A single throwing knife was the most devastating weapon in Borderlands 4 when the game first launched, and a few weeks later, Gearbox finally fixed the infamous tool. Seemingly gone for good, the “Crit Knife” has come back from the dead, as this week’s update has restored it to most of its former glory.
Originally, the Crit Knife was creating an unintended damage loop that allowed players to melt through even the toughest bosses within seconds. You’d need a throwing knife with the Penetrator augment to achieve this effect, as it would increase your critical hit chance to 100% for five seconds. With the Crit Knife dominating the Borderlands 4 meta and overshadowing viable builds, it was eventually nerfed in the October 23 patch alongside the horny BDSM shield.
This new version of the Crit Knife wasn’t bad, but it definitely left a lot to be desired. Gearbox made it so that the Penetrator Augment would create a flat 30% critical hit chance for five seconds, which could actually reduce the effect if you had any buffs or gear equipped to increase it.
This week’s patch has changed things up yet again, as a bug has now made the Penetrator Augment capable of adding an extra 30% critical hit chance–and it can stack when used–giving players up to 90% critical hit chance over the five-second window of opportunity.
100% CRIT KNIFE IS BACK!
Yeah you just throw it 3 times now lmao and get 90%. a 4th to go over or just have any other crit chance.
Silly but yeah. lmao. This damn knife dude. pic.twitter.com/R2d8yI3TZT— LazyData (@Lazy_Data) October 30, 2025
This means that while the Crit Knife isn’t as good as it once was, it’s still very close to its pre-update levels–for now, at least. Gearbox has been doing weekly updates and hotfixes to the game since launch, and this will likely be patched out soon. For now, if you have the Crit Knife, enjoy it while it lasts.
If you still need one, you can always redeem a few Borderlands 4 Shift codes to add a few Golden Keys to your inventory, which can then be used to unlock treasure chests containing powerful randomized gear around the Kairos map. In related news, 2K announced that Borderlands 4 was set to invade PGA Tour 2K25 this week. The game has had impressive sales in the US so far, and its first post-launch DLC will add more story missions, bosses, and new loot in November. Out now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, a Switch 2 release is also currently in development.