Borderlands 4 - Order's Closet

Here are some progress updates on my original level for Borderlands 4 - the Order's Closet.

background

Countless eons ago, the Eridian civilization forged the Vaults—massive prison-machines designed to contain entities of apocalyptic scale, known as Vault Beasts. These horrors were sealed away to prevent them from unmaking reality itself. Centuries later, the legend of the Vaults gave rise to a new breed of lunatics and heroes: Vault Hunters, treasure-seekers who unearth these deposits in search of glory and loot.

Inceptus, Vault Beast

Now, on Kairos—a so-called “prison planet” under the control of the immortal tyrant known as The Timekeeper—freedom is just another myth. Every citizen carries a Bolt, a neural implant that lets the Timekeeper’s regime, the Order, watch, command, and puppet anyone at will. Resistance is rare and short-lived.

And yet, whispers spread of pushback: the Crimson Rebellion, a rag-tag army of freedom-fighters, ex-Order defectors, and meatheads with guns. Among them, a few rogue scientists once loyal to the Order uncovered something terrifying—an uncharted Vault buried deep beneath Kairos’s crust. When the Timekeeper caught wind of their betrayal, he slaughtered the entire team. Only one researcher escaped, straight into the Vault, sealing themselves inside with whatever lurked below.

You play as Amon the Forgeknight—a Vault Hunter with a cold heart and a grudge forged in loss. Years ago, a Vault Beast annihilated his homeworld, and ever since, Amon’s made it his life’s mission to hunt their kind to extinction. Now, after piecing together fragments of Eridian data scattered across Kairos, he’s tracked the secret Vault’s coordinates to the Order’s hidden lab. The trapped scientist is just a footnote. He’s here to make sure nothing like that ever crawls out again.

the level

An unassuming cave entrance.

A secret Vault tucked away by rebellious Order scientists, nicknamed the “Order’s Closet”. It contains a vault monster with insurmountable destructive potential–even more so than the original calamity whom vaults were created for eons in the past. Findere the Many. It is a sentient parasite that can replicate its biomass through host assimilation. Able to latch on to a host and puppeteer their nervous system, it has the capability to easily take over planets and universes. Ancient Eridian tomes contain horrific depictions of the Findere razing their society to the ground, its original host lost in the hordes of soldiers. The Eridians sealed it in an urn together with an regenerative, synthetic Eridian convict: a prison designed to trap the creature within its own infinite spawn. The delicate balance within the urn and the largest Vault to date was constructed specifically to contain this entity for eternity.

Eridian architecture in a craggy region.

The Timekeeper's disturbance tipped the scales of the fragile ecosystem and caused Findere to gain an edge against her immortal cellmate. The informant who escaped into the vault met a horrible fate--something Amon has yet to discover, and the lingering dregs of Eridian society have been converted into Findere's minions.

Findere's Escape.