Despite being a franchise all about guns, bandit-blasting, and toilet humor, Borderlands has quite a few secrets hidden up its sleeve that have kept fans invested over the years. Few of its secrets are as well-guarded as an upcoming war that was foretold by the Watcher. With how things are set up right now, that may be a problem for Borderlands 4 to solve.
Borderlands 4 will likely settle many of the storylines opening by Borderlands 3, but if anything Borderlands 4 should finally crack open the Pandora's box that is the Watcher war, or ensure fans that it will stay shut for good. Gearbox has a lot of potential to tap, and either way it could open new avenues of storytelling.
Borderlands' Foreshadowed Watcher's War
An upcoming war was discussed by Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel's Watcher in 2014, and then left to stew for almost a decade. Fans have been clamoring to know what factions this war may involve, and who will be the one to start it. In Borderlands 3 it is revealed that a being similar to the Watcher, known as the Seer, manipulates history in order to achieve a positive outcome for the universe. But that begs the question of why the Seer would allow a war to threaten the fate of the universe.
This was one of the biggest issues with Borderlands 3's story; players only received more foreshadowing in the form of the Seer in DLC, kicking the can much further down the road. It felt tacked on, doing very little in the way of building hype - which is essential when teasing a storyline that's going to be possibly bigger than anything which has come before it. The roles that the Watcher and Seer play in this upcoming war are interesting to consider, but have to deliver on more than just vague mysteries at some point in the near future.
While there are many pros for including the Watcher's war in Borderlands 4, Gearbox Software may just opt to forget about it. As mentioned before, Borderlands 3 doesn't do anything obvious in the way of moving its story toward the Watcher's war, so if it's considered too ambitious or unnecessary, it wouldn't be surprising if current writers want to drop the storyline altogether.
While this would be a pretty big let down to longtime fans, there could also be a more obvious direction in hindsight thanks to some hints which have gone overlooked. In Borderlands 3, a seventh siren was hinted to exist, one said to be more dangerous than all the others. Perhaps this siren is locked away in a vault somewhere, ultimately being a big clue behind the Watcher's war that fans don't know about yet. The idea of a seventh siren being brought up likely means that Gearbox Software is bound to bring it back up somewhere, whether that be in DLC or as an integral part of the Watcher's war.
Whatever the case may be, hopefully Borderlands 4 does something with the storyline rather than keeping fans in limbo forever. Whether it's better for Gearbox to move away from this defining feature in Borderlands 4 or include it is up in the air, but either way the storyline needs to come to an end.
Borderlands 4 is in development.