Borderlands 4 Endgame Explained (Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode)

In Borderlands 4 the endgame starts after finishing the story. There are 25 main missions total. You get the endgame tutorial screen after the 25th main mission Ultimate Vault Hunter: Wildcard Missions.

The endgame consists of 2 activities: Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode & Weekly Activities.

Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (UVH) explained

Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (also called “UVH”) is a higher difficulty that increases enemy health and damage taken. In exchange you earn more Cash, Eridium, XP, and higher quality loot.

After the story you can enable/disable Ultimate Vault Hunter under Pause Menu > Session Setting > Ultimate Vault Hunter Level > On/Off.

To increase your Ultimate Vault Hunter Rank, you must complete the Ultimate Vault Hunter Challenges. These are found under Missions > Challenges > Ultimate Vault Hunter (only available after the story).

The challenges involve killing specific bosses on specific UVH ranks as seen in the Ultimate Vault Hunter challenges. These are typically bosses at certain activity locations, which can be replayed by interacting with Moxxi’s Big Encore machine at the boss location. These will be marked on the map after defeating the boss once. After you defeated all required bosses, it spawns a “Wildcard Mission” on the map. Then beat the “Wildcard Mission” to increase your Rank. The Wildcard Missions are regular main missions but with some mods to make them harder. These will be a guaranteed spawn, not the random weekly Wildcard Mission. So don’t worry, you don’t need to wait for weeks to get a random weekly Wildcard, it will automatically spawn as soon as you finish all the bosses for your rank.

Ultimate Vault Hunter Challenges:

UVH1:

• Kill Bramblesong in UVH 1 (Abandoned Auger Mine, Stoneblood Forest, Terminus Range)
• Kill Bio Armored Omega Thresher in UVH 1 (Fades District, Dominion – requires previously completing Side Missions: One Gassy Issue / One Slimy Issue)
• Kill Bio-Bulkhead in UVH 1 (Synthetic Nave, Dissected Plateau, Fadefields)
• Kill Sydney Pointylegs in UVH 1 (Ripper Drill Site, Hungering Plain, Fadefields)
• Complete Lilith’s “Rush The Gate” Wildcard mission in UVH 1 to unlock UVH 2 – the Wildcard Mission is a guaranteed spawn, gets marked on the map after finishing the 4 bosses

UVH2:

• Kill Shadowpelt in UVH 2 (Abandoned Auger Mine, Cuspid Climb, Terminus Range)
• Kill Core Observer in UVH 2 (Order Bunker, The Howl, Fadefields)
• Kill Rocken Roller in UVH 2 (Abandoned Auger Mine, Ruined Sumplands, Carcadia Burn)
• Kill Frank the Furnace in UVH 2 (Ripper Drill Site, Idolator’s Noose, Fadefields)
• Complete Lilith’s “His Vile Sanctum” Wildcard mission in UVH 2 to unlock UVH 3 – the Wildcard Mission is a guaranteed spawn, gets marked on the map after finishing the 4 bosses

UVH3:

• Kill Battle Wagon in UVH 3 (Ripper Drill Site, Stoneblood Forest, Terminus Range)
• Kill Mimicron in UVH 3 (Order Bunker, Idolator’s Noose, Fadefields)
• Kill the Immortal Boneface in UVH 3 (Ripper Drill Site, Cuspid Climb, Terminus Range)
• Kill Skull Orchid in UVH 3 (Abandoned Auger Mine, Grindstone of the Worthy, Carcadia Burn)
• Complete Lilith’s “Her Flaming Vision” Wildcard mission in UVH 3 to unlock UVH 4 – the Wildcard Mission is a guaranteed spawn, gets marked on the map after finishing the 4 bosses

UVH4:

• Complete Lilith’s “Primordial Vault: Fadefields” Wildcard misson in UVH 4 to unlock UVH 5 (requires previously completing “Primordial Vault: Fadefields”)
• Complete Lilith’s “Primordial Vault: Terminus Range” Wildcard misson in UVH 4 to unlock UVH 5 (requires previously completing “Primordial Vault: Terminus Range”)
• Complete Lilith’s “Primordial Vault: Carcadia Burn” Wildcard misson in UVH 4 to unlock UVH 5 (requires previously completing “Primordial Vault: Carcadia Burn”)

UVH5:

• Complete Lilith’s “The Timekeeper’s Order” Wildcard mission in UVH 4 to unlock UVH 5

Weekly Activities explained

After the story, you will unlock a “Weekly Activities” tracker in the bottom left corner of the map. It looks like this:

Every week there are 3 types of activities:

1. Weekly Wildcard Mission (green icon) – This lets you replay a story mission with mods that make it more difficult. It unlocks a guaranteed legendary item.
2. Maurice’s Black Market (yellow icon) – This is a vending machine that gives a guaranteed legendary item each week but it’s not marked, so you need to search for it.
3. Moxxi’s Big Encore (red icon) – This wants you to replay a specific boss fight, the boss will get a buff and will be harder than usual.

In conclusion: after the story the endgame consists of doing the Ultimate Vault Hunter challenges, and optionally you can participate in weekly activities for some legendary loot.

For more game info check out the Borderlands 4 Wiki.