Spoilers ahead for Borderlands 4.
Now that I’ve had some time to properly sit with Borderlands 4, I can confidently say it’s one of my favorite entries in the series. The gunplay is incredibly satisfying, the depth of the dialogue for the playable Vault Hunters is impressive, and the story is a clear step up from Borderlands 3. However, it’s that final point that ensures BL2 is still at the tippy-top of my personal Borderlands game tier list, as topping Borderlands 3 isn’t exactly a high bar. I have a fair number of complaints about the latest game’s plot, such as how the Far Cry-like structure of “kill the leader’s followers before eventually facing him” means that The Timekeeper is less involved than he should have been, or how it’s hard to feel worried about characters like Rush considering that they deliver bounty board quests, meaning they have to survive. However, my biggest issue with the narrative is that it just doesn’t feel like Borderlands.
Part of this is the natural result of cutting back on Borderlands’ toilet humor after BL3, as though this sounded good on paper, the reality is that the game’s main quests largely lacked the fun of the other entries in the series. Worse, it feels like iconic characters such as Torgue were restricted to text-based references on weapon skins purely because they’d take away from the seriousness around the Timekeeper, with the fully-serious villain casting a cloud over the entire game. However, the main reason that Borderlands 4 doesn’t quite feel like a proper Borderlands 3 sequel to me isn’t because it goes a bit too far in the opposite direction tonally, or because it leaves out characters I love. Instead, it’s the way that it sidesteps Borderlands 3’s most hated character, Ava. However, it wasn’t always going to do so, as a recent leak from Borderlands content creator EpicNNG indicates.
The Original Plan For Ava in Borderlands 4 is Clear
Based on the datamined code shared by EpicNNG, a few conversations and animations can be deciphered, such as:
- Scripting for Ava’s Phaselock bubble
- Code for a conversation about Ava and Zane fixing a ship
- Dialogue for entering and exiting the ship
- Dialogue for Zane and Ava when they’re in need of rescue
- Code for a conversation when escorting Ava
All of this code makes it clear that it was originally meant to he Ava in place of Amara, as the “ship repair” conversation was a highlight of the trip to Elpis to rescue Lilith — meaning Ava would have been present for this integral story moment. Players would have “escorted” Ava just as they did Amara during the lead-up to confronting Vile Lictor, and instead of Amara petsitting Hermes, Ava simply would have been taking care of her pet as usual. Players also would have needed to give her an Oz kit, just like they did Amara. In hindsight, much of the dialogue given to Amara in Borderlands 4 felt more like what an older Ava would say, and she essentially completed Ava’s entire mission for her.
It’s unclear when exactly Ava was swapped out in favor of Amara, though given how the Terminus Range portion of the map was seemingly crafted with Amara in mind, this choice could have been made early in development.
I have been vocal in the past about wanting Borderlands 4 to redeem Ava, and I’m genuinely disappointed that it didn’t. Giving her Amara’s exact role (or more correctly, letting her keep the role that was envisioned for her), with just a few more bits of dialogue where she emphasizes regret for how she treated Maya and shows how she’s changed, would have made a character that was set up to be the future feel like she matters. By leaving her out and sidestepping the problem, likely as a result of fans and certain content creators constantly bashing Ava for years, Borderlands 3 has been made retroactively worse and Ava has become even harder to redeem as a character. When she does return, not only will all the same baggage from BL3 be there, but players will also remember that the person who was leading the hunt for Lilith was MIA and off doing something else. It’s hard to imagine what could be more important to Ava than finding Lilith, while also requiring that she abandon Hermes.
Considering how much more likable Amara was in Borderlands 4 when given dialogue that was seemingly meant to be Ava’s, and a purpose that was very obviously that of Maya’s successor, it’s likely that Ava’s redemption would have gone over quite well. It also would have made more narrative sense, as not only did Ava have a deeper attachment to Lilith than Amara was shown to in Borderlands 3, but it makes more sense for her to hide out in the crashed Sanctuary 3 than it does for the former vigilante that is the Tiger of Partali to stay isolated. Even Amara’s replacement mechanical arm would have made more sense if it had instead been given to Ava, as Amara could have just used Phasetrance to give herself a glowing Siren arm instead of relying on tech.
Borderlands 4 Leaving Ava on the Sidelines is an Awkward Example of a Larger Problem
Ava could have found redemption through the role Amara took from her, and Borderlands 4’s story would have made more sense had she been the one in Amara’s shoes. Additionally, this mishandling of Borderlands’ most hated character also circles back to the issue of BL4 not quite feeling like Borderlands. Sure, it brings back series staples Claptrap and Moxxi, and Zane gets time to shine, but a vast majority of the screentime goes to entirely new characters and their factions. To me, though Borderlands 4 feels like an evolution of the series from a gameplay standpoint, it also comes off as ashamed of certain parts of the series’ history. Even if BL3 was a letdown on the story front, Borderlands has always built from where the last game left off. Borderlands 4 feels completely isolated outside of Lilith’s rescue and some more Nyriad collectibles, with the former feeling like it was only put in so that people don’t keep asking questions like they did about The Watcher’s War for so long.
My fellow Marvel fans may appreciate this comparison: to me, Borderlands‘ Lilith situation resembles James Gunn feeling like he had to put Adam Warlock in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 purely because the post-credits scene for Vol. 2 promised him. Whereas had Ava featured in Amara’s role, the hunt for Lilith would have felt more natural and less forced.
Borderlands 3’s DLC season ended with Ava promising to find Lilith, but instead of doing so, she goes off on an unknown adventure and leaves Amara to both petsit and complete her mission. That makes her come off as the rude and selfish character Borderlands 3 haters see her as, making her harder to fix than ever if she ever does show back up one day. This is frustrating, as part of the reason Borderlands 2 worked so well is that it took the cast from the original Borderlands and made them memorable characters in their own right. Lilith became a standout of the sequel’s story after saying literally nothing in her debut game, and she only grew in importance from there. Now imagine if Borderlands 2 had dropped Lilith entirely and simply said that she was off doing something else, citing how players didn’t like the story of the first Borderlands game and that Lilith wasn’t a standout character because she was silent. We’d have been robbed of a series icon and unforgettable moments like the Firehawk lifting Sanctuary into the sky.
Borderlands 4 actually taking a risk on fixing Ava would have resulted in a more logical story, made BL3 mean something, and opened the door to either a playable Ava or another likable Siren NPC in future games. Amara could have been given a role somewhere else in the game so that Ava could have completed her mission of finding Lilith, and having an extra character from a past Borderlands title could have made BL4 feel a bit more connected to the wider series. Instead, Borderlands 4 caved to the criticism. Sometimes, criticism can be good; Moxxi’s Big Encore machine is a brilliant result of players growing tired of saving and reloading to farm gear. However, listening to the loudest critics isn’t always the best move forward. Doing so has resulted in a solid-if-safe story that newcomers can easily enjoy, but one that lacks the series’ charm since it leaves out dozens of cast members fans wanted to see — and one they didn’t. Love or hate Ava, she deserved the closure and redemption that was originally planned for her.