Sirens have been one of the available classes of Vault Hunters ever since the first Borderlands game. However, it was not until the release of Borderlands 3 that fans got to learn so much more about the lore surrounding Sirens. That's not to say there weren't details and lore before, but that BL3 doubles and triples down on that fountain of knowledge. Now that there is more information about Maya's backstory and that the events of the latest game have revolved so much around Sirens, it seems like the next games will have to address Sirens' impact in the whole Borderlands saga.
In Borderlands 3, players see three Sirens (including Troy) die and another one go currently missing. In the game, both of the Calypso Twins are defeated eventually, but not before Troy leeches onto the beloved character Maya. Additionally, Tyreen leches onto Lilith's powers at some point but spares her life. Thankfully, Lilith gets her Siren abilities back and then leaves to try to save Pandora and Elpis. Either way, the latest game's events put Sirens in the spotlight which might indicate there is something big coming regarding them in the next games.
Who are the Sirens?
Aside from being an awesome class to choose in any of the Borderlands games, Sirens are individuals with supernatural powers. They are easily recognized for having tattoos running on one-half of their bodies, usually glowing blue. Sirens are able to use Eridium to amplify their powers.
However, excessive use of Eridium can get Sirens addicted to the element and, even though while using it Sirens can become more powerful and even regenerate, Sirens will die once the supply is cut. Even though Borderlands 3 revealed more information about the Sirens, there are still a lot of mysteries surrounding them. For instance, it is still unclear why Sirens can only be females, yet Troy Calypso did not lose his Siren abilities completely once he was separated from his twin sister Tyreen.
Furthermore, even though Handsome Jack claims in Borderlands 2 that there can only be six sirens existing simultaneously (though a seventh is also revealed to exist in BL3), there is still no explanation about why that happens or where Siren 7 is. It seems like Sirens can decide who to pass down their powers to once they die, as this has seemingly happened at least three times in the games. Once when Leda DeLeon died while giving birth to Troy and Tyreen Calypso but passed their powers to them, a second time when Maya passed down her Siren abilities to her apprentice Ava, and finally when Angel gave her powers to Patricia Tannis.
In all of these cases, it appears like the Siren giving of her powers decided who she was going to pass her abilities to although the way this happens is still a mystery. Whenever a Siren dies without giving away her powers, the abilities are just handed to another individual. The mechanism in which a Siren is chosen seems to be at random so far, though the upcoming Borderlands games will give more details about that.
Known Sirens and their powers
Throughout all of the saga, there have been thirteen Sirens in total. So far, the Sirens that have appeared in Borderlands have been: Angel, Commandant Steele, Lilith, Patricia Tannis, Maya, Amara, Asha, Ava, Dido, Nyriad, The Tempest, and Tyreen and Troy Calypso. Out of all these characters, only Amara, Ava, and Tannis are alive, although Asha and Lilith have not been confirmed as dead yet. This means that there are potentially one to three Sirens coming in the next installments.
Even though not every single Siren has made an appearance in Borderlands, there is information about what powers most of them had. So far, Sirens are known to possess one of the following abilities: phasewalk, phaselock, phaseshift, phasetrance, phaseleech, or animal control. The latter was Asha's ability which has only appeared in the books.
Phasewalk is the ability to teleport through time and space and was the first power seen in the games as it is Lilith's. Phaselock consists of locking a person or object in a force orb and it is Maya's and Amara's ability. Phaseshift allows Sirens to manipulate technology and it the power that Angel handed down to Tannis. Amara has the ability to phasetrance which allows her to have additional transparent body parts. Finally, phaseleech is the ability to absorb life energy from other beings.
Sirens in the Upcoming Borderlands Games
Even though Borderlands 3 gave the fans more details about the Sirens, there are still a lot of unanswered questions that need to be addressed. First of all, it seems like Maya's home planet Athenas, just like Pandora, has a deep connection to Sirens which is yet to explain what it consists in. After all, Sirens are one of the few classes with supernatural abilities instead of just an amazing command of weapons and that has a lot of possible consequences to Borderland's narrative.
Additionally, now that it was established that the phaseleech ability allows Sirens to feed off the energy of Vault monsters, it seems like the upcoming games will have to continue that idea. This is particularly important since the Vaults were once seen as the ultimate objective for Vault Hunters offering them riches. Once Vaults started being opened and the Vault monsters came into the picture, it seemed like these pieces of alien technology were more of a threat than a reward. However, once Tyreen Calypso was able to merge with the once undefeatable The Destroyer, there might be something more for Sirens to exploit in the vaults instead of just Eridium.
Furthermore, it is yet to be seen what the Seer's tie with the Sirens is really about. One of the added missions in the Director's Cut consisted of following Ava in her murder mystery quests, leading them to The Seer. There, it is revealed that the Seer had been manipulating Vault Hunters and seems to have additional knowledge which might affect the future of the saga completely.
Finally, there is more about Borderland's lore that needs to be addressed in the upcoming games such as the Guardians. Now that Borderlands 3 has given such an important role to Sirens, it is only reasonable that the next installments will tie Sirens with some of the other mysteries and unanswered questions from the game in big and major ways.
Borderlands 3 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
