Highlights

  • Borderlands fans eagerly anticipate a potential announcement of Borderlands 4, possibly involving the mysterious Watcher's War.
  • The Watcher and the Seer are key figures in the Borderlands universe, influencing events and causing conflict behind the scenes.
  • Borderlands 4 could delve deeper into the Watcher's War through time skips and alternating viewpoints, providing more answers to fans.

Borderlands is being discussed currently a lot lately, as numerous fans have been awaiting more information since its most recent mainline entry in 2019. Though developer Gearbox Software produced a generally popular spin-off with Tiny Tina's Wonderlands in 2022, Borderlands has usually remained the biggest focus for the studio and its wide fan base of aspiring Vault Hunters, and this largely holds true still.

Over time, Borderlands has gradually expanded into a deeper story with increasingly complex lore surrounding its universe and characters. What was initially a "simple" treasure hunt has grown into a series of intrigues and interconnected events, with strings being pulled by various forces both seen and unseen. Glimpses of one of these hidden threads, known as the Watcher's War, have been scattered throughout, but never yet fully explained. Given that, it may be high time for Borderlands 4 to embrace the Watcher's War and provide at least a few answers to its origins, purpose, and implications.

Long rumored and assumed, a recent update on the official Borderlands X/Twitter account may be a sign of BL4 's imminent announcement, or possibly something related.

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Borderlands 4 Needs to Pull The Trigger on Sirens

Sirens are some of Borderlands' most important characters and aspects, yet still remain shrouded in mystery, and BL4 could rectify this.

Borderlands 4 Should Finally Dive Into the Watcher's War

The Watcher, The Seer, and The War

First seen in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, The Watcher was revealed to be a Guardian-- a sentient automaton of Eridian origin that seems imbued with abnormally intense abilities. Related to the history of the Eridians, the ancient Siren Nyriad's records detail how and why they disappeared, describing that they had her eliminate them as The Watcher looked on so that their conjoined cosmic essence could be put in the service of strengthening the seal on Pandora's Great Vault to continue ensuring that the creature known as The Destroyer remained safely locked away. Apparently possessing foreknowledge of future events, the Watcher later relayed a dire warning to the previous group of Vault Hunters about the Destroyer, stating that every available and capable Hunter would eventually be needed to rally together against the looming world-ending threat it imposes.

In Borderlands 3's Director's Cut DLC, while investigating the Eridians' homeworld of Nekrotafeyo, players can discover information about another powerful Guardian, the Seer. The Seer was shown to have strong negative feelings about Borderlands' Sirens, who were already known to have important and mysterious roles to play in determining the fate of Borderlands' universe, and The Seer perceives the Sirens as threats to the natural causality of events. The Seer thus has been working behind the scenes to influence outcomes based on its own visions of the future in an effort to "correct" and push them into what it deems to be the necessary course of actions, occasionally coming into conflict with The Watcher's own esoteric plans. ​

Borderlands 4 Could be Framed Around the Watcher's War, Or Something More

This struggle has been brewing in the background for years in Borderlands' timeline, constantly intersecting with other major events, affecting them in unpredictable ways, and all with the reasons and motivations behind it being largely unbeknownst to most characters, and by extension, fans. With the cliffhanger seen at the end of BL3, the series seems poised to explore the interactions and ramifications of The Watcher, The Seer, and their War further.

One interesting framework Borderlands 4 could use to tell this story would possibly be via time skips or an alternating narrative of flashbacks/forwards, weaving together the missing pieces via various viewpoints and times. This could even function as a vehicle for Borderlands 4 to diversify its Vault Hunters. Even if the War doesn't form the crux of the main plot to start with, then maybe it ends up concurrent with it, converging in its latter parts. BL4 doesn't necessarily have to resolve the entire Watcher/Seer arc in a single game, but at the very least it could lead into its next chapter in a significant way, and finally provide some more firm answers about it and other related items at the same time.