Randy Pitchford, the development chief at Gearbox, has firmly denied that the decision to advance the release date of the co-op focused FPS, *Borderlands 4*, was influenced by the release schedules of other games, such as *Marathon* or *Grand Theft Auto 6*. Initially 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. This 11-day shift led to speculation that it might be a strategic move to avoid competing with *GTA 6*, expected in the fall of 2025, or to steer clear of a direct clash with Bungie's *Marathon*, another co-op focused extraction shooter also set for September 23, 2025. Notably, *Borderlands 4* will have its own PlayStation State of Play broadcast on April 30 at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 11pm CEST.
Addressing the speculation head-on, Pitchford took to Twitter to clarify that the decision to move *Borderlands 4*'s release forward was purely driven by "confidence" and the game's "development trajectory." He emphasized, "Borderlands 4 shipping early is 100% the result of confidence in the game and development trajectory backed by actual tasks and bug find/fix rates. Our decision is literally 0% about any other product’s actual or theoretical launch date."
While it's not uncommon for game release dates to be pushed back, moving a release date forward is less typical. Chris Dring, Editor-In-Chief and Co-Founder of The Game Business, expressed skepticism about the move, tweeting, "They’ve gone out with a date. It’s on calendars, market materials, social assets... Put ‘Borderlands 4 release date’ into Google and it still says Sep 23. There’s surely got to be a good commercial reason to shift a date."
In a video message released early, Pitchford shared the news of the new release date with enthusiasm, 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. What?! This never happens you guys! This never happens! We’re moving the launch date forward! You’re gonna get Borderlands 4 earlier!”
It's important to note that *Borderlands 4* is published by 2K Games, a subsidiary of Take-Two, which also owns Gearbox and the *Borderlands* IP. Take-Two is also the parent company of *GTA* developer Rockstar. At the executive level, including CEO Strauss Zelnick, there is a comprehensive understanding of all the company's games and their development stages, with a strategic focus on optimizing their release schedules to maximize success.
In a February interview with IGN, Zelnick discussed Take-Two's approach to game releases, emphasizing a strategy to avoid cannibalization. He stated, "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 the speculation surrounding *Borderlands 4*'s release date shift, there's also talk about potential delays for *GTA 6*, which might slip into early winter or the first quarter of 2026. Zelnick, when asked about the confidence in hitting the fall 2025 release for *GTA 6*, responded cautiously, "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."
