All Borderlands Games in Order, by Release and Timeline

Playing the Borderlands games in order sounds simple until you notice that the next big release after Borderlands 2 is set before it, and that one entry is a fantasy campaign Tiny Tina runs at a table. Seventeen years after the original, the Borderlands series counts eight major releases: four mainline shooters, a prequel, two choice-driven adventures and a spin-off with dragons. The Borderlands release order and the Borderlands timeline line up for most of the run, but not all of it.

This guide lists every main game and every bigger spin-off by release date, then gives you the story order explained. Each entry gets its developer, platforms, co-op support, playable characters, and our verdict on whether it still holds up. If you want to start or finish the series on PC or console, we stock keys for every game in our Borderlands games collection below.

Want the Borderlands story order instead? Play Borderlands, The Pre-Sequel, Borderlands 2, Tales from the Borderlands, Borderlands 3, New Tales from the Borderlands, then Borderlands 4. Borderlands 2 jumps five years past the original, Borderlands 3 lands seven years after that, and Borderlands 4 picks up six years after Borderlands 3. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands sits outside the main plot as a tabletop campaign set shortly after Assault on Dragon Keep, so you can slot it in anywhere after Borderlands 2.

1. Borderlands (2009)

The original Borderlands drops four Vault Hunters on Pandora, a junk-strewn planet the mining corporations abandoned to bandits and wildlife. Roland, Lilith, Mordecai and Brick piece together a Vault Key and race the Atlas Corporation's Crimson Lance, led by Commandant Steele, to an alien Vault rumored to hold advanced technology. The payoff is the Destroyer, a monster the team has to put down before the Vault seals again. The plot is thin, and the game knows it.

Loot kept people playing. Gearbox mixed a first-person shooter with Diablo-style randomized guns, cel-shaded art and four-player co-op, and the formula sold 4.5 million copies by August 2011. The DLC run, led by The Secret Armory of General Knoxx and The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, added a lot of what the base game lacked in humor and endgame. The Game of the Year Enhanced release from April 2019 added higher-resolution textures and four-player split-screen on consoles.

My Verdict: The roughest entry to replay now, with a quiet first act and stiff driving. Play the Game of the Year Enhanced version if you want the full story from the start.

2. Borderlands 2 (2012)

Borderlands 2 jumps five years ahead and hands Pandora to Handsome Jack, the CEO of Hyperion and the best villain the series has written. He's smug and cruel in the same breath, and often hilarious. He talks to you over the radio for most of the campaign, so every mission feels like a fight with a person instead of a faceless corporation. The original four Vault Hunters return as NPCs, and the new class roster (Axton's turret, Zer0's stealth, Salvador's dual-wielding) gives each run a distinct feel.

It's the best-selling game in the franchise, with around 26 million of the series' 77 million copies shipped by November 2022. Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep (June 2013) reframed Pandora as a game of Bunkers and Badasses and later became the seed for a whole spin-off. Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, raid bosses, and the Gaige and Krieg DLC classes kept players farming for years. On modern hardware, The Handsome Collection and the Legendary Collection both include every story DLC.

My Verdict: The series at its sharpest, with the best villain and the best DLC. If you play only one Borderlands game, make it this one.

3. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (2014)

Released two years after Borderlands 2 and set before it, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel tells the story of how a Hyperion programmer named Jack became Handsome Jack. Athena recounts it in flashback as Lilith, Brick, and Mordecai interrogate her on Sanctuary. Jack hires four Vault Hunters to retake the Helios station and hunt a Vault on Elpis, Pandora's moon, and the events leave him scarred and set on revenge.

Low gravity on Elpis makes every jump higher and slower, loot floats off ledges, and oxygen kits double as jetpacks for hovering and ground slams. Cryo weapons freeze enemies so they shatter on the kill, laser guns join the arsenal, and the Grinder turns three weapons into one of higher rarity. The two DLC characters, Jack's Doppelganger and Aurelia, round out a cast that leans hard into Claptrap's chaos.

My Verdict: The weakest mainline-style entry, yet still worth a co-op run for the low-gravity combat and Jack's origin. Play it after Borderlands 2 so the twist lands.

4. Tales from the Borderlands (2014–2015)

Tales from the Borderlands trades guns for dialogue choices and quick-time events, and it ends up with the funniest script in the series. You split your time between Rhys, a Hyperion employee chasing a promotion, and Fiona, a Pandoran con artist, who tell their versions of a Vault Key scam to a masked captor. The two of them lie to each other and to the player, and both the jokes and the emotional beats land.

Telltale shipped five episodes across 2014 and 2015. Gearbox counts the story as canon, and Rhys comes back as a major character in Borderlands 3. After Telltale closed in 2018 the game left digital stores until Gearbox republished it as one package on February 17, 2021, followed by a Switch release that March. You don't need any shooter experience to follow it, though it helps to know who Handsome Jack was.

My Verdict: The best story Borderlands has told, in a format that asks nothing of your aim. Slot it in between Borderlands 2 and Borderlands 3.

5. Borderlands 3 (2019)

Set seven years after Borderlands 2 and Tales, Borderlands 3 takes the series off Pandora for the first time in the mainline. The Calypso Twins, Troy and Tyreen, have turned the bandit clans into a streaming cult called the Children of the Vault, and the hunt for Vaults spreads to Promethea, Athenas, Eden-6 and other worlds. Lilith, Rhys and Ellie return, and each new Vault Hunter picks from several Action Skills.

The gunplay is the best in the series up to that point, with slides, mantling and alt-fire modes on many guns. The writing split players, and the twins never come close to Handsome Jack. Even so, Borderlands 3 sold more than 18 million copies by 2023, and the four campaign DLCs plus Mayhem Mode gave it a long tail. The Ultimate Edition bundles the base game with both Season Passes, and the Switch version arrived on October 6, 2023.

My Verdict: The best-feeling shooter in the older run, held back by villains who wear out fast. Grab the Ultimate Edition and you get every story add-on in one go.

6. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands (2022)

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands grows the Assault on Dragon Keep idea into a full game. Tina runs a Bunkers and Badasses campaign, Valentine (Andy Samberg) and Frette (Wanda Sykes) play along, and you control the Fatemaker as they try to stop the Dragon Lord, voiced by Will Arnett. Swords and spells replace the usual psychos and bandits, and Tina rewrites the world mid-mission when the mood takes her.

For the first time, you build your own character, a Fatemaker made from scratch. You pick one of six classes (Brr-Zerker, Clawbringer, Graveborn, Spellshot, Spore Warden, Stabbomancer), and add a second class later to multiclass. Melee weapons and spells get their own slots, and an overworld map ties the regions together. The story sits outside the main plot, so you can play it at any point. A standalone version of Assault on Dragon Keep came out in November 2021, a few months before the full game.

My Verdict: The most playful game in the series and the best class system it has had. Treat it as an optional side quest any time after Borderlands 2.

7. New Tales from the Borderlands (2022)

New Tales from the Borderlands picks up about a year after Borderlands 3 on Promethea. Tediore's forces invade the planet, and three unlikely heroes get caught in the middle. Anu is a scientist with good intentions, Octavio is her adopted brother with big plans and no money, and Fran runs a frozen yogurt shop and nurses a plan for revenge. Gearbox built it in-house this time, with Telltale out of the picture.

The structure follows the first Tales, with dialogue choices, quick-time event,s and five episodes, all of them available from launch day. The cast has charm, and the Vaultlanders figure-fighting minigame adds a dose of silliness. Critics were less kind than they were to the original, though, pointing to dated gameplay and choices that rarely change much. Reviews landed in the mixed range on Metacritic, between 57 and 69 depending on platform.

My Verdict: A pleasant, light story that never reaches the first Tales. Play it if you love the universe, skip it if you came for the shooting.

8. Borderlands 4 (2025)

Borderlands 4 moves the series to Kairos, a planet ruled by the Timekeeper and his Order, six years after Borderlands 3. The four new Vault Hunters are Rafa the Exo-Soldier, Harlowe the Gravitar, Amon the Forgeknight, and Vex the Siren. Kairos is one large interconnected world, and movement adds a grappling hook, gliding, a double jump, and a dodge to the series' slide. Two players can share a screen on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S and join another pair online, as Gearbox explains on its official Borderlands 4 split-screen co-op page.

It opened as the biggest US launch in the franchise's history, and the post-launch plan has kept it busy through 2026. Story Pack 1, Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned, arrived on March 26, 2026 with C4SH the Rogue. Story Pack 2, FL4K and the Last Resort, followed on September 10, 2026, with Loveless the Hacker. The free Version 1.10 update that shipped the same day raised the level cap by 10. The Switch 2 version slipped in September 2025, and Take-Two said in February 2026 that development on it is paused. We have Borderlands 4 accounts if you want to start right now.

My Verdict: The best gunplay and movement the series has had, now with a year of extra story behind it. Start here if you want the modern version and care less about lore.

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Final Words

Borderlands has spent seventeen years reworking one idea: shoot things and grab the shinier gun. The best entries pair that loop with a strong voice. Handsome Jack carried Borderlands 2, Rhys and Fiona carried the first Tales, and Tina gave Wonderlands its personality.

For a first run, Borderlands 2 is the safest pick, with Borderlands 4 close behind if older games feel clunky. Completionists should go in release order, which already puts The Pre-Sequel after Borderlands 2, and use Wonderlands as a palate cleanser. The Tales games are the easiest sell for anyone who doesn't care about loot at all.

Nobody outside Gearbox knows what comes after Borderlands 4's DLC run. Story Pack 2 closed the announced Vault Hunter additions, and the Switch 2 version is still on hold. Bring a friend for whichever entry you choose, since this series has always been better in co-op.

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