If you’ve spent any time running around Pandora and its surrounding star systems as a vault hunter, you know the entire Borderlands franchise revolves around one core promise: hidden, loot-packed vaults left by the ancient Eridian civilization. Borderlands 4 vaults take that promise to a whole new level, with more varied locations, deadlier guardians, and rewards that actually change how you play your entire playthrough instead of just giving you a shiny gun you’ll discard an hour later. I’ve put 120+ hours into the game since launch, unlocked every vault on both normal and mayhem mode, and found a ton of hidden tricks most players miss even on their second or third run.
What Makes Borderlands 4 Vaults Different From Past Franchise Entries?
If you played Borderlands 3, you probably noticed that most vaults felt like an afterthought: you’d fight a single boss, open one chest, and move on with barely a memorable moment to show for it. Borderlands 4 vaults fix that entirely, with multi-stage puzzles, hidden side rooms, and rewards that impact the rest of your playthrough, not just your inventory for the next hour. Gearbox clearly listened to fan feedback here, adding permanent account-wide buffs and vault-specific unique gear you can’t find anywhere else in the game. I was shocked when I unlocked my first vault and got a buff that doubled all my Eridium drops, instead of just a random blue-tier rifle I’d replace before I even left the vault chamber.
Another big change is that vaults are no longer just endgame content. You can unlock your first vault as early as level 15, long before you finish the main story, and the buffs you get from early vaults make the rest of the game way less grindy. Past vaults also all had the same generic Eridian design, but each vault in Borderlands 4 has a unique aesthetic tied to the planet it’s on, so they all feel distinct instead of like copy-pasted content.
All Confirmed Vault Locations and Unlock Requirements
As of the latest post-launch patch, there are 4 total vaults available in the base game, with more planned for upcoming DLC. None of them are marked on your map by default, so it’s easy to miss them entirely if you just rush through the main story. Here’s exactly where to find each one and what you need to unlock them:
- Pandora’s Forgotten Badlands Vault: Unlocked after completing the main story quest “The Last Eridian Signal” and collecting 3 hidden Eridian slabs scattered across the Dust Plains. Each slab is guarded by a small pack of bandits, so you can grab them as early as level 15 if you’re careful.
- Eden-7 Sunken Vault: Tied to the side quest chain for the new Siren character, Lila, and requires you to drain 3 flooded sections of the old Jakobs plantation. You can pick up this quest as soon as you reach Eden-7, no main story progress required beyond landing on the planet.
- Promethea Core Vault: Hidden under the Atlas headquarters, unlocked after you find 4 secret access keycards dropped by high-ranking Maliwan soldiers during post-game free roam. These soldiers only spawn in restricted Atlas zones, so you’ll have to sneak or fight your way past security to find them.
- Orbital Void Vault: The endgame raid vault, only accessible once you hit max level 72 and complete all 3 previous vaults, with support for 4-player co-op. This is the only vault that resets weekly, so you can farm it for top-tier mayhem mode gear as many times as you want each week.
A lot of players assume you have to beat the entire main story first to access any vaults, but that’s not true. You don’t have to beat the main story first to unlock the first two vaults, and unlocking them early gives you huge buffs that make the rest of the main story way easier. I unlocked the Badlands vault on my second playthrough at level 18, and the double Eridium buff let me buy three top-tier legendary guns from Crazy Earl before I even reached Eden-7.
Rare Vault Exclusive Rewards Worth Grinding For
Every vault has at least one unique reward you can’t get anywhere else in the game, so even if you’re not a lore nerd, it’s worth tracking them down just for the loot and buffs. The Eridian Resonance buff from the Badlands vault is easily the most useful early-game reward, doubling all Eridium drops for every character on your account. That means you can farm Eridium way faster to buy cosmetic skins, legendary gear, and storage upgrades from Crazy Earl right from the start of your playthrough.
The Eden-7 Sunken Vault drops the Jakobs Legacy shotgun, a legendary weapon with a 10% chance to one-shot any non-boss enemy even on mayhem 10 mode. I’ve used this shotgun on three different playthroughs now, and it’s still my go-to weapon for clearing out large packs of bandits quickly. The Promethea Core Vault gives you a permanent extra skill point for your current character, which might not sound like much, but that extra point can be the difference between unlocking a top-tier skill early or waiting 3 more levels to get it. The Orbital Void Vault drops the Vault Guardian class mod, a custom mod tailored to your specific character build that boosts all your core skills by 30% and gives you 50% extra damage resistance when your health drops below 20%. It’s easily the best class mod in the game for endgame mayhem runs, so it’s well worth grinding the raid for a good roll.
Pro Tips for Beating Vault Guardians Without Wasting Ammo
Even if you’re overleveled for a vault, the guardian bosses at the end can be a pain if you don’t know their weak points. The first thing you should do when you enter a boss arena is check the color of the guardian’s glowing core: red cores are weak to incendiary damage, blue to cryo, purple to corrosive, and yellow to shock. Using the wrong elemental type will make the fight take 3x longer, so always swap to the right gun before you start attacking.
Vault guardians take 2x damage from melee attacks when their core is exposed after they use a big attack, so if you’re playing a melee-focused build like the new Berserker class, you can melt their health bar in just a few hits if you time your attacks right. Don’t ignore the small minions that spawn halfway through the fight either, they drop ammo and health shards that you’ll definitely need if you’re playing on higher difficulty levels. I used to ignore minions to focus on the boss, and I’d end up running out of ammo halfway through the fight and dying for no reason. If you’re playing co-op, assign one player to clear minions while the rest focus on the boss’s core, that cuts the fight time almost in half in my experience. The best part? If you die during the fight, you respawn right at the entrance to the boss arena, so you don’t have to redo the entire vault puzzle or run all the way back from the nearest fast travel point.
At the end of the day, half the fun of playing a new Borderlands game is stumbling on hidden secrets you didn’t expect, and Borderlands 4 vaults are packed full of little surprises that make even 100+ hour playthroughs feel fresh. Don’t rush through them just to grab the loot and leave, take a minute to look around the vault chambers too, there are little Eridian lore entries scattered around that fill in a ton of gaps about what happened to the civilization that built these structures thousands of years ago. Whether you’re playing solo or with a group of friends, every vault you unlock will give you something that makes your playthrough feel unique, so don’t skip them on your first run.