#borderlands 4

get rid of Randy Pitchford's phone and access to social media

no AI policy - human creations first and foremost

less open-world, more linearity - this is where the devs shine the most, given the fact that the linear parts of BL4 are the best and most memorable parts of the game. To add onto this, with linearity the level design also feels more intentional as opposed to how it feels "lazy" with the open world aspects of BL4. No matter if the same/more work was put into the open world, or if the intention behind it was to make players feel more freedom or whatever, it adds unnecessary and somewhat empty play time that could be spent doing something worthwhile, like playing through the story or killing a big boss or something, instead of trudging through the vast nothing of Kairos and being mowed down by the tenth randomly spawned group of bigass bull monsters.

less "here's this one main villain that will appear once or twice every chapter, and here are his three lackeys" - obviously it doesn't work as well as it used to. We've seen it in BL3, and now in BL4 as well. I know, I know. You need to make bosses to kill, but hear me out. Spending more time developing the *main* villain of your story instead of dividing that time to half-ass 4 characters does not benefit any game. If you so desperately want to still go down the route of Big Boss and his lackeys, then take even more time to actually develop said characters. This point also ties into the next one.

Don't kill off all of your villain characters - sometimes leaving them alive can give you unexpected hooks for a new story. Hell, it can even be satisfying for the player to keep them alive, e.g. having Troy betray Tyreen, leaving Callis alive and having her join the VHs in the fight against the Timekeeper.

Less new characters = more time to develop the ones you have - there are so so so many characters in the Borderlands game series that have not had their time to shine. What can actively hurt your game series is ignoring characters that you've already introduced and adding in even more. Hell, even adding ones that are already so similar to the ones that already exist!!! Sure, leaving things up to the player's imagination is a big thing nowadays, but that applies to minor details and not leaving a character hanging in the void for a decade with their journey unfinished and basic questions unanswered.

talking with each other, not *at* the player - I noticed a certain lack of character to character dialogue in BL4. Most of the time, the characters talk at the player character, with a "unique" quip being placed in the middle as response. Okay, you showed off the player can hear unique quips based on the character they picked. But doing it way too often and even adding it in when unnecessary can hurt your story-telling. I personally would have preferred to have seen more interactions between the characters literally standing next to each other. Having Zane being the bodyguard at Moxxi's, with that whole intro and all, only to have them not interact with each other and rather talk about the other to the player felt very disconnecting. The most memorable parts of BL4 for me were Zane and Amara's dialogue aboard the Sanctuary as well as during that whole space elevator thing.

Don't bring back old characters just for the sake of having them there/killing them off 5 minutes after appearing on the screen - it's dishonest, it's rude, it pisses off more people than it pleases. If you want to bring back old characters, have a proper reason for doing so. If you wanna kill off an old characters, absolutely DO NOT do it like you did with Pickle. Even as a joke, that shit was not funny.

Don't pride yourself of having new gameplay elements that had been the staple in every modern game for the past decade - no, gliding and double jumps are not innovative, they are a basic movement tech at this point

add Mod support - if not possible, go through the most popular mods from your previous games and gather info on what players want/are looking for

replayability in terms of letting the player handle how *they* want to play the game - if they want to replay the entire story, let them. If they want to have the full game complete on the max level, let them. Do not restrict them to some arbitrary rule you made up that makes them a "true" gamer.

randomizers and other challenge runs - can add variety to the replay value

don't be afraid to be unique - pandering to *everyone* in this day and age (meaning having nothing burger characters that don't offend anyone)