Borderlands 4 Release Date Moved Up by 11 Days: Impact on GTA 6 Launch?

Gearbox has exciting news for fans of the Borderlands series: the much-anticipated first-person shooter, Borderlands 4, is set to release 11 days earlier than initially planned. Development chief Randy Pitchford shared this update in a video that accidentally went live early. Originally slated for a September 23 release, Borderlands 4 will now hit the shelves on September 12, available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo Switch 2.

In the video, Pitchford expressed his 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." He further exclaimed, "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 teased that a PlayStation State of Play dedicated to Borderlands 4 is expected to be released soon.

This unexpected decision to advance the release date has sparked speculation about its relation to the looming release of Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6). Currently, GTA 6 is scheduled for a fall 2025 release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, though the exact date remains unspecified. The move to release Borderlands 4 earlier could be a strategic effort to provide it with more market breathing room, especially considering both games are published by 2K Games, which is under the Take-Two umbrella, the parent company of Rockstar, the developer behind GTA 6. At the executive level, decisions are made with an overarching view of all the company's projects, possibly influenced by recent clarifications on GTA 6's timeline.

With Borderlands 4 set for a September 12 release, it seems unlikely that GTA 6 will launch in the same month or August. This leaves October, November, or December 2025 as potential release windows for GTA 6. However, there's a risk of Take-Two's major titles cannibalizing each other's sales if released too closely together. Another 2K game, Mafia: The Old Country, is also slated for a summer 2025 release, adding complexity to the scheduling puzzle.

In an interview with Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick conducted in February, he addressed concerns about the potential overlap of release dates. Zelnick emphasized that Take-Two plans its release schedule to avoid cannibalization, focusing on respecting consumers' need to fully engage with one hit game before moving on to the next. 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 this speculation, there remains the possibility that GTA 6 could be delayed into early winter or even the first quarter of 2026. When asked about the confidence in meeting the fall 2025 deadline for GTA 6, Zelnick 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."