‘Possibly the Dumbest Move Ever’ — Borderlands 4 Players Keep Making a Devastating Mistake With the Legendary Vending Machine Quest

Borderlands 4 has been out for two weeks now, which means players have come to understand much about how Gearbox’s looter shooter works. But there’s one quest in particular that I keep seeing cause fans trouble — through no fault of their own.

Warning! Spoilers for Borderlands 4 follow:

The quest in question is called Vend of the Line, which IGN has a helpful walkthrough for if you’re wondering how it all works. In brief, it involves a vending machine that, eventually, lets you pick one from a hefty lineup of Legendary-tier weapons, all priced just $1. You only get to pick one weapon, and once you do, the machine shuts down permanently.

The problem is, players are inadvertently locking themselves out of the legendary item reward by immediately selling all the junk in their inventory out of habit when they interact with the vending machine at the end of the quest. For some reason, the game considers this a transaction and the vending machine shuts down, leaving players who’d soldiered through the quest’s many steps empty handed.

I started noticing players complaining about the quest about a week ago, when threads on subreddits, posts in Discords and on social media expressed frustration and confusion about the situation. “Possibly the dumbest move ever,” declared redditor iwasagummybear. “So, I just finished the legendary vending machine quest for anybody who knows that one, and at the end you get one shot to buy something from it, yes? So what do I do? We’ll, I immediately sell all the junk in my inventory, and since it considers that a transaction the machine shuts down and I get absolutely nothing for my efforts. Please have a good laugh at my expense.”

There are many, many more reports of exactly the same thing happening to other unsuspecting Borderlands 4 players.

“PSA: Don’t press the ‘sell loot’ button on the legendary vending machine at the end of the Vend of the Line quest,” warned another player. “Doing so counts as your one use, and the machine will shut down, ending the quest. I definitely didn’t do that on instinct, and I absolutely did it for the sake of testing so that nobody will make a stupid mistake like that……..”

You can’t rollback saves in Borderlands 4, of course, so if you mess this one up there’s no going back. And making matters worse, Vend of the Line is a non-replayable mission. And, it’s worth noting that completing Vend of the Line in co-op will only allow one player to claim a legendary, and since the mission is non-replayable, the player who does not receive the weapon will be locked out of the quest entirely. Bummer!

The question is whether this is intended by Gearbox or a bug, and, if it’s the latter, whether it will be tweaked. Gearbox has said it’s keeping an eye on feedback so you’d like to think it’s aware of the situation with this quest in particular, and we know patches are on the way.

Indeed, it seems Borderlands 4 is filled with “unintended interactions.” Players have discovered overpowered builds that cause massive damage, even to the game’s toughest bosses on the hardest difficulties. The most infamous of these is ‘the knife,’ which Gearbox has said it’s aware of but won’t nerf just yet. But there’s another that causes bosses so much damage so quickly, it triggers a “Total Existence Failure.”

If you are delving into Borderlands 4, don’t go without an updated hourly SHiFT codes list. We’ve also got a huge interactive map ready to go and a badass Borderlands 4 planner tool courtesy of our buds at Maxroll. Plus check out our expert players’ choices for which character to choose (no one agreed).

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.