The release of Borderlands 4 just two weeks after the $90 million flop of the Borderlands movie is being hailed as Randy Pitchford’s ultimate “big move.”
The newly announced Borderlands 4 offers a strange kind of damage control for the Gearbox franchise after the disastrous Borderlands movie.
Yesterday, the Gamescom Opening Night Live presentation kicked off with developer Gearbox revealing Borderlands 4 with a 2025 release window. This hasn’t exactly been the best-kept secret in the gaming world – just earlier this year, publisher 2K confirmed that Borderlands 4 was in active development and just one of “numerous projects” on the way from developer Gearbox.
This all happened long before Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford confidently said Borderlands 4 was the “greatest thing” the studio had ever done. There’s the beating around the bush, and then there’s what Pitchford did here.
Oddly enough, the announcement of Borderlands 4 seems to be a brilliant distraction from the Borderlands movie among series fans. The $90 million flop is reportedly set to hit streaming services later this month, barely three months after its theatrical release, and failed to recoup even a significant portion of its reported $110 million budget – let alone the entire project.
“Big move: give the film rights to your franchise to a group that will destroy it… red herring! Result: release an unleaked announcement!” reads one Reddit comment in response to the game announcement. “Damage control at its finest,” chimes in another comment.
Of course, theatrical trailers like the one accompanying the Borderlands 4 announcement take a long time to produce, and they don’t just happen overnight as damage control for a bad movie. No one is saying that here – these are more comments on the odd timing of the trailer’s release than a distraction tactic for the film.
In fact, it’s worth noting that the Borderlands movie already seems to be having a positive impact on the games it’s inspired by. Borderlands 3, for example, shot up Steam’s bestseller list last week, and Borderlands 2 also saw a huge influx of players. Even if people didn’t like the movie, it’s good that they’re still trying out Gearbox’s games.
With the new update of Borderlands 3, players can jump to the highest level in the funniest way: They start at the final boss with bad equipment.
