Gearbox's highly anticipated first-person shooter, Borderlands 4, is set to release 11 days earlier than initially planned, as announced by development chief Randy Pitchford in a video that was accidentally released early. Originally slated for a September 23 launch, Borderlands 4 will now hit the shelves on September 12, available across PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
In the video, Pitchford expressed his excitement, stating, "Everything is going great, actually. In fact, everything is going kind of the best-case scenario. The game is awesome, the team is cooking, and so the launch date for Borderlands 4 is changing. We’re moving it forward. The launch date is now September 12." He continued, "What?! This never happens you guys! This never happens! We’re moving the launch date forward! You’re gonna get Borderlands 4 earlier!"
Pitchford also mentioned that the promised PlayStation State of Play, which will focus on Borderlands 4, is set to be released soon.
The decision to move Borderlands 4's release date forward has sparked speculation about its timing in relation to the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6), which is scheduled for release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S sometime in the fall of 2025. This vague release window has led to questions about whether Borderlands 4 is being positioned to avoid direct competition with GTA 6.
Borderlands 4 is published by 2K Games, a subsidiary of Take-Two, which also owns Rockstar, the developer of GTA 6. At the executive level, including CEO Strauss Zelnick, there is likely a strategic approach to managing the release schedules of all Take-Two's games to maximize their success. It's possible that recent clarity on GTA 6's release date prompted the decision to advance Borderlands 4's launch.
If Borderlands 4 releases on September 12, it might rule out a GTA 6 release in the same month or August. This leaves October, November, or December 2025 as potential release dates for GTA 6. However, there's a risk that Take-Two could inadvertently cannibalize its own major releases by scheduling them too closely together, especially considering another 2K game, Mafia: The Old Country, is set to launch in the summer of 2025.
In an interview with IGN in February, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick addressed concerns about potential cannibalization of their big games. Zelnick emphasized that Take-Two plans its releases to avoid such risks, stating, "No, I think we will plan the releases so as not to have that be a problem. And what we found is when you're giving consumers hits, they tend to be interested in pursuing other hits. In other words, I've said this many times, even when the hits aren't ours, they're a good thing for the industry. In this case, we hope that the hits will largely be ours. So we feel really good about it and I think that we will time our releases so as to respect the consumer's need to spend a lot of time playing these hit games before they go on to the next."
Amidst this speculation, there's also the possibility that GTA 6 could be delayed into early winter or even the first quarter of 2026. When asked about the confidence in hitting the fall 2025 release for GTA 6, Zelnick responded, "Look, there's always a risk of slippage and I think as soon as you say words like absolutely, you jinx things. So we feel really good about it."
