How long is Borderlands 4?

By Jesse Lennox Published September 12, 2025

You’re not on Pandora anymore, Vault Hunter. Borderlands 4 introduces an entirely new world, characters, and a major villain in The Timekeeper, but it is still the looter shooter you know and love. Only this time it is bigger and better, with a seamless world to explore filled with world events to stumble upon and tons of quests to complete. Oh, and billions of guns to find, as usual. But unlike other looter shooters that take the live service approach, Borderlands 4 remains a single player and co-op game, complete with cross-platform support, meaning that it does indeed have an end to reach. Call me the Timekeeper because I will tell you just how long it takes to beat Borderlands 4.

How long it takes to beat Borderlands 4 all depends on what you consider “beating” the game to mean. If you just go by completing the main story and ignore basically everything else on your quest, then you could reasonably beat Borderlands 4 in anywhere between 25 and 30 hours. However, you would be doing yourself — and the game — a disservice by ignoring all the optional content. A natural playthrough, which incorporates a healthy dose of side quests and following your curiosity as things appear, will increase the playtime to something closer to 40 to 50 hours.

But for hardcore Vault Hunters, Borderlands 4 doesn’t really start until you beat the game. If you’re someone who wants to do everything, find every collectible, hit max level, and grind for a full set of legendary gear to run max-difficulty bosses and endgame content, then strap in for over 100 hours of goodness. If you’re crazy enough to want to do it all with all four characters, I won’t even try to estimate how long you’ll be playing Borderlands 4 for.

Whatever type of experience you want, Borderlands 4 is packed with content, making it well worth the asking price for fans of the genre.