Borderlands Vault Hunters / Characters

Spoilers Off for games prior to Borderlands 3 as well as for spoiler characters that are marked as such. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.

Vault Hunters (in general)

Small teams of adventurers hunting the alien Vaults that populate Pandora. Known for being extremely dangerous and rare, to the point that most people react with surprise when they meet one.

Affectionate Nickname, In the Borderlands 2 DLC Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary, the Vault Hunters are nicknamed as "VH" by Ellie, and "Vaulty-Vault" by Tina.
Anti-Hero: All of them except Maya, and possibly Roland. In the case of Wilhelm, Aurelia, and Nisha, they are outright Villain Protagonists.
Badass Crew: Practically the definition of it: a small team of four to six people who effectively destroy entire armies of bandits, mercenaries, and robots, to the point where by the end of both of their respective games, they are expected to take on entire bases of well-armed enemies by themselves.
Blood Knight: Every single one of them enjoys going into battle to an extent. The only ones who may not relish it are Jack's Doppleganger (who's a normal guy who got pushed into it mostly against his will) and Roland (a long-time veteran who is VERY aware that War Is Hell).
Challenge Seeker: A common motivation for becoming a Vault Hunter aside from riches and glory is a worthwhile challenge (as well as the riches and glory that come with it). This is the main motivation for Zer0, FL4K, Amara, Brick and Mordecai. When word gets out that Fiona considers herself a Vault Hunter, Zer0 willingly answers the call to help her out in the final chapter of Tales from the Borderlands, and is not disappointed.
Combat Pragmatist: Turrets, Dual Wielding guns, swords, shields, holograms, attack animals, attack robots, mechs, Siren powers, ice summons, buzz axes, and fisticuffs. The Vault Hunters will use everything at their disposal to take out their enemies alongside their guns. Fighting fair is for chumps and it will get you killed in worlds like Pandora, Elpis, and wherever else they travel.
Cutscene Incompetence: As dangerous as they are in-game, during cutscenes they evidently just stand around off-screen while villains either gloat at them or do something otherwise preventable.
The Dreaded: While it doesn't stop the countless mooks across the galaxy from trying to kill them anyway (In fairness, they're either stupid or don't have a choice), the title of Vault Hunter is synonymous with aspiration and utter dread, and a bloodbath is generally expected to happen whenever they show up. Ironically, the first Vault Hunter relied more on a combination of luck and wits more than personal strength.
Bandit: It's a Vault Hunter! It's a Vault Hunter!
Egomaniac Hunter: Vault Hunters that specialize in sniping tend to lean towards this characterization in some manner.
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": In the second and third games, everyone on Pandora calls the Vault Hunters either "Vault Hunter" or some sort of nickname:
- Roland calls them "Soldier".
- Lilith calls them "Killer".
- Brick calls them "Slab".
- Claptrap calls the Borderlands 2 gang "Minion" and the Borderlands 3 bunch “Recruit”.
- Moxxi (Like she does everyone else) calls them "Sugar".
- Ellie calls them "VH" in 3.
- Tiny Tina calls them "Shawty", "Girl", or "Vaulty-Vault".
- Sir Hammerlock actually spends one sidequest of his DLC trying out nicknames for the Vault Hunters. Same with Scooter in "Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage".
- Handsome Jack calls them "Bandit." Then again, he calls everyone not working for him that. Later on, he calls them "child-killer" after Angel's death.
- Colonel Hector calls them "Raider".
- Tyreen Calypso calls them "Superfan" or "Vault Thief". Her followers and Troy also call them the latter.
- Aurelia refers to them as "Whore".
- Clay calls them "Smooth Operator".
Fashionable Asymmetry: None of the Vault Hunters wear symmetrical clothes and none looks worse because of it. Of particular note are the Sirens, who seem to think that they are legally required to expose the Power Tattoos on their arms at all times, no matter what they're wearing.
Gun Nut: All Vault Hunters love guns and are all overjoyed upon seeing a weapon of decent rarity. Even bruisers such as Brick and Krieg love themselves a shiny new gun. When Typhon DeLeon shows off the Eridian Fabricator (a gun that can shoot guns) to the Vault Hunters, all of them immediately want it for themselves (with Zane being reduced to screaming "GUN" repeatedly).
Hired Guns: They'll do any job as long as they get paid.
Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Lilith and Roland for the first set of Vault Hunters. Krieg and Maya for the second, thanks to the "A Meat Bicycle Built for Two" short film — at least, for Krieg toward Maya. In a non-romantic example, Roland and Brick with Tiny Tina. There's also Deathtrap (though he's a robot) to Gaige.
Killed Off for Real: Roland, Nisha, Wilhelm, Maya, Aurelia, and possibly Lilith all end up meeting untimely demises.
Living Legend: To be a Vault Hunter means that you are a badass. If one could use an analogy, a Vault Hunter is to Borderlands what a Jedi is to Star Wars.
Mechanically Unusual Class:
- Rhys and Fiona play entirely differently since they're from a Telltale game and not a shooter.
- Gaige The Mecromancer was designed as a "Beginner Mode" character (the first skill tree focuses on making things easier, with skills that still do damage to enemies if the player misses or increase their ability to survive) with the option of playing her as Difficult, but Awesome instead for better results (the last skill tree has skills that deliberately make the player go against what they would normally do in an FPS, such as sacrificing accuracy for higher damage thus forcing them to get up close and discouraging them to avoid manually reloading).
- Krieg the Psycho uses a lot of Desperation Attack based skills and generally involves taking damage to deal it (one skill tree consists mainly of skills that only work when he's on fire). In addition, he's also the only class which has a melee build as one of the default options (other classes can have them, but they need some optimization). The developers noted that it was because of this reason that he was saved as DLC since his skill-set would likely turn players off compared to the easier to play ones. One of his talents even makes him vulnerable to friendly fire.
- Claptrap the Fragtrap features a few notable differences from the rest of the Vault-hunting crew. First, as a robot, he has no need to breath, so his Oz kit's oxygen reserves don't automatically drain over time in a vacuum. Second, as a robot, his metal chassis renders him resistant to Incendiary damage but vulnerable to Corrosive, as opposed to the other way around for his (mostly) human teammates. Finally, his Action Skill,VaultHunter.EXE, functions very differently from any of the other Action Skills in the series, randomly loading up one of several Action Packages. Several of these Action Packages can apply their effects to everyone on Claptrap's team, and even more can be unlocked by investing in the right skills in his skill trees. His right-side skill tree works around subroutines that provide buffs and debuffs based on what weapons he is using. It will randomly switch to a different subroutine at any given time, and forces him to switch and use different weapons to get the most out of it. In short, his gimmick is unpredictability that the player has no control over.
- All of the Vault Hunters from 3 are this to their predecessors, since they get multiple options for their Action Skills that they can switch between freely. They also get special skills called augments, which alter the behavior of their Action Skills but don't cost skill points and can also be swapped in and out freely. And don't think the fun stops there, because they also manage to stand out against each other.
  - Amara the Siren is the closest to a vanilla Vault Hunter this time around; she only gets to equip one Action Skill at once, and she can equip up to two augments for it. However, one of her augment slots is reserved for augments that control the element of her Action Skill, and none of her augments have restrictions regarding which Action Skills they can be paired with.
  - Zane the Operative gets the option to equip two Action Skills at once, each of which gets two slots for augments. However, in order to equip a second Action Skill, he must give up his ability to throw grenades, and he never unlocks any additional Action Skills beyond his initial three.
  - Moze the Gunner behaves the most similarly to past Vault Hunters in some ways, since her Action Skill always summons her mech, Iron Bear (which basically functions like Salvador's Gunzerk skill). Instead, her Action Skill options control Iron Bear's weaponry, with one augment slot each for the left weapon and right weapon. She can choose to equip the same weapon to both sides or mix and match, but both sides must be assigned a weapon before she can use her Action Skill.
  - FL4K the Beastmaster gets to choose a pet to summon in addition to an Action Skill and two augments. The pet grants passive bonuses and largely acts autonomously but can be commanded to perform a special attack. Instead of new Action Skill options, FL4K unlocks upgraded versions of their pets instead. And like Claptrap, FL4K is more vulnerable to Corrosive attacks.
One-Man Army: Each and every Vault Hunter is able to fight off hordes of men, women, monsters, and robots. Safe to say whenever any Vault Hunter shows up in enemy territory things are going to get messy (for their enemies). Lampshaded by Professor Nakayama in the the second game's Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt DLC, when he calls them a "walking apocalypse" while trying to hype himself up.
Only One Name: They all usually go by their first names or a nickname, with Nisha Kadam, Timothy Lawrence, Aurelia Hammerlock, Zane Flynt, Moserah "Moze" Andreyevna, and Lilith Cashlin (seen in unused texture files) being the only exceptions. Some of them (such as Brick) probably don't even have last names in the first place. Zer0 may not have a true name at all (as with so much else about Zer0, it's left ambiguous), FL4K's full name is a 512-character-long alphanumeric string, and not even Krieg knows his real name.
Phrase Catcher: "Come on back" after a mission.
Private Military Contractors: A heroic example; they'll do virtually anything for money and loot, but ultimately work for themselves and their friends. That said, the Vault Hunters are willing to work for corporations whose leadership is explicitly friendly towards them, such as Hyperion in the Pre-Sequel and Atlas in 3.
Promoted to Playable:
- Athena, Claptrap, Wilhelm, and Nisha started as NPCs before being made Vault Hunters. Krieg also serves as this for the Psycho class of enemies.
- In Tales, Zer0, Athena, Springs, August, Cassius, and Claptrap can all be selected as incidental Vault Hunters during the finale. Felix can also be selected, but he leaves the story again before the player gets to play as him and instead leaves Fiona with enough money to hire Claptrap.
Pungeon Master: The Pre-Sequel Vault Hunters always have a set of ice puns for when they freeze their enemies with cryo.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits:
- The first group consists of a reasonably sane ex-soldier, a totally berserk lunatic (bare-fisted version), an alcoholic sharpshooter and his bird (which he talks to), and a pyromaniacal power-obsessed mystical Siren.
- The second group consists of another ex-soldier (this one with an overdeveloped ego), another berserk lunatic about a third as tall as anyone else and a love for More Dakka, an excessively (even gratuitously) mysterious assassin of completely unknown origins, a reasonably sane Siren looking for more about her heritage, a young robotics prodigy on the run from the law, and a psychotic escaped experiment who talks in complete gibberish.
- The group in between them consists of a mercenary obsessed with cybernetic augmentation, a sadomasochistic cowgirl with a cruel streak a mile wide, a former assassin trained as a child-soldier, a small annoying robot equipped with malware, an unlucky actor-turned-body double and an Egomaniac Hunter who happens to be a figurative and literal Ice Queen.
- The third group consists of an ex-Vladof special forces soldier with a Mini-Mecha, a buff-as-hell Famed In-Story Siren vigilante, a retired special ops infiltrator with all sorts of classified tricks up his sleeves who happens to come from a family of murderous bandit lords, and a Killer Robot whose only friends are their pet beasts.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Between the first and second group of Vault Hunters (except Gaige).
- Roland is a solid Blue, being The Hero for the first game, and Big Good in the second. Axton, by comparison, is a Red, what with being a Military Maverick that blew up some terrorists along with the VIP he was supposed to be protecting, basically due to Rule of Cool as opposed to a Roaring Rampage of Revenge like Roland. Athena actually bounces back and forth; outside of combat she's calm and controlled, recounting her tale without any real emotion to Lilith, while in battle she becomes loud, aggressive and, depending on her skill trees, she insults her foes or flies into berserk laughter.
- Maya is Blue, being The Hero compared to her more... "reckless" allies, while Lilith is solid Red, being much more reckless and hot-headed. Their hair colors (blue and red) even match!
- With Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, Lilith is now an Ascended Fangirl with some good old-fashioned repressed nerd anger compared to Maya's kinder lady scholar.
- It's often hard to tell where the equally aggressive Brick, Salvador, and Krieg fall into which category, but Brick's occasional lapses into being the Only Sane Man makes him Blue by default, whereas Salvador's endless aggression and Krieg being, well, Krieg, point to them being Red. Wilhelm's deadpan professionalism makes him more Blue, especially as his cybernetic enhancements make him more and more inhuman.
- Zer0 is a solid Blue, having no tone of voice outside his Creepy Monotone (even the times he's Sophisticated as Hell), while Mordecai's laid back, easygoing attitude makes him Red. Nisha is more of a Red, being a sadistic gunslinger while Aurelia is more of a Blue, being a stuffy, arrogant aristocrat.
- Gaige fills both roles in a metaphysical context. She's voiced by two actresses. Luci Christian recorded 2/3rd of her lines, specifically covering all the interactions from her Best Friends Forever and Little Big Trouble skill trees, where Gaige is a solid Blue by remaining fairly calm and levelheaded. Cherami Leigh was later brought in to record her Anarchy tree as well as her official ECHO logs on Youtube, and lines that she says as part of the DLC storylines. With Anarchy, all bets are off. Gaige goes full-on crazy with power, right clear into Red territory.
Sadist: While none (OK, few) of them take it to the same horrifying levels as the franchise's villains, you can't be a Pandoran apex predator without taking at least a little bit of enjoyment in the eye-watering violence you routinely inflict on people. Even the most upstanding Hunters like Maya and Roland are very pleased with a good critical or elemental kill.
Schrödinger's Canon: The New-U Stations, which is literally a version of Death Is Cheap that allows the Vault Hunters to come back even after death. Officially, they're non-canon and are only brought up whenever the game decides it'd be funny, such as when Jack and Tyreen pays the players to kill themselves or when Axton makes an off-hand comment about how New-U subscriptions are getting too pricey for his taste.
Silent Protagonist: Zigzagged in 1 and 2. While the Vault Hunters can speak, mostly during fights or standing idle long enough, they never directly speak to NPCs. The Vault Hunters of 2 grew out of this in later DLC while teams preceding them gained unique dialogue for most situations.
Space Cossacks: A good chunk of the playable characters in Borderlands are on the run and moved to Pandora to escape from someone or something. The straightest examples are:
- Zero, Amara, Fl4k, and Brick don't care as much about the Vaults and just want an excuse to fight, kill and break stuff.
- Borderlands:
  - Mordecai is just in for the thrill of looking for alien vaults.
  - Roland defected from the Crimson Lance, the elite military arm of the superpowerful and very far-reaching Atlas corporation after his superiors betrayed him. He moved to Pandora in an attempt to fight back against Atlas, which rules the planet with an iron fist.
  - Lilith comes to Pandora trying to run away from ostracism on account of having magical powers, as well as due to rumors of there being another Siren on the planet.
- Borderlands 2:
  - Axton, who was "not advised" by his boss/wife to move to the Borderlands to avoid being executed by a firing squad for his Glory Hound tendencies.
  - Maya defected from the Order of the Impending Storm, which ruled the planet Athenas with an iron fist, after finding out she had been raised as an enforcer of oppression and death. She moved to Pandora to find more answers about herself.
  - Salvador is a Pandoran native. He left his hometown to fight Hyperion after the latter declared all the local residents as bandits for not submitting to Handsome Jack's iron fist.
  - Krieg moved to Pandora and started fighting against Hyperion after they twisted him into a raving lunatic mutant. He's looking for the Vault to follow Maya; he fell in love with her and thinks Maya will restore his sanity.
  - Gaige is probably the straightest example in the series: she ran away to Pandora with her dad's help after killing her arch-enemy with her death robot during a high school science fair, hoping that the long arm of her rival's powerful family won't find her in Pandora.
- Borderlands 3:
  - Moze moves to Pandora after being the sole survivor of a suicide mission, which is also the straw that breaks her back after long years of abuse from Vladof's command that was already digging into her sanity.
  - Zane, who came (while calling it a vacation) largely to go under the radar of various corporations with a bounty on his head.
Superior Successor: Due to a combination of Serial Escalation and gameplay mechanics being altered and/or refined, it seems that each generation of Vault Hunters are better than the next and are bound for deeds that outstrip the former, with an example being how the Generation 3 Vault Hunters managed to crack multiple Vaults around the galaxy while the teams before them all end up cracking one as the climax of their adventures.
Supporting Protagonist: In Borderlands 2 and 3, the focus of the story is more on the previous vault hunters and Ava. The playable characters are there to complete missions. Similarly, the Pre-Sequel team are Jack's personal goon squad and are there to do his dirty work.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The Pre-Sequel crew don't really like each other all that much (particularly in the case of Claptrap, who everyone hates) but are nonetheless capable of working together effectively.
Token Super: Every Siren, being the only ones with actual powers.
True Companions: The first group has become one by the second game, despite their own vast differences. And when Roland dies, the reaction from Brick just shows how strong their friendship became. In the ending of Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep (which shows all of the Vault Hunters gathered around Roland and Bloodwing's memorial), Marcus has this to say about them.
"And they'd remember that no matter how bad things got, they were never truly alone so long as they had each other."^note
Weapon Specialization: While no Vault Hunter is averse to any weapon, a large majority of them utilize a particular weapon for their melee and have skills/class mods that specialize in certain weapon types.
- Roland's "Infantry" tree enhances his proficiency with assault rifles and shotguns.
- Mordecai is best known for using sniper rifles and pistols.
- Brick and Amara have their fists. And will inform you anytime they'd like how much they love punching people. Weapons-wise, the former can specialize in explosive weapons.
- Since Sirens specialize in Elemental damage, they tend to be associated with Maliwan weapons (particularly automatic weapons like SMGs).
- Some of Axton's class mods give stat boosts to any assault rifles he has, and his "Overload" skill increases his assault rifle magazine.
- Maya is commonly seen with either an SMG or a pistol in promotional material. And a few of her class mods have SMG enhancements.
- Salvador is most commonly seen Gunzerking with two rifles at hand. And his "I'm your Huckleberry" skill specializes in pistols.
- Zer0 has his energy sword, and his "Sniper" tree specializes in, well, sniper rifles.
- Krieg is most well-known for his buzzsaw axe, though a lot of his skills are also centered around explosives and fire weapons. Especially in the case of fire weapons for his "Hellborn" tree.
- Gaige isn't given any benefits for a given weapon by her skill trees, but "Ordered Chaos" benefits heavily from using shotguns, particularly ones that put out lots of pellets and have small magazines, since Anarchy ensures you're not going to be aiming with any sort of precision to start with. Guns, Love, and Tentacles highlights it with the legendary "Anarchy" shotgun, which mimics the mechanics of Anarchy stacks combined with "Close Enough" to further mitigate the accuracy decreases.
- Athena has her sword and shield, Xiphos and Aspis respectively, each with their own skill tree. Weapons-wise, she can specialize in elemental damage.
- Though a minor example compared to the rest ^note, Wilhelm's "Laser Focus" skill increases the damage and magazine of all laser weapons he's using.
- Nisha, befitting her cowgirl motif, mainly uses pistols (Her skill "One for Each of Ya" allows her to Dual Wield them) and has class mods that specifically enhance Jakobs pistols. She also uses a whip as her melee attack, which can be enhanced by her Law & Order tree.
- Aurelia's The Huntress skill tree mainly enhances her proficiency with Sniper Rifles, much like Zer0. She also gains a lot of benefits from Cryo weapons and can do absurd amount of damage with Cryo Snipers.
- Zane is often portrayed with a Dahl rifle and his clone comes equipped with one by default.
- Moze, as befitting her Vladof background goes well with such weapons, complete with skills focused on regenerating ammo and constant firing.
Working-Class Hero: Each of the games start with the Vault Hunters looking for work and getting into situations bigger than they expected. Subverted with Aurelia, who is rich enough to start with a decent chunk of cash and Purple-tier weapons and only took up Vault Hunting for fun during her vacation.

Characters / Borderlands Vault Hunters

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Vault Hunters (in general)

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Characters / Borderlands Vault Hunters

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Vault Hunters (in general)

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