Borderlands 4 Dev Talks Making the Timekeeper Different From Handsome Jack, the Calypso Twins

One of the highlights of every Borderlands game is its villains. From Handsome Jack’s cruelty to the Calypso twins’ unpredictability, the series has generally featured chaotic personalities that are loud, unfiltered, and often impossible to ignore. For the most part, that formula worked for over a decade, but Borderlands 4 isn’t interested in repeating history. This time, Borderlands is introducing an antagonist who doesn’t thrive on volume and show, but on control: the Timekeeper.

Game Rant recently spoke with Borderlands 4 senior project producer Anthony Nicholson about what sets this new antagonist apart and how the Timekeeper’s composed nature changes the dynamic for the entire game. According to Nicholson, the team didn’t just want to create a villain who stood out but one who felt like a direct response to everything players had come to expect from the series. That meant shifting away from the erratic nature of spontaneity and exchanging it for something a bit colder and darker.

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Making Sure Borderlands 4’s Timekeeper Hits Different

While Borderlands villains have always had loud personalities, punchy one-liners, and a knack for the theatrical, Borderlands 4 wants to present a different kind of threat. Rather than screaming for attention, Borderlands 4‘s Timekeeper all but commands it. It’s not charisma or unpredictability that defines him, but his unsettling calmness that is ultimately his secret weapon. His presence, voice, and composure almost make him feel foreign to Borderlands fans in the best possible way, but that’s part of the point.

When specifically asked how the Timekeeper differs from past Borderlands villains, Nicholson explained:

“Whenever we look at Borderlands antagonists, we want to make sure that we’re not doubling up on or being tropey or anything like that. And for this situation, for the environment that we’re in on Kairos, it’s a hidden planet. It’s obviously a secret. It’s kind of a prison planet because once you get there, you’re either bolted or killed, or you’re a robot. And so that helped to form everything.”

So, the Timekeeper wasn’t actually borne out of a desire to just have a different villain but largely from the shift in Borderlands 4‘s world design and narrative vision instead. Kairos itself is supposed to feel unfamiliar and dangerous due to its secretive and isolated nature, and the factions that live there are ultimately oppressed by a system that values control above all else. In that setting, the Timekeeper becomes less of a traditional villain and more of a controlling force.

By aligning the Timekeeper to Borderlands 4‘s setting, Gearbox had room to experiment with the idea of control versus chaos on a larger scale. Whereas Handsome Jack was charismatically sarcastic and the Calypso twins were, more or less, Jack’s chaotic aftershow, the Timekeeper’s power comes from his ability to maintain order within himself, mirroring what he wants for the world he controls. That makes the chaos players bring with them all the more disruptive. Nicholson continued:

“We wanted an order versus chaos theming — the Vault Hunters in Borderlands 4 bringing the chaos, the uprising of the people in the other factions around the world of Kairos rising up, creating the chaos. And the Timekeeper is such an orderly, put-together, calm antagonist. We needed someone who’s kind of strong. Feels very confident in the decisions that they make. Not easily rattled. And so how do we do that?”

Much of that mood is communicated through the Timekeeper’s voice and physical characteristics. His appearance had to indicate restraint, and his tone needed to feel intentional. Even small choices, like casting a deep-voiced actor, were made to ensure it all came together. While previous Borderlands villains have been a bit more explosive, the Timekeeper is calculated and controlled. Nicholson concluded:

“Well, it needs to be somebody who looks put together, needs to be very firm and calming in their voice and their candor in the way that they speak. A deep voice helps with that in a lot of ways. Then, when we just started talking about what the story should be and how that all intertwined and stuff that you’ll find out much later, it just felt like all of those pieces together helped us form the Timekeeper and kind of set the stage for him being the ringleader of the Kairos circus that the Vault Hunters have crash-landed into.”

In a franchise built on chaos, the most dangerous thing Borderlands 4 could do is introduce a villain who just doesn’t follow that curve. Very little is still known about the Timekeeper, but if everything Nicholson shared holds up, it seems even the most dedicated Borderlands fans might not know what they’re in for.