Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition includes the base game and Season Pass 1, giving you four massive story expansions. It does not include Season Pass 2. If you want the best narrative content and traditional shoot-and-loot campaigns, this is the optimal entry point. Skip early side quests, rush the main story to unlock Mayhem mode, and prepare for an endgame defined entirely by weapon "Anointments" rather than the base stats of the guns themselves.
The "Super Deluxe" Trap and What You Actually Get
Game publishers are terrible at naming their product tiers. A curious buyer sees "Super Deluxe" and assumes it contains every piece of content ever released for the game. It does not.
Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition is a specific snapshot of the game’s first year. It includes the base campaign and the four story expansions from Season Pass 1. You do not get the Director's Cut, the Designer's Cut, the Arms Race mode, or the crucial fourth skill trees for the Vault Hunters. Those belong to Season Pass 2, which is only bundled in the Ultimate Edition.
This creates a fascinating trade-off for new players. Season Pass 1 contains the best actual gameplay and story content Borderlands 3 has to offer. The base game's narrative is famously grating, but the DLCs—particularly Bounty of Blood and Guns, Love, and Tentacles—feature excellent writing, distinct environments, and top-tier loot. You are buying this edition for the campaigns.
However, if you are a min-maxer who spends hundreds of hours optimizing builds, the missing fourth skill trees will eventually frustrate you. Zane players, for example, rely heavily on his purple skill tree (from Season Pass 2) to maintain his endgame damage output.
| Feature | Super Deluxe Edition | Ultimate Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Base Game | Yes | Yes |
| 4 Story DLCs (Season Pass 1) | Yes | Yes |
| 4th Vault Hunter Skill Trees | No | Yes |
| Arms Race Mode | No | Yes |
| Vault Cards (Battle Pass system) | No | Yes |
Playing on the Epic Games Store adds a minor logistical layer. The game launched as an Epic exclusive before moving to Steam. Today, crossplay is fully functional across Epic, Steam, and consoles via Gearbox's proprietary SHiFT network. You will not struggle to find matchmaking pools or play with friends on other platforms. The only real bottleneck on Epic is that managing save files for third-party modding requires slightly more manual folder navigation than Steam's ecosystem, but for 99% of players, the experience is identical.
Your priority in this edition is simple. Farm the Bounty of Blood DLC for the Flipper SMG and the Light Show pistol. Then, run Guns, Love, and Tentacles to secure the Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge artifact. These three items alone will carry almost any Vault Hunter through the hardest content the Super Deluxe Edition throws at you.
Surviving the Progression Bottleneck
The biggest mistake new Borderlands 3 players make is farming bosses during the first playthrough. Do not do this. Grinding a level 20 boss for a legendary shotgun is a complete waste of your time.
The actual game does not start until the credits roll. Once you beat the main campaign, you unlock Mayhem Mode. This system scales enemies to your level and allows you to increase game difficulty up to Mayhem 11, which drastically improves loot quality. Any legendary weapon you find before unlocking Mayhem Mode will be mathematically obsolete within two hours of endgame play. Skip the side quests. Ignore the collectibles. Rush the main story so you can turn on Mayhem scaling.
Once you reach the endgame, the gameplay loop shifts entirely. You are no longer looking for specific guns; you are looking for specific text on those guns.
This is the Anointment system. At higher Mayhem levels, weapons drop with special modifiers called Anointments. A mediocre gun with a top-tier Anointment (like "On Action Skill End, deal 100% bonus elemental damage") will utterly destroy a god-tier gun that rolled with a useless Anointment. Gun damage in Borderlands 3 is additive, but elemental Anointments are often multiplicative. Your progression bottleneck is no longer drop rates. It is the RNG of getting the right Anointment on the right gun.
Fortunately, there is a massive decision shortcut to bypass the early endgame grind. As soon as you finish the campaign, go to your ship, Sanctuary III. Open your menu and set the game to Mayhem 11. Walk over to Moxxi's bar and put money into her tip jar until she mails you a weapon called the Crit. Because your game is set to Mayhem 11, this SMG will spawn with maximum Mayhem 10 stats. You now possess a gun capable of melting endgame bosses without having fired a single shot in high-level combat. Use this overpowered weapon to comfortably farm lower Mayhem levels, or use it to jump-start your final build.
You should also be aware of a famous, long-standing hidden variable regarding difficulty. The game tells you that Mayhem 10 features annoying combat modifiers (like random elemental pools) while Mayhem 11 removes those modifiers but halves your loot drop rate. The menu is lying. The halved drop rate on Mayhem 11 has been bugged for years and actually drops loot at the exact same rate as Mayhem 10. Never play Mayhem 10. Play Mayhem 11, enjoy the clean combat without modifiers, and reap the exact same rewards.
The Final Verdict: Your Time vs. Loot
Buy the Super Deluxe Edition for the story DLCs, ignore all side quests until you beat the main campaign, and immediately use the Moxxi tip trick on Mayhem 11 to bypass the early endgame grind. Only upgrade to Season Pass 2 later if you hit a mathematical wall in your build and desperately need the fourth skill trees to push your Vault Hunter further.
