How to complete the tricky mansion puzzle in Borderlands 3

Stuck on the Borderlands 3 Cartel mansion puzzle? It’s easy to miss the ‘Every Mansion Needs a Puzzle’ challenge solution in the Revenge of the Cartels seasonal event, but don’t let that deter you. The rewards are well worth the few moments spent solving this head scratcher.   

To complete the ‘Every Mansion Needs a Puzzle’ challenge you need to solve a hidden puzzle in the Ultraviolet mansion. To make things trickier, the solution appears to vary between players, but it’s nothing you can’t handle. I’m here to guide you through the Borderlands 3 Cartel mansion puzzle and help you get your hands on some glorious prizes.

How to find the hidden puzzle

Before solving the hidden puzzle, you need to find where it is. If you’ve already explored the area, head to where you found the golden mask. If you’re unsure how to get there, start off by heading to the Cartel Hideout fast travel station—the nearest one to the mansion. Clear the area and walk all the way to the end of the road to access the mansion:

• Enter through the main entrance, clearly marked by large blue banners.
• Head upstairs, turning right where the staircase splits into two. When you reach the brown armchairs, turn left, and continue walking straight along the corridor with the white floor.
• At the end of the corridor, take the steps down and walk through the doorway ahead of you, on the right side. You’re now standing near a fountain.
• To the left of the fountain, enter the Grand Baller-room.
• Walk into the study on the left side to find a desk with a keyboard on it. 
• Interact with the keyboard to activate the puzzle. 

How to solve the Borderlands 3 Cartel mansion puzzle 

This puzzle requires you to focus on four shapes, which are displayed in frames around the room. These shapes consist of two yellow cubes, a pink pyramid, and a blue cylinder.

Taking a closer look at the bookcase on the back wall, you can see the numbers 1-9 glowing on the spines on some of the books. On the other side of the room is a bookcase housing three glowing shapes, and several spaces on the shelves. 

The glowing shapes represent the shapes depicted in the frames: a pyramid, cube and cylinder. The spaces above correlate to the numbers on the other book case. If we add these numbers to the spaces, here are the numbers that should be above each shape:

• Pyramid: 1, 4, 7
• Cube: 2, 5, 8
• Cylinder: 3, 6, 9

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Above each of the glowing objects is a golden ornament. The position of these vary between players so take a look to see where the ornaments have been placed in your bookcase. There are three in total.

Glance around the room and take note of the sequence of shapes in the frames, from left to right. For example, if the sequence is cube, cylinder, cube, pyramid, refer back to the bookcase to see where the golden ornaments are situated above each glowing shape and choose the corresponding numbers to get your four digit code. If this sounds a little confusing, check out GosuNoob’s video above.

Enter the correct code by interacting with the books. This causes another bookcase to swing around and reveal a hidden room. All you have to do now is open the chests to grab your goodies.