Borderlands 3: How to unlock the Proving Grounds (beacon locations)
If you’ve completed the main story of Borderlands 3, you can now participate in Proving Grounds, but first, you have to find hidden beacons to unlock them.
As revealed earlier this year, one of the new endgame activities for Borderlands 3 is something called the Proving Grounds. New to the franchise, the Proving Grounds are similar to dungeons; they are repeatable timed activities that you can complete to farm high-end gear and loot. They are gauntlets where you progress through areas and clear waves of enemies, culminating with a boss battle and, ultimately, sweet, powerful loot.
As an added layer of difficulty, the Proving Grounds offer additional various challenges within the trials, such as defeating the boss with a certain amount of time left, or killing a specific enemy, or completing the run without dying. Completing these challenges or upping the difficulty of the trial will result in better loot.
The ability to unlock the Proving Grounds comes only after you have completed the main story in Borderlands 3. Once you have done that, you can search for the secret hidden beacons scattered across the planets. There are currently six beacons, one for each of the six Proving Grounds available in the game right now (though more will be added with future updates and DLC).
Acclaimed YouTuber Arrekz has put together a useful video highlighting each of the locations of the six beacons. Once you activate the beacons, you can find the corresponding Proving Grounds on your bridge map. You can then launch these activities from the Sanctuary.
As mentioned, there are currently six beacons for each of the six Proving Grounds. Most of these are easy to get to, requiring just a little platforming.
Trial of Cunning: Travel to the Splinterlands and head to the point near the center of the map. Look for the yellow exclamation point.
Trial of Survival: On Pandora, head to the far western point of Devil’s Razor and into a cave. Take out a few enemies and you’ll find the beacon.
Trial of Instinct: Head to the Floodmoor Basic on Eden-6. Beneath the roots of the large tree is the beacon.
Trial of Fervor: Also located on Eden-6, you’ll want to head to Jakobs Estate on the eastern point of the map in the top right corner. However, the map is a little misleading as it appears you can travel directly to it, which isn’t possible thanks to a giant wall you aren’t able to climb. Instead, you’ll have to head south and take the bridge or elevator up.
Trial of Discipline: Head to the Meridian Outskirts on Promethea and travel to the northeast corner of the map. This one is easy to find if you just follow the path.
Trial of Supremacy: Located in the north part of Desolation’s Edge on Nekrotafeyo.
Once you activate the beacon, you will get a short mission to complete before unlocking the Proving Grounds. However, you can first go around and activate all of the beacons before proceeding to complete the individual associated missions.