Class mods are a great way to customise and boost your character in Borderlands 3. But how do you unlock them?
In Borderlands 3, progression follows a fairly classical RPG system. You achieve things in-game and are rewarded with experience points. When you reach a threshold, you go up an experience level. When that happens you get a stat boost, plus some skill points to spend customising your skill tree.
Each of the different character classes has its own skill tree. As you spend points on these skill trees, you’ll be able to add active abilities and passive effects to your character. Chances are, you’ll spend your points in a completely different order to the next person. But the skill trees are on rails, and we’re all heading towards the same destinations.
Class mods, on the other hand, offer you the option to customise your character in Borderlands 3, outside of the skill tree progression path.
What are class mods in Borderlands 3?
Class mods are equipable “items” you can find in Borderlands 3, that allow you to further customise your character class. They confer their effects while equipped, and can be swapped or changed for other class mods at any time if you need a different boost or approach for any given scenario.
Class mods, as in the previous Borderlands games, are character-specific. For example, you can’t equip the Siren Amara’s class mods on Moze, the gunner, and vice versa. That means if you find a class mod that doesn’t belong to you, it’s basically useless. Well, to your character. The classy thing to do is gift it to your friends, but you could also sell it to a shopkeeper if you need the money. (Vault hunters are mercenaries, after all.)
Borderlands 3’s class mods also come in different colours, to signify their rarity level and relative efficacity, just like all the other guns and equipment in the game. That means that, as you progress through the game, you’ll not only find different types of class mod, but also, more powerful ones.
How do you unlock class mods in Borderlands 3?
Class mods aren’t available to equip straight away in Borderlands 3. Like additional weapon slots, they’re gated behind story progress. The short answer is to just be patient, and within a few hours, you’ll find them available.
The longer answer, if you must know, is that once you’ve left Pandora – the starting planet – in the Sanctuary 3 and landed on Promethea – the enormous cityscape planet – you’ll receive a main story quest called ‘Hostile Takeover’. Complete that quest, and when you beat the boss at the end? You’ll receive your first class mod.
From that point on, keep an eye out for class mods to improve your odds.
