What do you get when you mix a mind virus with hacking? According to Gearbox Software, it’s a Vault Hunter that can summon a massive wyrm, spread poison, and disappear from the battlefield. Loveless the Hacker is the latest Vault Hunter to join the Borderlands universe alongside the release of FL4K and the Last Resort on September 10, 2026.
Ahead of the arrival of Loveless the Hacker, I got to sit down with some Gearbox developers to talk about what’s coming next for Borderlands 4. We’ve already touched on how FL4K and the Last Resort digs into Tediore lore, now it’s time to dive into the twisted mind of Loveless the Hacker.
One of the things I always wondered with the Borderlands franchise was how the developers manage to continue to create new Vault Hunters, despite the series now having more than two dozen. When it comes to crafting Loveless, the team thought about what notes they haven’t hit on in a while, and it dawned on them that a stealth assassin, like Zer0, hadn’t been explored recently.
With the idea of an assassin on the cards, Character Design Director Nicholas Thurston spoke about being a fan of the series’ lore long before working at Gearbox. For him, he has always been interested in the manufacturers we never hear much about, like Anshin. With this marginal character and the idea of an assassin in mind, the team got to work digging into designing the Vault Hunter who would become Loveless.
As the story goes, Loveless is an ex-corporate systems infiltration specialist for Anshin. The company had been working on a digital mind virus to take down a competitor, but the virus went rampant. In order to save the day, Loveless downloaded it into her own mind, and now the two have become one.
This digital mind virus manifests itself as Loveless’ abilities. One of her main attacks is called Malignant Construct, which lets her manifest a digital wyrm to attack enemies. This isn’t quite like summoning a creature to go off and do your bidding – it was important to the team that the two don’t feel like entirely separate entities. To that end, both Loveless and the wyrm receive the same benefits from Loveless’ kit. However, there is another system underpinning this where the wyrm can go rampant, where you might lose control but it becomes super powered.
Game Designer Ryan Bailey gave some insight into the Plague Star skill as well. This shuriken inflicts Contagion on enemies, dealing Corrosive damage over time. When an enemy afflicted by Contagion dies, it spreads to nearby foes. In a hilarious turn of events, the team discovered a bug during testing. It turns out, they had forgotten to enforce limits on the effect, so after clearing out foes on the ground floor, going up an elevator revealed a room littered with bodies. Contagion had spread to enemies outside the intended area of effect. They wound up capping the line-of-sight of Contagion to avoid situations where the player could accidentally wipe out the whole continent.
On the assassin side, Loveless has a move called Visual Paradox Nexus that grants her stealth. Upon killing an enemy, she will leave a clone and turn invisible. It leads to this effect of her popping up all over the battlefield, leaving the enemy unsure where she’s located – it’s called VPN, get it? This plays nicely with her trait, RAM, where status effects and critical hits fill a bar, which increases gun damage as the bar fills. Once full, melee attacks become empowered.
Loveless being a hacker and FL4K and the Last Resort focusing on the AI company Tediore is a match made in heaven. You’d be forgiven for thinking this was planned from the start, but according to Gearbox this is merely a happy accident. One thing which was planned is that Loveless is a subtle nod to Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer.
The team revealed that there are more nods and references for players to discover in Loveless the Hacker’s kit, which they can do when she arrives in the world of Borderlands 4 on September 10, 2026 for $9.99 USD.
Check out our Borderlands 4 page for the latest on Gearbox Software’s hit looter-shooter.
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