Borderlands 3 Director Says More Characters Aren't Coming

Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel both added more playable characters post-launch, but don't expect the same from Borderlands 3. At a Q&A near the end of the Borderlands Show stream, game director Paul Sage ruled out the possibility and explained his reasoning.

According to Sage, Gearbox's data from previous expansions has shown that most people don't stick with additional characters, and so the decision was made to differentiate the four main characters through different kinds of builds.

"Probably not. No," he answered in response to a question about additional characters. "You were asking me earlier about data that we use. And one of the things we actually saw was that once people have picked their character--not everybody, there are no 'everybodys,' but a lot of people--stick with that character and want to remain. Furthermore, in Borderlands 3, we really concentrated on diversity within the characters themselves and having a lot of different builds. So that was where we put our eggs, in the basket. Now some people might want more but I don't think that's the way to go, not for Borderlands 3."

He went on to say that in its data collection from previous games, they "might see people play five levels [with a DLC character] and then back to their main."

Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel both added two additional characters in addition to the four starting classes, for six total. Borderlands 3 again has four starting characters, but introduces active skills for each branch of the skill tree, each with their own modifications. This is likely what Sage was referring to as diversity within the existing characters. If you need a hand picking which one is best for you, refer to our Vault Hunter guide.

The Borderlands Show stream also detailed the Bloody Harvest DLC, a free piece of Halloween content coming in October. And the show also dropped a Shift Code, so be sure to visit our Shift Codes index to claim it and the rest of your Golden Keys.