“Borderlands 3” Details Revenge of the Mayhem 2.0 Poster Event and Changes, Live Soon

Yesterday, Gearbox opened up about two pretty big things coming to Borderlands 3 this week on Thursday. One is a new event that will last over a month, the other is a fundamental change to the game’s loot and difficulty system that is likely to be bigger than anything that has happened before.

We’ll start with the biggest change, Mayhem 2.0, which now institutes 10 Mayhem levels instead of four, and they can be changed at any time during the game without having to return to Sanctuary.

Gearbox breaks down the 25 new modifiers into different categories. They are more involved than just “more X-type damage” or “enemies are more accurate,” and they appear to be smart and creative.

Each level of Mayhem will feature a collection of modifiers, and once you get to Mayhem 10, the mode will positively stack with them across the Easy, Medium, Hard, and Very Hard spectrum:

Some examples?

Easy Modifiers: Big Kick Energy: Increases weapon damage but also backs and spreads, Galaxy Brain, a “big head” mode for enemies that makes them easier to criticize.

Medium modifier: the floor is lava: if you stay still, a damaging pool of lava spawns under your feet.

Difficult Modifier: Drone Rank: Enemies get healing drones attached to them.

Very hard modifier: [REDACTED]

Gearbox also reiterates that loot drops will increase in quality as you progress through Mayhem levels. As in, a Cutsman in Mayhem 6 will deal less base damage than a Cutsman in Mayhem 7. This definitely means a lot of farming and re-farming to rank up, and a lot of your current gear may become useless soon enough. I’m not sure if the current versions of Mayhem 4 will match Mayhem 4 on the new system or not, so it will start at least a little higher up. Finally, there are eight new legendary bosses only available in Mayhem 6 or higher.

This launches Thursday, alongside the Revenge of the Cartels event, which Gearbox also detailed.

The Revenge of the Cartels is a big and thick event like the one from previous Halloween, but it’s probably a bit more interesting, if you had to guess.

Poster Revenge has new enemy types, a new zone, new Legendary, and anointing and cosmetics unlocked through challenges.

Like the Halloween event, Maurice will give you a repeatable quest that will hunt down special enemies in the world. These are “cartel thugs” who will generate tough minibossses that will give you “Hide Coordinates” which, when picked up, will take you to Villa Ultraviolet, which will be controlled by one of the three different factions, “cyborgs obsessed with technology CryptoSec, The Burnt Ends Meat Charred Debt Collectors, or Eridium Dust Brokers known as The Purpatrators.

In the Villa you will find new Legendary and new Anoints, and no gang will control the Villa twice in a row (I suppose different falls from different factions). If you don’t want to be bothered by the event and the tough enemies who strive to kill you periodically, Gearbox learned its lesson and you can toggle the event on and off on the home screen.

This all sounds … pretty good? I’m concerned with how much farming and new farming will go towards Mayhem 2.0 levels, but I guess this is Borderlands, so endless farming is something we do here. The Cartels event sounds like the best in the game so far, so I’m looking forward to trying it out on Thursday and seeing what falls.

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