Borderlands 4’s sales were ‘a little softer than we would’ve liked’ due to PC performance issues, says Take-Two CEO, but he’s confident it’ll have a long tail

Borderlands 4, by most accounts, seems to’ve landed well. A solid critical reception (including by yours truly in my Borderlands 4 review) and hefty playercounts seem to indicate Gearbox has once more put out another ol’ reliable. Well, a somewhat reliable. More on that in a moment.

Its sales, which were reported to be very solid in the US, haven’t quite panned out to the rest of the world. At least, if Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick’s to be believed in an interview with The Game Business. It’s not all doom and gloom, though: “The critical acclaim [for Borderlands 4] was superb, and we’re really happy with the release.

“Equally, as you know, there were some challenges with the Steam release. Gearbox has been addressing those challenges and will continue to do so. So, in terms of units sold out of the gate, the numbers were a little softer than we would have liked. In the fullness of time, we think it’s going to do great.”

That’s only so surprising to hear. Despite the fact Borderlands 4 glued me to it for dozens of hours, I found myself wrestling with constant performance hitches and some truly atrocious UI design. Which, as Zelnick notes, Gearbox has been hard at work fixing. I already noticed improvements during my review period which was, admittedly, still post-launch due to Gearbox not sending us keys before launch.

Still, those problems caused it to hit a “mostly negative” score on Steam basically right out the gate. And because of how Steam reviews tend to work, that’s a difficult thing to recover from; at the time of writing, BL4 is still “mixed” on Steam, and its recent English-speaking reviews are—huh, would you look at that. Cleanly split between 50% positive and negative. Right down the middle.

While Zelnick’s confident the game will have a long tail, there have been other problems, as well. Gearbox’s recent halloween event was a complete flub even for fellow Borderlands lover and guides writer Rory Norris, who was “left wondering what the point of it all even is.” “It all” referring to the event, not existentially. Although maybe it really was that bad?

I don’t think Zelnick’s necessarily wrong, though, and it’s not because my opinion of BL4’s rickety frame is at-odds with the grumpy Steam public. Borderlands’ model has always included a heaping helping of post-launch support; even Borderlands 3 enjoyed several substantial DLCs despite its rough critical reception, some of which were actually quite good.

Just anecdotally, games that have launch issues also tend to get most of their more hesitant players once discounts roll around. I’ve no doubt Borderlands 4 will truck merrily along for a few years, soft sales or no.