Borderlands 3 adds a LOT of features that make the game experience much better while also improving on what made 2 and The Pre-Sequel! very well liked. Behold!
- NPCs can now revive you, which removes the often frustrating problem of an ally killing an enemy you were trying to use for a Second Wind. You have to down yourself at one point so an NPC can resuscitate you and unlock the way onward.
- You can now climb over ledges, so you don't have to do the whole thing over again if you miss a jump and platforming in general is far less finicky.
- Eridium is now only for cosmetic items and purple-tier Anointed gear; inventory capacity upgrades are now purchased from Marcus with plain ordinary cash, akin to the first game.
- Dahl guns can now be switched between fire modes on the fly instead of the arbitrary and cumbersome "burst fire while zoomed" "feature" present in the past games. They also come with multiple different numbers of round bursts (Up to five!) as opposed to just three.
- Maliwan guns can now switch between two elements, making them considerably less situational.
- Hyperion guns, while still having accuracy and recoil improvements upon continuous fire, no longer start with such outrageous recoil for the first few shots.
- The Lost and Found stations found on Sanctuary III will return any lost items you accidentally dropped while on missions. Accidentally dropped a Legendary off a cliff? No problem!
- The bank is shared throughout the player's account across all characters, negating the need for a separate deposit to transfer items between vault hunters. The bank itself has immensely expanded to compensate for multiple character use.
- Legendary drops are now highlighted on the mini-map with a golden star as well as making a unique sound when spawned, making them very hard to miss.
- Loot instancing option is introduced: now when playing co-op, each player can get their own loot scaled to their level instead of having to compete for drops. Likewise, enemy leveling scales to the player rather than the area, and the stats of lower-level players and their enemies are normalized for higher-level players (and vice-versa), so everyone is on a level playing field regardless of level. And if one doesn't want to do it that way, it is possible to play co-op how it worked in previous games, called Co-opetition.
- Slag has been replaced by a less awkward element called Radiation, which just does damage over time but also causes the afflicted enemy to deal constant Radiation damage in a radius around them, and if they die while so afflicted they explode and spread Radiation to anyone in the radius.
- Cryo attacks deal extra damage to armor while Radiation attacks deal extra damage to shields, though not to the extent of Corrosion and Shock, respectively, allowing for alternate methods of dealing with said obstacles. Kill-A-Volt, a shielded enemy with complete immunity to Shock damage, demonstrates this in spades.
- Opening containers automatically collects all the money inside of it, as well as any health packs and ammo that you need. You also no longer have to manually pick up Eridium anymore.
- Dying replenishes your ammo count so you don't need to abandon the fight if there are no vendors nearby. There is, however a limit to how much ammo is provided this way unlike the previous game, so there's still reason to search for ammo.
- Common shield perks can be randomly found on any shield, common or legendary, rather than being exclusive to a certain class of shield (such as augmented shield capacities, ammo absorption, and increased movement speed), allowing for more flexibility in shield choice.
- For every 100 kills with a specific weapon brand you'll get one free through the in-game mail system. Although the rarity is random (from Uncommon to Epic) the level of the gun is scaled to yours upon getting it. This can be helpful to keep you equipped and keep using the brand you (probably) have taken a liking to.
- Once you unlock Mayhem mode by beating the game, turning it on causes all optional quests you have not completed to automatically scale to your level and reward you appropriately. No more going back to the starting area and completing a quest at level 50 just to get a level 4 pistol for a reward. Likewise, the New Game Plus "True Vault Hunter Mode" can be reset at any time so you can obtain better versions of any already unlocked quest reward.
- Speaking of Mayhem mode, enabling it on a Normal run synchronises enemy levels to the player, including bosses fought in the main story. Of course, there's still the option to turn Mayhem off, and the enemy's levels revert back to how they were previously, allowing the possibility of wailing on them with overpowered weapons for the sake of quick kills and challenge farming.
- Rare spawn bosses and legendary beasts/targets of interest automatically scale to the player's current level even without Mayhem mode enabled, making their loot, notably the legendaries they tend to drop, viable to use.
- Respawn points now act as save points which means that when you save and quit, it respawns you back at the last respawn point (instead of just the Fast Travel stations), making farming for loot a lot less tedious.
- Once unlocked by beating the main story, Guardian Levels, which replaced Badass Levels, are gained via experience points rather than challenge completion. This not only makes Guardian Levels easier to progress without having to check up on which challenges have been completed, but also gives experience points purpose even when the player has reached the maximum character level. And because of how the XP system works here, instead of having to create new characters to obtain more ranks, it's actually better to use your high-leveled ones.
- The cosmetic items from the various timed events are unlocked in every playthrough, past or future, once you unlock them once - even character skins and headwearnote . This means that you don't need to grind the event separately for every save file you may have, and that as long as you have one post-game character you don't need to rush your other playthroughs.
- You can use fast travel to jump straight to the vehicle you most recently used rather than having to trek back to where it is.
- In the previous games, the world map was 2D and only showed the layout of the top-most layer of the world; this was a huge problem in levels such as Sawtooth Cauldron, which had as many as four different levels in some points of the map. In this release, the world map is 3D and can be freely panned, tilted and rotated.
- Level cap updates are now free and come in small increments (of 3 and 4, so far) so your old previously-maxed gear is still usable even at the new cap. Additionally, they've been followed up with events that drastically increase the drop rate of legendaries, making it much easier to replace/update your gear.
- April 2020 added in the "Borderlands Arcade" cabinet, which can be used to obtain 2-hour boosters. These include +25% boosts to combat XP and cash flow, and increasing loot quality and legendary drop rates, which further reduce the small amount of grinding the game has. The only caveat is they require Arcade credits to buy, but not only are they dirt cheap (only 500 to 1500 apiece), even the easy puzzles give an average of 50 credits simply for passing them. Plus, completing them may give you a warm feeling since beating them helps actual DNA research.
- Class Mods now don't require at least one skill point put into the skills they improve, meaning that if, for instance, you want a specific skill from further down the tree but not the others, you can get it with a relevant Class Mod, bypassing the need to pour skill points into said tree.
- From the Fantastic Fustercluck DLC: Unlike other trains in the series, the Locomobius cannot instantly kill you by running you over. Which is good, because unlike other trains in the series, this train can teleport and has a nasty habit of appearing out of nowhere very suddenly.
- An update added the ability to reroll anointments at Crazy Earl's for 250 eridium, drastically reducing the need to farm.
- Mayhem 11 lets you enjoy all the buffed enemies and weapons, but with none of the modifiers. Despite what it says, the cash, eridium, and XP rewards are the same as Mayhem 10. And while there's less legendary drops from non-boss enemies, boss drop rates still remain strong.
- The September 2023 update added multiple cosmetics to Crazy Earl's that were previously only obtainable from external sources or hacking.
