How to solve the pumpkin puzzle in Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 skull puzzle
(Image credit: 2K Games)

How do you solve the Borderlands 3 pumpkin puzzle in Bloody Harvest? While a patch back in 2021 made the Halloween event a permanent fixture in Borderlands 3, it's always a good time to revisit some Spooky Season shenanigans. If you want to play Bloody Harvest content, all you need to do is click "Play" on the Borderlands 3 main menu, and then click the "Events Disabled" option to toggle to Bloody Harvest.

Bloody Harvest brings a number of ghastly challenges and puzzles to overcome, rewarding players with weapons or cosmetic items. It's even quite puzzling to find the quest giver to start the damn quest: you're looking for Maurice, on top of your Sanctuary III ship.

The Borderlands 3 "Easy as Pumpkin Pie" puzzle is another riddle to solve, and it requires you to match the colours of jack-o-lanterns to their corresponding skulls. So you can get back to shooting the bad things with your many hundreds of guns—which is what you here for from Gearbox's flagship title, right?—I'm going to help you solve the Borderlands 3 skull puzzle. 

Where to find the Borderlands 3 pumpkin puzzle

The Easy as Pumpkin Pie puzzle is located in a temple inside the new area of Heck so, in order to access it, you'll need to have search the galaxy for ghosts in Borderlands 3 to complete the Descent into Heck quest first.

Maurice will have created a portal to the new area of Heck once you've done that. Once there, look out for a temple area with two sets of stairs leading upwards at the back of the room: four jack-o-lanterns decorate four pillars at the top of the stairs. You'll find a room close by that contains four brightly-coloured skulls hanging from chains.

How to solve the Borderlands 3 skull puzzle

Head to the jack-o-lantern at the far-left (as you're facing up the stairs) and check the colour glowing from its eyes and mouth. Once memorised, head back to the room with coloured skulls and pull the one with the corresponding colour. Head back to the stairs with the jack-o-lanterns and repeat with the remaining ones, from left to right—again, when facing up the stairs—in the correct order.

Each time you pull one of the hanging skulls in the room, the colour of each jack-o-lantern will change, so memorising all four won't work: you need to do them one at a time. Once you've pulled the chain on the fourth skull, the wall at the back of the room will collapse and you'll be able to claim your reward.

Sarah James
Guides Writer

Sarah started as a freelance writer in 2018, writing for PCGamesN, TechRadar, GamingBible, Red Bull Gaming and more. In 2021, she was offered a full-time position on the PC Gamer team where she takes every possible opportunity to talk about World of Warcraft and Elden Ring. When not writing guides, most of her spare time is spent in Azeroth—though she's quite partial to JRPGs too. One of her fondest hopes is to one day play through the ending of Final Fantasy X without breaking down into a sobbing heap. She probably has more wolves in Valheim than you.