Borderlands franchise surpasses 100 million units sold
2K and Gearbox mark the milestone a year after Borderlands 4's launch as fans debate how that game stacks up against the series.
What to know
- Borderlands has sold over 100 million units across the franchise since the original 2009 game, a milestone announced alongside the one-year anniversary of Borderlands 4.
- The same announcement wrapped Borderlands 4's first year of post-launch content and teased future franchise plans without specifics, while launching a St. Jude charity fundraiser with matched donations up to roughly $230,000.
- Community reaction split between celebrating the milestone and relitigating Borderlands 4's reception, with recurring complaints about its open-world design and performance versus praise for its gameplay and tone.
The dispute Whether Borderlands 4's larger open-world map design is an improvement or a step backward from the series' earlier, more linear level design. · positions read across 38 posts and comments
Borderlands 4's open world and story are weaker than earlier entries, even if the game is technically solid.
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“we felt like the massive open map seemed like a downgrade compared to the other games.”
Doodenmier · Reddit ↗
Borderlands 4 is a solid or good entry with strong gameplay and improved writing, flaws aside.
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“Bl4 is a step up in the right direction. I loved the writing at times, the story was "serviceable"... It's a solid 8/10”
AstralMooo · Reddit ↗
Fans continue to rank the older entries against each other, with no consensus on a single best game.
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“BL2 is the best looter-shooter ever made.”
Infernal_Contraption · Reddit ↗
Gearbox Software Developer of the Borderlands franchise2K Games Publisher of Borderlands, parent Take-Two Interactive
Randy Pitchford Gearbox CEOSt. Jude Children's Research Hospital Charity beneficiary of The Hunt fundraiser
How it unfolded 3 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlespostscomments
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Fans on ResetEra and Reddit debate Borderlands 4's reception
The milestone announcement spread to community forums including ResetEra and Reddit, where discussion turned from celebrating the 100-million figure to renewed, split assessments of Borderlands 4's open-world design, story, and performance compared with earlier series entries.
“It's just a statement of fact that 4 didn't grab our attention like the rest of the franchise did, and that we felt like the massive open map seemed like a downgrade compared to the other games.”
— Doodenmier -
You said it yourself "peaked". Peaked doesn't mean sustainable user numbers. This isn't some huge live service game. So it not holding on to huge player counts is perfectly normal and seen consistently by similar games. Most games release and peak at launch and then numbers drop off. Borderlands 2 launched with 120K and immediately fell off a…
2 more of the top 3 · 18 posts in this stretch
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Chill, man. i never claimed that the game was bad or that we saw everything there was to see. My friend group and I have sunk thousands of hours into the Borderlands franchise, including Wonderlands and the Pre-Sequel. It's just a statement of fact that 4 didn't grab our attention like the rest of the franchise did, and that we felt like the…
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I'm going to say something that may be controversial; I liked the Pre-Sequel the most. I make no bones about it, BL2 is the best looter-shooter ever made. The Pre-Sequel's biggest flaw is that it somehow had to live up to being a sequel to the best looter-shooter ever made. A tall order, and it's not a surprise that it fell short. That said... I…
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Outlets frame milestone as fulfilling Randy Pitchford's sales promise
Gaming press including TweakTown and Insider Gaming picked up the 100-million milestone, with Insider Gaming framing it explicitly as the franchise 'Delivering on Randy Pitchford's Promise' and noting it took 17 years since the 2009 original.
“Bl4 is a step up in the right direction. I loved the writing at times, the story was "serviceable" the character writing was great besides the main villain imo. Gameplay was really good but the open world was very weak unfortunately.”
— AstralMooo, Reddit commenter, self-described franchise fan · source -
first by GameLuster, 9d ago · also MKAU Gaming, Insider Gaming, TweakTown, Instant Gaming News
4 more headlines
- Borderlands Franchise Crosses 100 Million Units Sold, Plus A Look Ahead MKAU Gaming · 9d ago
- Borderlands Hits 100 Million Sales, Delivering on Randy Pitchford’s Promise Insider Gaming · 9d ago
- Borderlands franchise breaks 100 million sales in 17 years TweakTown · 9d ago
- The Borderlands franchise has surpassed 100 million sales Instant Gaming News · 9d ago
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As a massive fan of the franchise. 700 hours on BL1 and 2k hours on BL2 . Bl4 is a step up in the right direction. I loved the writing at times, the story was "serviceable" the character writing was great besides the main villain imo. Gameplay was really good but the open world was very weak unfortunately. It's basically a setup for the 5th game…
2 more of the top 3 · 20 posts in this stretch
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The story was ass until the very end. I can barely name a handful of characters. The only good thing about BL4 is the gunplay/movement/abilities. The world sucks, and the performance is so fucking abysmal that giving it anything above a super average 5/10 is crazy imo
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I just wrapped up the main campaign. Been working on some of the side missions. Repetitive is not a problem for me; repetitive is like... The core gameplay loop of any action rpg or looter shooter. Repetition is the entire point. Kill big loot pinata, get loot.
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2K and Gearbox detail The Hunt charity fundraiser for St. Jude
The same announcement said the community fundraiser 'The Hunt' returns starting November 6, with 2K Foundations and Gearbox matching donations up to last year's $118,995.80 record, potentially raising over $230,000 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
“the Borderlands franchise has officially crossed 100 million units sold!”
— 2K/Gearbox community letter, Official announcement · source -
background
2K and Gearbox announce franchise tops 100 million units sold — In a community letter marking roughly one year since Borderlands 4's launch, 2K and Gearbox revealed the Borderlands franchise has crossed 100 million units sold since the first game in 2009, while recapping Borderlands 4's Year 1 post-launch content (two Story Packs, five Bounty Packs, two Vault Hunters) and teasing future plans.
What people are saying 18 voices from 1 site · best of 38 · verbatim
- Will Gearbox reveal concrete plans for Borderlands' future beyond the vague Year 1 wrap-up teaser?
- How much of Borderlands 4's player drop-off after a few hours reflects the open-world pacing versus performance issues?
- Nov 3
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The same thing happened to Borderlands 2. It peaked with 120K and then the numbers fell off a cliff. Borderlands 2 also got some pretty in depth mods where other classes were successfully added to the game from the Pre-Sequel, so it having the numbers it had make perfect sense.
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True and I agree, as an old fan since the launch of the first one, I never understand how the two is still so appreciated when in terms of gameplay and balance, it has been largely surpassed by the third, a game that as far as I'm concerned is still the best of the series, leaving aside the story, which is not that disastrous anyway.
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The Pre-Sequel is probably my favourite of the series. I liked the classes/skill trees better (each one having a dedicated co-op tree was a great idea), and the double-jump system made the maps a lot more fun and interesting to explore in 3D. The Pre-Sequel's biggest flaw is that it somehow had to live up to being a sequel to the best…
- Nov 2
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If you don't care about the story and just want to shoot & loot, I'd recommend looking into the dialogue skipping mod for BL3. That's the only way I play through BL3 now when I get an itch for it.
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1 is the real “back in my day” kind of game at this point. It’s alright if not good if you’re looking for a classic shooter. It really shows how far development has been made on gameplay aspect. 2 holds up surprisingly well in that aspect. But with 3 and 4 you’ll definitely feel the difference between the generations. These 2 older installments…
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Anarchy Gaige was the highlight of the entire series for me. Unbinding the reload key, running around with a break action shotty, detonating enemies with every point blank shot, and ending every play session by manually reloading and listening to her despair over losing her stacks was the perfect flow.
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It felt like there was nothing in a lot of places. BL2 generally had something almost everywhere, 4 was just eh? The vehicles were meh and some areas were only good for 1 or 2 small collectibles.
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Agreed. If you’re kind of those ADHD gamers and are in a constant need of action, you’ll find 4 bland. If you’re able to play past prologue and a couple of missions in RDR2 and still keep playing, or you like the general flow of Far Cry series, or you like exploring distractions instead of straight to the next big yellow ! symbols, you’ll find 4…
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It’s not awful. I did like Wonderland, DLC and game though. I also enjoyed 3, but 2 is my favorite. It’s just my favorite genre of games other than maybe roguelites.
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I'd count it as a BL game but I bounced off it pretty hard. I do think that's when the writing started improving from 3's horrid writing. But the gameplay and weapons didn't feel as fun to me personally. I could see how it others would like it better though.
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Sorry also encompasses characters and dialogue tho. 2 had better, albeit aged now, dialogue from anyone including Jack, Roland, Lilith etc etc and the characters were fleshed out. I genuinely felt for Mordecai when we had to fight his bird the first time. 3 has dialogue that reeeeeally will age poorly I feel with the “streamer era” style villains…
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If you're not doing the stack glitch the best class is the Gunzerker. Maya was probably 2nd worse until the Cloud Kill buff. They're all good enough to beat everything with though
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It depends on what you're going for. The return to a more serious tone similar to BL1 is very refreshing for some of us. I do agree that most non-Zane characters were a bit weak.
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Unless you have a beast of a PC, turn anything volumetric on Low or turn it off. You’ll cripple your gameplay if you use defaults. Otherwise, use general setting for UE5 and your GPU.
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Bl3s story got a lot better with the remove talk to Lilith mod lol, but the DLCs were great. BL1 is the only game I still am putting a 100+ hours into a year doing craw and armory runs for hybrids.
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I've played a lot on a 2060 laptop, I didn't consider performance to be much of an issue, even if frames were around 60, it was still incredibly playable.
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Yes there’s dudes who actually play a looter shooter and max out a few characters beyond just the story. I know the story is abysmal dogshit but I don’t play BL for the story I play for the character builds, bosses, and their guns.
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how far did you get in the game? Ive had a lot of positive things from new players, but they always stop after a few hours because it feels very repetitive