The first pack of stories for Border countries 4 does a few things better than the main game while introducing one of the best new vault hunters in the series.
When Border countries 4 released in September of last year, it may have felt like a throwback, a story-driven first-person shooter designed for single or co-op play, with its familiar mobile-shaded visual style and whimsical humor. But it was a lot of fun, and very successfulwith developer Gearbox equipping it with an ever-expanding endgame, along with a surprising level of replayability.
Now Gearbox has released the first substantial piece of Borderlands 4 DLC; the first of two story expansions discussed, this one titled Mad Ellie And The Vault Of The Damned. It introduces an entirely new area on the planet of Kairos – basically a glacier, but with a lot more character and content than you’d expect to find in a snowy wasteland – as well as a new story arc and a new vault hunter, called C4SH.
The Story Pack invites you to use any course you may already have going into Borderlands 4 and starts you off at level 13, which is useful as it gives you some points with which to improve your vault hunter skills. You can choose any vault hunter, but it definitely makes sense to play as C4SH.
Story-wise, as the DLC’s title suggests, several familiar characters from the Borderlands universe make prominent appearances, notably Ellie, Moxxi’s wild daughter; Moxxi himself; and the evil Mancubus, who did not appear in the main game.
The story begins slowly, introducing you to the new environment and its deadly flora and fauna as you follow Ellie’s trail. It’s pleasantly different from the rest of Kairos: a much more anarchic space, in which various giant spaceships and pods have crashed, and a mysterious megalith is twisting everyone’s minds, causing them to hear ghostly voices.
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The gearbox has taken full advantage of the quirkiness that such an installation allows. For example, your treasure hunter gets dragged into dream sequences involving the captain of a doomed, crashed spaceship and his cryogenically frozen son. After that slow start, the story explodes into weirdness (much of it explained by Mancubus, a connoisseur of the weird) and only gets better as it goes on.
It takes about six hours to complete the main story, but a bunch of side missions add something up to another nine hours. Plus, there are bunkers to discover and claim (by killing their resident bosses), along with all sorts of environmental encounters, so there’s close to 20 hours of new gameplay in the Story Pack, which is pretty meaty – but again, the price is considerable.
The side missions are worth pursuing; some are designed primarily to make you laugh, while others are more complicated and introduce you to previously neglected map parts. Their overall diversity is evident, with some encouraging you to complete ridiculously wacky tasks, which is exactly the kind of thing most want from a Borderlands game. Almost all of them give the impression that Gearbox had a lot of fun creating them.
The new vault hunter, C4SH is definitely one of the highlights of the DLC. He is a robot and a former professional gambler. He’s not that visually interesting, but his action skills might just be the best of any of the game’s vault hunters.
He has three: the ability to spin in a frenzy firing revolvers from each hand, roll three dice and create a golem (whose level depends on the result of his dice roll), and the ability to throw cards that deal various types of elemental damage to surrounding enemies.
The latter was a firm favorite of ours, as certain colored cards deal massive damage and can be used with precision so you can use a set period of card grabs to whittle down a swarm of surrounding enemies to death. And as you level up C4SH’s action skills, it becomes even more powerful – you can, for example, unlock red cards that give instant kills to more basic enemies.
The DLC environment also impresses; it has more verticality than the main areas of Kairos and points where you have to use all the tools at your disposal – including jumps and grapples – to reach hidden places. Plus, it’s got diversity: there are lush underground oases in the glacier and pools you have to swim through to get to certain places, along with giant wrecked spaceships that also offer traversal challenges.
Overall, the level design feels tighter than that of the main game, perhaps an indication that that aspect of Borderlands 4 – whose map, of course, had a much larger area – was a bit rushed. Whether that was the case or not, this is pretty much an essential purchase if you enjoyed the original game. It’s meaty, beautifully designed, and far more compelling than the main game; it also has the best vault hunter and is generally up there with the best parts of the franchise.
If you haven’t played Borderlands 4 but are considering it, then it’s a good idea to pick up a version that includes the story DLC. Another reason why now would be a good time to do so is that Gearbox has been working hard to technically improve the game since release, and it’s noticeably smoother and smoother than it was last fall.
Plus, it features a lot more to do when you finish all the storylines. Mad Ellie And The Vault Of The Damned does a great job of highlighting the fact that Borderlands 4 is a game that’s getting better over time, a testament to its solid infrastructure design when it was first released.
Borderlands 4 Review Summary – Story Pack 1: Mad Ellie And The Vault Of The Damned
February: An impressive, almost essential expansion for Borderlands 4, with a great new vault hunter and some of the best level and mission design in the franchise.
The pros: Great new vault hunter, tight level design and imaginative and varied side missions. Good new bosses and lots of content.
Disadvantages: Still some lingering issues, like the dodgy direction indicator. Very expensive, with some unclear voices.
Result: 8/10
Formats: PC (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5*
Price: £26.99
Publisher: 2K
Developer: Gearbox Software
Publication date: March 26, 2026
Estimated age: 18
*Nintendo Switch 2 version has been is postponed indefinitely.
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