All the Borderlands 1 and 2 Characters You Need to Know!

If you're a Borderlands fan, you're probably familiar with all the quirky, hilarious, often dangerous, but always unique Borderlands 1 and 2 characters.

But, if you are new to one of the best action shooter game titles ever or simply need a refresher course, below you can read about all Borderlands playable characters.

Let’s get to it!

Borderlands Characters Recap

The Borderlands universe employs numerous playable characters that come with their own backstories, skills, and abilities, which you discover as you level them up.

Borderlands 1 and its sequel base their character progression on skill trees (three for each character) that players can navigate, develop, and adapt to their playstyle—a common approach that was also implemented in the new Overwatch 2 Story Mode.

Moreover, to make every class distinctive, the devs have also implemented powerful action skills (one per character) that you earn and manually activate at Level 5.

Learn a bit about each character’s history and the skills they offer below.

Borderlands 1 Characters

The game that popularized the ARPG looter shooter genre took the gaming world by storm from its very first scene, in which it presents us with its four Borderlands 1 classes.

1. Roland, the Soldier

Specializing in combat rifles and shotguns, Roland hails from the planet Promethea and is a former Crimson Lance soldier—the private military outfit of the Atlas corporation. His skill trees include all-round weapon proficiency and support skills to both kill and heal:

• Infantry tree—makes your weapons more effective;
• Support tree—strengthens your defensive abilities (shields, Turret, etc.);
• Medic tree—abilities to heal yourself and your teammates.

Action skill: Scorpio Turret—fires at enemies and provides cover and assistance for you and your allies with an energy shield while providing supplies and reviving allies.

2. Mordecai, the Hunter

Originally from Artemis, Mordecai has been winning sharpshooting competitions since childhood before joining our band of unconventional heroes for the galactic treasure hunt. His skill trees improve upon his marksmanship and falconry skills:

• Sniper tree—improves your sniper abilities;
• Rogue tree—advances Bloodwing’s effectiveness;
• Gunslinger tree—enhances your melee and pistol damage.

Action skill: Bloodwing—a ferocious pet that attacks and dazes your enemies, makes them drop additional loot, heals you when attacking, and scouts ahead for your team.

3. Lilith, the Siren

Coming from the planet Dionysus, Lilith is one of six powerful Sirens—women with godlike elemental powers—and a staple of the Borderlands lore. Her skill trees help her survive enemy attacks and improve her melee, elemental, and weapon damage:

• Controller tree—helps you daze enemies and reduce incoming damage;
• Elemental tree—strengthens your elemental damage and tech effects;
• Assassin tree—improves upon your Phasewalk and melee attack damage.

Action skill: Phasewalk—become invisible, run faster, and damage enemies as you transition; when upgraded, it also regenerates you, dazes enemies, and boosts your melee attack.

4. Brick, the Berserker

Our fierce berzerker has lived a colorful life: hails from Menoetius, joined the original Vault Hunters, helped found the Crimson Raiders, became a bandit, and formed the Slab Gang. His skill trees focus on enhancing his tanking and damage abilities (melee and explosives): 

• Brawler tree—improves your the damage done by your fists;
• Tank tree—makes you much tougher and more resilient;
• Blaster tree—boosts your explosive weapon damage.

Action skill: Berserk—go crazy and punch your enemies to death with increased health regeneration, damage resistance, and melee damage.

Borderlands 2 Characters

In the sequel, the barren world of Pandora becomes a little less lonely with six Borderlands 2 classes, which demote the original cast to supporting roles:

1. Maya, the Siren

Born on Athenas, Maya exhibited powerful Siren-like powers even as an infant, which she trained in secret until her hunger for exploration compelled her to travel to Pandora. Her skill trees boost her Phaselock, damage, and healing abilities:

• Motion tree—focuses on Phaselock upgrades to affect multiple enemies;
• Cataclysm tree—improves your physical and elemental damage;
• Harmony tree—skills that boost your healing abilities.

Action skill: Phaselock—immobilize, damage, and brainwash your enemies by trapping them in another dimension to make them vulnerable or have them fight for you.

2. Salvador, the Gunzerker

Salvador is the first local-born and bred Borderlands character that manifests Pandora's violent and unpredictable spirit via his abilities and approach to battle. His skill trees expand on his volatile nature by enhancing his toughness and physical damage:

• Brawn tree—includes physical abilities and toughness upgrades;
• Gun Lust tree—enhances the potency of your guns;
• Rampage tree—strengthens your action skill and ammunition supply.

Action skill: Gunzerking—equip two weapons and instantly gain half of your health, damage reduction, and increased ammo and health regeneration.

3. Axton, the Commando

Joining our cast of ragged characters is Axton, a dishonorably discharged ex-command in the Dahl’s military force who was lured to Pandora with the promise of treasure. His skill trees rely on his very dangerous Sabre Turret that both defends him and attacks his enemies:

• Guerilla tree—boost your move and reload speed and action skill effectiveness;
• Gunpowder tree—enhances your explosive damage and offensive stats;
• Survival tree—improves your survivability and Turret deployability.

Action skill: Sabre Turret—shoots at your enemies with all kinds of ammunition, from bullets to rockets and lasers, and provides defensive capabilities with a shield emitter.

4. Zer0, the Assassin

He is shrouded in mystery as no one knows his name, where he comes from, and what he looks like. However, while his past is dubious, his lethal assassination experience is not. His skill trees enhance these deadly range and melee abilities:

• Sniping tree—enhances your gun and critical hit damage;
• Bloodshed tree—strengthen the efficiency of your melee attacks;
• Cunning tree—improves your Decepti0n benefits and combat abilities.

Action skill: Decepti0n—deploy a decoy after turning invisible that attracts enemy fire and dramatically increases the damage of your next attack as it ultimately ends your invisibility.

5. Gaige, the Mechromancer

Gaige is a highly brilliant young woman from Eden-5 who has built a robot companion as an anti-bullying science fair project. However, she was forced to leave for Pandora when her robot Deathtrap killed her main rival. Her skill set mainly highlights the robot’s abilities:

• Best Friends Forever tree—improve your aim, survivability, and Deathtrap’s abilities;
• Little Big Trouble tree—add elemental effects and damage to your attacks;
• Ordered Chaos tree—boost your damage at the expense of accuracy.

Action skill: Deathtrap—summon your killer robot to fight by your side, which restores your shields and damages your enemies with melee, explosive, and elemental damage.

6. Krieg, the Psycho

This tortured bounty hunter was abused by his mother and experimented upon by vile doctors. Now he relies on his ill-gotten psychosis and the power it lends him to destroy his enemies—further enhanced via his skill set:

• Bloodlust tree—get stacks of Bloodlust that give you a damage boost;
• Mania tree—benefit from various health mechanics and risky plays;
• Hellborn tree—set yourself on fire and take advantage of fire elemental damage.

Action skill: Buzz Axe Rampage—cut down your foes with your deadly buzz axe as you gain melee damage and movement speed boost, plus health regeneration on each kill.

Conclusion

This exceptional shooter looter trailblazer has certainly introduced us to a wild menagerie of eccentric characters over the years, a collection that was expanded by Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, the series’ latest addition and one of 2022’s most anticipated games.

As you can see, all ten Borderlands 1 and 2 characters listed above offer something valuable and unique to everyone out there, especially since you can customize their skills.

What’s your favorite Borderlands personality anyway? If you don’t remember, maybe it’s time to install it again, or even better: play it via a cloud gaming service with no hassles!