The Borderlands 4 trailer recently hinted at some sweeping tone shifts for the upcoming looter shooter RPG, and Gearbox Studio's creative and narrative director for Borderlands 4, Sam Winkler, recently confirmed that the shift in tone will extend to the game's character writing and humor. In a series of posts on X, Winkler said "I remain firm in my criticism of BL3's overabundance of toiler humor," going on to explain that there will still be toilet humor, and the idea of a Hawk Tuah reference in-game was being thrown around. "Paul Tassi joked that we were gonna have a gun called Hawk 2A and a fellow dev asked me if it was real and I wanted to put my hand down the sink grinder."

While the Borderlands 4 trailer has generated plenty of hype around the upcoming instalment to the franchise, it hasn't gone without its criticisms. However, the apparent changes to the game's visuals and tone—specifically away from the over-the-top nature of Borderlands 3—have been almost universally positively received, with many fans now expecting a return to the glory days of Borderlands 2. Writing has never been the highlight of the Borderlands franchise, but most seem to agree that Borderlands 3 often went too far with the jokes, to the detriment of the overall experience.

I'm not gonna say there's no toilets but if the word skibidi ships in the game under my watch I'm gonna cry real tears. Paul Tassi joked that we were gonna have a gun called Hawk 2A and a fellow dev asked me if it was real and I wanted to put my hand down the sink grinder

Winkler declined to provide more information about the game, though, so it remains to be seen how the new tone and approach to writing play out. Borderlands 4 is yet to receive a firm launch date, but it is slated to launch to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 in 2025.