Borderlands games have become a beloved point of reference in the looter shooter sci-fi RPG genre, and rightfully so thanks to their deep lore and awesome world-building elements. The games are all connected with one another, further making players invested in the story and its overarching themes. One of the most significant interactions the players got to experience was with the Watcher, a mysterious Guardian made by the Eridians, at the end of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. It stated that a war was about to come, and fans expected it to be in Borderlands 3, which didn't pan out as they thought.
Borderlands 3, despite having wars of its own and plenty of destruction and mayhem, focuses on lore and on expanding the universe it is set in, not the promised war. This means that Borderlands 3 is most likely an intermediate game that serves its purpose of having a plethora of improvements in terms of quality of life from the previous installments of the series, while also being a preamble to future titles. With this in mind, the Watcher's war was probably set up even more in this game, despite the Watcher not appearing at all. However, another Guardian was introduced into Borderlands' complex lore: the Seer.
The Watcher's War - The Moon And The Key To The Great Vault
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is the first of the series to feature the Watcher, and what made its scenes very interesting is how it shifts allegiances seamlessly. At the beginning of the game, the Watcher protects Colonel Zarpedon from being shot, stopping bullets mid-air simply by using its hand, much like Neo does in Matrix. Colonel Zarpedon and the Watcher had already met four years prior to the events of the game when the Guardian led her and her troops into the Vault on Elpis, where she acquired knowledge that eventually convinced her to stop anyone from discovering said Vault.
When the game starts, Zarpedon and Handsome Jack are in conflict due to her commanding her Lost Legion to kill any personnel found on the Helios Space Station, which later she gains control of. From the station, she uses the Eye of Helios laser beam to target Elpis. She wants to destroy the Vault and the moon with it, but Jack and his Vault Hunters manage to stop her.
While listening to Nyriad's messages in Borderlands 3, she talks about how Pandora was created with the sacrifice of all the Eridians in order to imprison the Destroyer, and how they disguised the key to opening the Vault as an otherwise anonymous moon: Elpis. It is possible tha,t with the Watcher's intervention and the visions she had in Elpis' Vault, Zarpedon tried to destroy the moon so that the Destroyer could never awake again.
The Watcher, much like the Seer later in Borderlands 3, seems to care about some sort of causality that makes it act the way it does. It is also possible that the Seer shared its visions with the Watcher so that their respective purposes would align. Still, the Watcher's warning at the end of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel comes with it saving Athena's life, then stating that the Vault Hunters would need all the help they can get because of an impending war.
The Seer's Predictions Of Ruin, The End Itself, And Causality
Borderlands 3, on the other hand, introduces a new Guardian that seems to be strictly connected to the whole Siren narrative of the game. This Guardian is the Seer, who the players meet through the murder mystery quests from Ava coming with the Director's Cut DLC.
Thanks to a thorough exploration of the Scryer's Crypt on Nekrotafeyo, the home planet of the Eridians, players are able to examine some glyphs that reveal how the Seer has been manipulating people from the Borderlands universe to do its bidding. The Seer shows them visions of Ruin, speaking of "the end itself" being at stake if the course isn't corrected. Then, it asks them to change the current course of the events by either helping the Vault Hunters or the Calypso Twins during crucial parts of Borderlands 3's campaign.
The Seer seems to be especially preoccupied with the course of events that has to be corrected. This suggests that the being is indeed able to have visions, glimpses into the future of what will happen to the universe, and its purpose seems to be to make it so a series of events are set into motion so that the course follows accordingly. The being refers to the Calypso Twins as acausal factors, as they can interfere with the causality the Seer so hard tries to protect.
Later on, after a few visions are shown, the players and Ava end up talking directly to the Guardian. The Seer proceeds to state how the course of the events cannot be corrected, now, because of what Lilith did to Elpis when she saved Pandora and prevented the Great Vault to open. According to the Seer, the Great Vault was meant to be opened, whatever that means in terms of the order of the events the Guardian wanted to preserve.
During the confrontation, the Seer says that with the key vanished, namely Elpis, the future has vanished, too. The being asserts that now the course has been shattered because of Lilith, and all its work was in vain. The Guardian clearly cannot stand the Sirens and refers to them as chaos incarnate because of their ability to break the causality and to change the timeline. Because of this, the being wants to stop them once and for all, and it proceeds to attack Ava and the Vault Hunter, but it dies during the encounter. In the end, the Seer could not see its own demise.
The Role That The Watcher And The Seer Will Have In The War
What does this mean for the Watcher's war, though? The Seer's hatred for acausal beings like Sirens may or may not be shared by other Guardians, and this could be the spark that ignites the war between these two factions. Another option is that the war will start because of how the Destroyer's prison was now weakened even more by the Calypso Twins, but it was not opened just yet, shifting the event onto a later date in the timeline. Even the Seer's demise could be a factor that dictates the future of the Borderlands universe.
Ultimately, it's not whether the Watcher possesses an ability similar to that of the Seer, but it seems likely considering that he foresaw the war year prior to the events of Borderlands 3, and it hasn't happened yet. The reason this is the case could be Sirens, specifically, who tore apart the causality of things and delayed these events. Or, it may be that the Guardians' perception of time is different than that of humans and Sirens alike, thus why the Watcher referred to this conflict as impending. Unfortunately, this is speculation, but new DLCs or games will most likely pick this thread up. However, it is very likely that both Guardians played and will still play a role in the war to come, even if the Seer was destroyed.
Borderlands 3 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.