. You don’t have to go level anybody up or play through any of the mainline missions, if you didn’t want to have to deal with doing that. You’re more than welcome to.”