The colorful Vault Hunters and loud Rippers are cool, but the true stars in Borderlands 4 are the gazillion guns you get. They are made by different manufacturers who imprint a unique identity to their guns in the form of affixes, or special traits.
By knowing the different affixes each manufacturer add to their guns, you can plan around your favorite playstyle and chase more loot with a goal in mind. To make builds and weapons more fun, there’s also the licensed parts system that can completely change how a gun works.
In this Borderlands 4 guide, we explain all the weapon manufacturers as well as the licensed parts system.
All weapon manufacturers in Borderlands 4
In Borderlands 4, there are five types of guns — assault rifles, pistols, shotguns, snipers, and submachine guns — and they may come with unique effects depending on their manufacturers. Not every gun comes with a trait, but as you progress in the game, they become more common.
Below, you will find a list of every gun manufacturer in Borderlands 4 and an explanation of what you can expect from their products.
- Daedalus
- Jakobs
- Maliwan
- Order
- Ripper
- Tediore
- Torgue
- Vladof
Daedalus
When you have a Daedalus gun, it might come with a trait that allows you to use a different type of ammo in its secondary fire mode. This doesn’t mean your assault rifle will start working as a shotgun, but that it will cause the type of damage that is specific to the other type of ammo. Besides making a single gun work as two, using a Daedalus weapon reduces the chance of you needing to swap weapons during a fight.
Jakobs
Jakobs guns are great when dealing with groups of enemies, and they have a simple trait. All your critical hits will ricochet projectiles, which allows you to focus on a single enemy while dealing with all the other ones. They do require you to always go for critical hits, which usually means landing headshots or aiming at specific points on an enemy’s body. But if you have good eyes and a precise aim, Jakobs guns are made for you.
Maliwan
Having guns capable of causing elemental damage is crucial in Borderlands 4 to fight tough enemies, and Maliwan guns are the best when it comes to having a diverse arsenal. Every gun from this manufacturer has two elements that you can swap. However, the attributes aren’t shared between the elements. In other words, the damage caused by a gun with Incendiary and Cryo is not the same depending on the element you’re using.
Order
Order guns have a specific mechanic. You can either fire one shot at a time or charge it up to fire multiple shots at once. The first option is great when trying to be more precise and make every shot count. On the other hand, the charged-up mode is a good option when you know a burst window is about to come during a fight. While the damage potential is high, the chance of you missing the target and wasting your bullets is also pretty considerable.
Ripper
Ripper guns have a gauge that you need to charge by holding the firing button (left mouse button or right trigger for controllers) before it starts shooting. This trait makes Ripper guns great when you’re the one who’s starting the shooting and wants to quickly finish the fight by unloading as many bullets as you can. However, Ripper guns are terrible in situations where you need to be more precise or when you’re being attacked, since you can’t shoot enemies back until the gauge is filled in.
Tediore
If you like to increase your damage output using all the tools you have at your disposal, Tediore guns are perfect for you. The guns with the Tediore affix will always be thrown when reloading and have different effects. For example, Tediore guns with the “Combo” affix allow you to shoot the thrown weapon to create an explosion. In our experience, when using the epic shotgun “Thrown Floor-Model Omnibore,” our character throws it, and it continues to shoot enemies because it has the “Shooting” affix.
Torgue
Torgue guns are quite fun to play with. The main mode of these guns will shoot sticky projectiles and, although they cause some damage on impact, their true power is shown when they explode. You can trigger the sticky projectile explosion by reloading your gun or switching modes. When you opt for the latter, the explosion damage receives a bonus. For example, the uncommon assault rifle “Revelling Strong Truncheon” has the damage caused by the explosions increase by 4% if you trigger them by switching modes.
Vladof
The Vladof gun differentiates itself from others by offering quite useful —and most of the time explosive — secondary fire modes. In most of their guns, you will find the “Alt Fire” affix, which adds a special type of secondary fire mode. It may have “[Alt Fire] Shotgun,” which turns your assault rifle into a shotgun, or “[Alt Fire] Extra Barrel,” which gives the gun an extra barrel, increasing its fire rate. Usually, the alt fire mode has a limited number of times you can use it before it goes on cooldown.
Borderlands 4’s Licensed Parts system, explained
The guns in Borderlands 4 are spiced up with the licensed parts system. Regardless of its manufacturer, every gun has the chance of coming with parts made by other manufacturers, adding to it extra unique traits. You can have a Ripper gun with an “[Alt Fire] Shotgun” affix because it has a Vladof licensed part.
Three manufacturers make only licensed parts: CoV, Hyperion, and Atlas. While you won’t find weapons made by them, you can still benefit from their traits if your guns have one of their licensed parts.
Here are the affixes these manufacturers add to your guns:
CoV
The CoV licensed parts add a curious affix to your gun. It will have an unlimited magazine size, which means you don’t need to worry about reloading and won’t have any downtime during a fight. On the other hand, the gun heats up a bit after every shot, and it might “break” if its heat gauge is completely filled in. Although you won’t lose the gun if this happens, you won’t be able to use it for a few seconds.
Hyperion
Guns with Hyperion licensed parts give you a gun shield, which you activate by using the aim down sights button (right mouse button or left trigger on controller). They can also come with extra effects tied to the shield. For example, in our playthrough, we found the “Reprimanding Perfect Indiction” assault rifle with the “Hyperion-Licensed Amp Shield” affix, which says that the damage caused to gun shields amplifies your gun damage.
Atlas
The Atlas licensed parts let you shoot a tracker at an enemy by using its secondary fire mode. While this tracker doesn’t cause damage, all your shots will follow it. This means the tracked enemy can’t escape your shots for a period of time. This is a great tool when fighting enemies that constantly move or when you want to keep a constant damage output, but need to hide for a bit to replenish your shield or health.
