Gearbox Software attended PAX West 2024 to reveal a collection of concept art and new details for its recently announced looter-shooter sequel, Borderlands 4.
Each shot highlights new foreign locations for players to explore while also not revealing too much about how the fourth Borderlands game will shake up the formula. If there’s one thing to take away from the concept art drop it’s that Gearbox wants to give players a variety of areas to loot and shoot through. One image shows a smokey, candle-lit room decorated with glowing blue lighting, while another shows a small neon town surrounded by snowy mountains. You can see some of what Borderlands 4 has in store in the gallery below.
“The Borderlands universe is super interesting and there is so much to get to play with,” art director Adam May said when describing the concept images at PAX West. “It is a post-apocalyptic world but in the distant future, so it’s like high-tech but lo-fi. It creates all kinds of interesting opportunities with what we can do with tech, our weapons, our characters, and world in general.”
The Gearbox team teased even more at PAX West. For starters, the Borderlands 4 teaser that was revealed at gamescom Opening Night Live earlier this month is now confirmed to take place seconds following the conclusion of Borderlands 3’s story. With new parts of its universe to explore, the team has taken the opportunity to incorporate technology in ways that haven’t been touched on in the past.
“I can’t say much, but this has a lot to do with it here,” May said. “A lot of the things we haven’t had much of a chance to play with too much in the past is some of that high technology stuff.”
He continued, teasing that the Gearbox team got to play with more tech and color than ever before, calling Borderlands 4 “the most diverse and beautiful game we’ve ever made.” A Borderlands 4 release date has not been revealed, but it is expected to launch for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S sometime in 2025. Gearbox still has more work to do before revealing more, so in the meantime, be sure to catch up on some of the more popular fan theories that have spawned from that first teaser trailer.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.
Few premises are more immediately appealing than Squirrel with a Gun’s. A sandbox game where you control a gun-toting rodent and wreak havoc on the local population? Yes, please! And that premise certainly delivers to some extent, with quite a few laugh-out-loud funny moments right out the gate and a lot of enjoyment to be found in the goofy adventure’s opening hours. But this wacky Sciuridae simulator isn’t sitting on a stockpile of comedic acorns, instead stuffing its cheeks with silly gags all in one go, before finding its stores empty as the winter season fast approaches. Compounding that short-lived mirth are fairly serious performance issues, including regular crashes that made me repeat long stretches, which really took the wind out of my furry wings. Squirrel with a Gun still offers a couple hours of amusing sandbox goofiness, and I eagerly await a more fleshed out sequel in the same vein as Goat Simulator 3, but this first shot misses the target once the joke has run its course.
Like Untitled Goose Game and Octodad: Dadliest Catch before it, Squirrel with a Gun is a zany sandbox game where you play a troublemaking animal who becomes a real problem for the humans around them. After obtaining a pistol from a clumsy government spook, you’re let loose on a suburban community to rob people at gunpoint, wantonly destroy personal property, and exercise your Second Amendment right to blast fools in the face like the bloodthirsty little varmint you are. It’s a good time! But that dopey bit is exactly as shallow as it sounds, and though it only took me four hours to roll credits, it took even less time for the laughs to peter out.
Fighting as a squirrel packing heat proves pretty hollow. You’ll use pistols, rifles, and even grenade launchers to send Agent Smith-looking sons of a gun to their doom – and they mostly stand around and let you do so while putting up very little resistance. They’re the only enemies to be found here, and they all go down in a couple of shots. One highlight is when you stun enemies and are then able to kill them off with a special finishing move, like peppering an enemy with lead from an uzi or swatting their grasping hands away while you perform gunjitsu like a furry John Wick. Unfortunately, there’s only one of these animations for each weapon, so like a lot of things in this adventure, the novelty runs out fairly quickly. There isn’t much to combat beyond these basics, and each weapon feels like just another indistinctive piece in the arsenal in a matter of seconds.
There are two boss fights to shake things up, however, where you take on giant military vehicles, like a tank. These encounters are quick sequences where you shoot at glowing spots and whittle down a health bar, which doesn’t provide much of a challenge, but they are at least a nice change of pace and have a few gags that made me smile. If more stuff like this made it into the story, it might have gone a long way to extend my enjoyment, but like everything else in this brief adventure, these antics are fleeting.
The puzzle-platforming, on the other hand, is much more satisfying. Firing your weapons as a means of double-jumping or otherwise propelling yourself into the air to overcome platforming challenges is far more interesting than any of the combat in Squirrel with a Gun. The submachine gun is a great way to keep yourself airborne for extended periods of time while crossing gaps, but nothing beats the rocket launcher in terms of pure height – it sends you sailing into the air to land (mostly) safely on faraway platforms. None of the platforming is particularly tricky, but making your fluffy avatar sail from place to place doesn’t get old nearly as quickly as the rest of the gameplay.
Unfortunately, Squirrel with a Gun’s good times are prone to interruption by technical issues that proved quite problematic, even during its brief runtime. I found myself staring at a frozen screen more than five times in as many hours, losing a good chunk of progress in the process, and was forced to repeat entire sections. By the end, I got into the fear-driven habit of rushing over to the static save points that can be found in each area – and a good thing too, because crashes seemed to happen more frequently in the back half of the adventure. And that’s not the only issue I ran into, either: One cutscene triggered and forgot to add the squirrel where he’s supposed to go, which broke everything and forced me to reset, and there were several times where my tiny buddy passed through geometry when moving at high speeds and sent me tumbling to the ground, which forced me to repeat certain platforming sections. Thankfully, Squirrel with a Gun already embraces a certain kind of chaotic energy, so the occasional goofy glitch isn’t the end of the world. But it did make some of the otherwise entertaining sections lose some of their luster once I had to replay them a third time in the wake of a crash.
To celebrate the release of the excellent Castlevania Dominus Collection, we’re republishing this ranked list of every Castlevania game to appear on Nintendo systems.
Remember, this is a reader-ranked list governed by each game’s User Rating on our games database. As such, it is subject to real-time change as the ratings fluctuate. Feel free to get in there and rate the games you’ve played if you haven’t already.Enjoy!
Hey folks! The PlayStation Podcast crew punches in a quick episode covering this week’s gaming news and upcoming releases. Plus discussions on Astro Bot, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure.
Stuff We Talked About
Upcoming releases:
Astro Bot | PS5
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions | PS5, PS4
PlayStation Monthly Games for September:
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions
MLB The Show 24
Little Nightmares II
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions Gameplay Blog
Astro Bot Character Design Blog
Hands-on reports:
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater
NBA 2K25
Monster Hunter Wilds
Black Myth: Wukong
Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure
The Cast
Download the image
Kristen Zitani – Senior Content Communications Specialist, SIE
Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.
[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]
Star Wars Outlaws is one of the biggest gaming releases of 2024, and IGN is your ultimate destination for the game. Whether you’re looking for guides to assist your journey through each of the massive planets or for a review to determine if you’re going to pick up the game, we’ve got you covered.
Detailed Map Genie Maps for Each Planet
The IGN team has Map Genie maps live for each planet in the game, ensuring you won’t miss a collectible or side quest in your playthrough! These maps will continue to be updated throughout the next week, but dozens of collectibles are already live across four planets!
Leading Game Help
IGN is your go-to for all the latest guides on Star Wars Outlaws, from a complete walkthrough to tips on Kessel Sabacc. Check out some of our available tips to help you get started below:
Be sure to stay tuned for more, as we’ll be updating and adding new guides well past launch day!
Star Wars Outlaws – The IGN Review
IGN Video Producer Tristan Ogilvie reviewed Star Wars Outlaws, giving the game a 7/10. In our review, he stated, “It’s ironic that Kay’s ship is called the Trailblazer, since there’s actually not a whole lot of ideas in Star Wars Outlaws that haven’t been done before in other action and open-world adventures. Instead, it’s quite like the Millenium Falcon: a bucket of bolts held together with repurposed parts and prone to breaking down, but at its best it’s more than capable of jolting your pleasure centres into Star Wars fan hyperspace.”
More Star Wars: Outlaws Content on IGN
Beyond game help, Map Genie, and our review, IGN has even more Star Wars Outlaws coverage available now and on the way! Our IGNFirst coverage dives deep into the game with exclusive commentary from the developers at Ubisoft Massive. Moving forward, we’ll also have plenty of breakdowns surrounding the game’s biggest features, analysis on the story, and all kinds of news surrounding the upcoming DLC.
Star Wars Collection at IGN Store
Last but not least, be sure to check out our Star Wars Collection at IGN Store. Whether you’re in the market for a new shirt, figure, or even hot sauce, there’s dozens of Star Wars-themed items available now.
Amazon Games said it “regrets confusion” over remarks by CEO Christoph Hartmann on voice acting and AI that drew sharp criticism online, seeking to clarify that it thinks generative AI needs to be used “responsibly” and calling actors “essential creative contributors.”
Amazon’s statement was in response to a lengthy comment from Hartmann, in which he mused on the difficulties games face with lengthy development cycles, and suggested that AI may “streamline processes” and help shorten the time it takes to make games. Asked for his thoughts on the SAG-AFTRA union strike seeking better AI protections, Hartmann responded in part:
“[W]hen we talk about AI, first of all, hopefully it will help us to have new gameplay ideas, which has nothing to do with taking work away from anyone. And especially for games, we don’t really have acting… The majority of the team sits in programming and that’s not going to go away because that’s all about innovation. If it takes something, it will be really the boring parts,” he said.
He then went on to opine that it may be helpful in localization, then added that he doesn’t believe any technology can “replace human creativity and the uniqueness… There’s always something special.”
While Hartmann sought to moderate his comments, they nevertheless provoked anger in some quarters. SAG-AFTRA Interactive Media Agreement negotiating committee chair Sarah Elmaleh was among those who took to X/Twitter to criticize Hartmann, saying, “What’s funny about this whole Amazon Games CEO quote is *I* thought it sounded like AI had written his statement. Turns out I’ve been unfair. To the AI.”
She subsequently provided a lengthy statement to IGN on behalf of SAG-AFTRA.
“Games don’t really have acting” is a wild statement. I’ve devoted most of my life to games performance, just like whole generations of new performers inspired by great games performers before them. Swaths of fans seek out these performers to tell them how much they connect with these characters through their performances, and the humanity they bring to them.
I’m an actor and performance director, not a CEO. But it seems to me that several of the largest companies in the world sitting down to negotiate with us aren’t doing it for their health — it’s because they recognize the proven viability of a games business model that requires human performance, needs union performers. That player connection and emotional investment I mention is correlated with billions and billions of dollars. Not all kinds of games require performance, but giving up using actors completely might just represent a significant financial pivot or sunk loss cost for our bargaining partners. But again, I’m not a fancy business person.
When CEOs do speak effectively and accurately on behalf of their company, they do so by listening to their employees. Whether game design, localization, programming, acting, anything – these highly specialized and professionalized workers are the ones who understand whether and how AI might be assistive or detrimental in their work. And workers should have the right and the means to advocate for the proper use of this tool. That’s what SAG-AFTRA is doing, why I’m proud and grateful to be part of a union for this craft I love, and why I fully support the organizing efforts of developers who likewise deserve their say in how we implement this technology to best serve this industry, to best serve videogames, to best serve our audiences. To this and all CEOs, including our own bargaining group — we stand ready to negotiate.
Asked for clarification on what Hartmann meant by his comments, and for their response to the fact that games such as New World utilize voice actors, an Amazon spokesperson told IGN:
We regret the confusion stemming from these comments. Of course games developed and published by Amazon Games include actors, who we consider to be essential creative contributors, both now and in the future. Like most developers and publishers we do not keep actors on staff, and Christoph’s comments were specific to our internal development teams. As with any tool, we believe generative AI needs to be used responsibly and we’re carefully exploring how we can use it to help solve the technical challenges development teams face.
Generative AI has become a flash point among artists, actors, and other creators throughout the games industry, many of whom fear that they will see their roles reduced or replaced in an already volatile industry. In July, the SAG-AFTRA union went on strike in an affort to gain stronger AI protections for video game voice actors.
In a follow-up comment in response to Amazon’s statement, Elmaleh said, “If Amazon Games would like to explore how AI can be used responsibly to solve technical challenges in game development as it relates to acting, we welcome them to a direct dialogue at any time. We have the blueprint ready.”
In the meantime, Amazon Games is trying to expand its footprint outside of MMOs, among other things serving as the publisher for Tomb Raider and the recently-announced King of Meat. Earlier this week, Amazon Games and Bandai Namco announced that Blue Protocol would no longer be coming to the U.S. New World: Aeternum, an updated console release of the game released in 2021, is set to release on October 15.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
Star Wars: Outlaws may focus on a new character – smuggler, thief, and all-around scoundrel Kay Vess – but it’s also a story set smack dab in the middle of the original Star Wars trilogy. The game takes place in between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. That leaves plenty of room for familiar heroes and villains to appear during the course of the game, and they definitely do.
How exactly does Outlaws fit into the bigger picture of the Original Trilogy? How does the game forge connections between Kay and iconic Star Wars heroes and villains? Here’s what you need to know.
Warning: this article contains full spoilers for Star Wars: Outlaws!
Lady Qi’ra and Crimson Dawn
In Outlaws, Kay slowly makes a name for herself and works her way up the chain of command in the game’s various criminal syndicates. It’s inevitable, then, that she’ll eventually encounter some familiar faces. The Star Wars franchise certainly has its share of memorable crime lords.
Kay eventually encounters Crimson Dawn’s leader, Lady Qi’ra, during her missions on the icy planet of Kijimi. Qi’ra was played by Emilia Clarke in 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story (though she’s voiced by Tamaryn Payne here), where we learned that she was Han’s old flame before being recruited into Dryden Vos’ organization. The movie ends with Vos being killed off and Qi’ra traveling to meet the real boss of Crimson Dawn, Darth Maul.
If you only follow the Star Wars movies, you might not know how Qi’ra’s story has unfolded since then. She eventually takes control of Crimson Dawn herself after Maul is killed shortly before the events of A New Hope (as seen in the animated series Star Wars Rebels). Qi’ra has gone on to play a pivotal role in Marvel’s Star Wars comics; she’s at the center of 2021’s War of the Bounty Hunters crossover, where she steals the carbonite-frozen Han from Boba Fett and auctions him off to the highest bidder. In Outlaws, ND-5 even references that ill-fated auction in a conversation with Kay.
Qi’ra wants to free the galaxy from the tyranny of the Sith, which is what she’s referencing when she talks to Kay about true freedom.
As War of the Bounty Hunters and subsequent storylines establish, Qi’ra’s ultimate goal with Crimson Dawn is to use it to destabilize the Empire. A loyal pupil of Maul, Qi’ra understands better than most how Emperor Palpatine has been pulling the strings of the galaxy for decades. Qi’ra wants to free the galaxy from the tyranny of the Sith, which is what she’s referencing when she talks to Kay about true freedom. So although Qi’ra comes across as an antagonistic figure in this game, manipulating Kay and using her to help weaken the upstart Clan Ashiga, ultimately her goals are pretty noble.
What happens to Qi’ra after the events of Star Wars: Outlaws? As explored in comics like Star Wars: Crimson Reign and Star Wars: Hidden Empire, Qi’ra eventually makes her move against Palpatine. While unsuccessful in destroying the Sith herself, Qi’ra’s actions help give the Rebel Alliance a much-needed boost and lay the groundwork for Palpatine’s eventual defeat at the Battle of Endor. With Crimson Dawn in ruins, Qi’ra goes into hiding. Her post-Return of the Jedi story has yet to be told.
The Wrath of Darth Vader
Is it a proper Star Wars game without an appearance from the Dark Lord of the Sith? Darth Vader himself plays a small but key role in Outlaws as players learn the truth behind Sliro and Zerek Besh. It turns out that the galaxy’s newest and hottest criminal syndicate is actually just a front for the Imperial Security Bureau. Sliro himself is a soldier for the Empire, albeit one who has used his position to amass great wealth and power.
The ISB has played a major role in many Star Wars projects in the Disney era, most notably Star Wars: Jedi Survivor and the Andor series. This organization represents the other form of Imperial power during the Galactic Civil War. Star Destroyers and Death Stars are great, but when it comes to rooting out terrorists and Rebel sympathizers, sometimes a subtler hand is needed.
The goal of Zerek Besh is to build a vast intelligence network that can pierce the criminal underworld and reveal the identity of many hidden Rebel agents.
As Outlaws reveals, that’s exactly what Palpatine has tasked Sliro with accomplishing. The goal of Zerek Besh is to build a vast intelligence network that can pierce the criminal underworld and reveal the identity of many hidden Rebel agents. But although Sliro has managed to quickly build a powerful syndicate, he hasn’t actually produced the results Palpatine desires. That’s where Vader comes in. He’s a terrifying enforcer meant to remind Sliro that failure for someone in his position means death.
Vader ultimately seals Sliro’s doom by agreeing to hand control of Zerek Besh over to Jaylen Vrax (revealed to be Sliro’s estranged half-brother). Thanks to Kay, though, Jaylen is stopped before he can give over the valuable intel to the Empire, and Zerek Besh is effectively destroyed along with Jaylen himself.
In her own way, Kay herself winds up contributing to the downfall of the Empire in the build-up to Return of the Jedi. Zerek Besh’s destruction robs the ISB of a valuable resource and weakens what had been one of Palpatine’s most potent weapons against the Rebellion. The failure of Zerek Besh likely made Palpatine pivot all the more towards battlestations and weapons of mass destruction as a means of maintaining order. And we all know how that works out for him in the end…
Gambling With Lando Calrissian
While most of the core heroes of the Star Wars Original Trilogy remain MIA in Outlaws, busy with rebuilding the struggling Rebel Alliance, Kay does meet one key figure during her travels. It’s only fitting that she rubs elbows with fellow scoundrel and gambler Lando Calrissian (voiced by Lindsay Owen Pierre).
Lando appears to be up to his old tricks in the game, as he approaches Kay with a mission to recover a valuable artifact he gambled away in a high-stakes game of Sabacc. That’s a callback to the time Lando infamously lost the Millennium Falcon to Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story.
But after winning the item back and helping a band of Rebels fight off an Imperial attack, Kay learns the truth behind her mission. Lando was using the artifact as a covert way of retrieving intelligence from a Rebel spy planted in the criminal underworld. His days of idly gambling away his most valuable possessions are behind him.
This questline gives greater insight into Lando’s role in the Rebellion before becoming “General Calrissian” in Return of the Jedi. At this point in the timeline, Lando and Chewbacca have tried and failed to liberate Han from Jabba the Hutt’s palace, and Lando hasn’t yet taken up a cover identity as one of Jabba’s palace guards. He’s simply biding his time, fighting alongside the Rebels and proving he has the heart of a hero.
Lando also shows us what Kay could become if she, like him, commits herself fully to a cause bigger than herself. As mentioned earlier, Kay winds up dealing a significant blow to the Empire without necessarily even meaning to. What could she accomplish if she put her mind to it? For now, though, Kay is concerned with protecting her own crew and making a few credits wherever she can. Maybe she’ll think bigger in the sequel.
We know this won’t be the only encounter between Kay and Lando. The first DLC story campaign for Outlaws, “Wild Card,” will reunite the two as Kay enters a Sabacc tournament while working for the Empire.
Meeting the Future Resistance
Outlaws may be set during the Original Trilogy, but there is one familiar character from the Sequel Trilogy who appears during the course of the game. During a mission on the planet Akiva, Kay encounters a teenage mechanic named Temmin Wexley (voiced by Sam Scherzer). Fans may know him better as hotshot Resistance pilot Snap Wexley (played by Greg Grunberg in the movies).
The game builds on the origin story for Temmin that was established in the Star Wars Aftermath novels. At this point in his life, Temmin is on his own, with his father having been captured by the Empire and his mother serving in the Rebellion. He’s a humble mechanic who builds droids to keep himself company. Eventually, though, Temmin will follow in his mother’s footsteps and join the Rebels, training under no less an authority on piloting starships than Wedge Antilles. The rest is history.
The Hondo Ohnaka Easter Egg
Outlaws features an Easter egg that seems to be directly setting up future DLC missions. During one of Kay’s encounters with Tatooine’s Sheriff Quint, Quint references the infamous pirate Hondo Ohnaka. Hondo is basically ubiquitous in animated series like The Clone Wars and Rebels, and it seems he’s going to make his video game debut soon.
This Easter egg seems to be setting up the game’s second DLC campaign, dubbed “A Pirate’s Fortune.” There, Kay will team up with Hondo to seek out a legendary treasure. But can she actually trust this notoriously self-serving criminal? Probably not.
Which iconic Star Wars character should Kay Vess meet next? Cast your vote in our poll above and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
I took a longer lunch break today, and must now Pay The Reaper by staying after work. Fortunately, I’ve spent my penance playing the demo for Witching Stone, which applies the magic of shape-matching to the magic of, well, magic. Out on 16th September, it’s a pixelart charmer that “combines elements of puzzle games, roguelites and deckbuilders”, much as you’d combine a red circle and two golden triangles to spark a lightning bolt.
A new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is here and we are excited! So excited, in fact, that we have watched it another 20 times to narrow down our top reveals — the things that really got us beaming cheek to cheek.
These aren’t blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em details like those we spotted after going frame-by-frame through the reveal trailer (and last month’s ‘Traversing Hyrlue‘ follow-up), but they are some big ol’ game-changers worthy of highlighting.
