Borderlands 4 appears to have been a critical success for Gearbox, both critically and with fans of the series. However, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has admitted the latest installment in the Borderlands series hasn't sold as well as the publisher expected.
Zelnick spoke with The Game Business about all things Take-Two in the wake of GTA 6's most recent delay. A delay that has pushed the Rockstar behemoth back another six months to November 19, 2026. During the interview, the CEO noted that Borderlands 4's launch sales have been "softer" than expected.
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Borderlands 4 Sales Have Been Soft So Far
"In terms of units sold out of the gate, the numbers were a little softer than we would have liked," Zelnick admitted. He didn't go as far as to provide updated sales figures, but we do know that, by the end of September, Borderlands 4 had sold 2.5 million copies, and that more than half of those copies were sold on Steam.
Despite that, Zelnick pins the blame on Borderlands 4's underperforming sales on its early Steam issues. "There were some challenges with the Steam release. [Developer] Gearbox has been addressing those challenges and will continue to do so." Borderlands 4 launched to mostly negative reviews on Steam thanks to crashing and performance issues, problems that Gearbox's Randy Pitchford responded to by telling fans of the series that Borderlands 4 is a premium game for premium gamers.
This explains why Borderlands 4 got a price cut on Steam so soon after launch, despite Pitchford claiming it wouldn't.
Don't Worry Yet, Borderlands Games Usually Have Long Sales Tails
Even though Borderlands 4 hasn't met Take-Two's early expectations, Zelnick is confident the Gearbox game will have a long tail and make up for that over time. "In the fullness of time, we think it’s going to do great." While that is, of course, something a CEO would say regardless of what they might really expect, there's precedent to suggest it will hold true when it comes to Borderlands 4.
The series' mainline games do tend to continue selling well for months, even years after their initial release. Borderlands 3 continued to sell at a steady pace, having shifted around 23 million copies by the time its successor arrived. Borderlands 2 sold even more than that.
Borderlands 4 is only going to keep getting better, too. As Zelnick notes, Gearbox is hard at work fixing the game on Steam, and its reviews are already up to mixed. There's also the Nintendo Switch 2 edition of Borderlands 4 still to come, although when that happens remains a mystery. While it was always supposed to arrive on Switch 2 at a later date, Gearbox indefinitely delayed the Switch 2 version and canceled pre-orders.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 82/100 Critics Rec: 87%
- Released
- September 12, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- Gearbox Software
- Publisher(s)
- 2K
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Genre(s)
- Looter Shooter, Action, Adventure, RPG
