Borderlands 4 First Hours Walkthrough — What to Do First

The opening of Borderlands 4 throws a lot at you. You land on Kairos, get a quick tutorial, and then you're dumped into Ironhold with a handful of quest markers and no real direction. Here's exactly what I do in the first five hours, in order, based on four playthroughs.

Honestly, it helps to know the big picture: you're joining the Crimson Resistance to overthrow the Timekeeper, who runs Kairos through a synthetic army called The Order and controls the civilian population with cybernetic implants called Bolts. The story is actually decent this time - better than BL3's main campaign, and the villain isn't just a streamer with delusions of grandeur.

Mission 1: Welcome to Ironhold

You start in the Ironhold slums. The game wants you to follow a narrow street toward a Resistance checkpoint. Do that, but hug the left wall.

There's a breakable grate on the left about 100 meters from spawn. Shoot it, crouch through, and you'll find a small ammo cache and a green-rarity shield that's usually 20-30 points better than your starter. This cache respawns per character, not per session - so take it every new playthrough.

The checkpoint guards give you a side mission: clear out a nearby Order patrol. Do it. It's two waves of basic synth soldiers and a shielded captain at the end. Shock damage is your friend here - all Order units in the early game have shields. The captain drops a guaranteed blue weapon, which in the first hour is meaningful.

Mission 2: The Crimson Signal

Elena (your main Resistance contact) wants you to activate three comm relays to broadcast a recruitment signal across Ironhold. The relays are scattered across the slum rooftops and this is where you actually learn to use the movement system.

Use the double jump + glide combo to cross rooftop gaps. If you're playing on controller, the timing is: jump (A), wait till apex, jump again (A), then hold (A) to glide. On M/KB it's space-space-hold. Takes about ten minutes to get the muscle memory. Don't skip this - the grappling hook comes later and you'll need these fundamentals for combat mobility.

Each relay has a small Order squad defending it. Third relay is on the tallest building and has a mini-boss: a Order Warden with a rocket launcher. Stay mobile. The Warden fires in volleys of three, then reloads for about 2.5 seconds - that's your damage window.

After all three relays, you get your first class mod. This is a big deal. Even a white class mod boosts your action skill by a noticeable amount. Equip it immediately. Don't sleep on class mods like I did on my first run - I genuinely forgot the slot existed for like 8 levels.

Mission 3: Into the Breach

This is the first real dungeon. Elena sends you into an Order processing facility to rescue captured Resistance fighters. The facility has three floors and a basement. Enemies get denser as you go deeper.

Important detail: on the second floor, there's a locked door with a keypad. The code is on a datapad in the break room two rooms before the locked door. I spent 20 minutes looking for a key card on my first run because I didn't read the datapad. Don't be me.

The boss at the bottom is an Order Enforcer - big armored mech with a flamethrower and a missile barrage. Two-phase fight. Phase 1 is straightforward: stay mid-range, shoot the back exhaust port, use the pillars for cover. At 50% health it transitions to Phase 2 and starts deploying shock turrets. Destroy the turrets first - they'll shred your shield in seconds if you ignore them. The Enforcer itself is less aggressive during the turret phase, so clear the adds then finish the boss.

The rescued prisoners give you a choice of three unique weapons as a reward. I always take the Jakobs revolver - it has a hidden crit multiplier that isn't shown in the stats, and headshots one-shot most non-shielded enemies for the next five levels.

What to Do Immediately After

Once you're back in the Resistance HQ with fast travel unlocked:

First, go to Nisha's Armory in the HQ's north wing. She sells a random legendary for 3,000-5,000 credits. Buy it even if it's not your preferred weapon type - a legendary this early is rare and you can stash it for alts.

Second, check the bounty board near the mission terminal. Bounties are repeatable mini-missions that give good XP and Eridium. Do the "Clean Sweep" bounty - it's quick (clear a small Order outpost), rewards 2,000 XP, and takes maybe 8 minutes.

Third, if you've got at least 5,000 credits, go to the ammo vendor and buy the first ammo capacity upgrade for your primary weapon type. The base SMG ammo cap (180 rounds) runs dry fast in extended fights. The upgrade bumps it to 240.

First Skill Point Allocation

You should be around level 5-6 by now, which means 5-6 skill points. Here's my general advice that applies regardless of class:

Put your first 3 points into whatever skill gives you a direct damage boost. Every tree has one near the top. For Vex it's "Tactical Advantage" (+15% gun damage at 3 points). For Amon it's "Conductive Fury" (shock damage bonus). Don't spread points across trees this early - commit to one tree until you hit the tier 2 unlock at 10 points invested.

Your first action skill augment unlocks at level 7. Read the augments carefully - some change how your skill works entirely. Amon's "Chain Reaction" augment turns his single-target phase blast into a bouncing chain lightning effect. It's a different playstyle and worth trying both versions before committing.

One thing the game does not explain: you can swap between two action skill presets outside of combat by holding the action skill button. This lets you have a boss-killer setup and a mob-clear setup hot-swappable. Discover this earlier than I did (level 32, embarrassingly).