Putting the Borderlands 4 reveal just 2 weeks after the Borderlands movie’s $90m flop is being hailed as Randy Pitchford’s ultimate “big brain move”

“Damage control at it’s finest”

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The newly announcedBorderlands 4is doing a strange bit of damage control for theGearboxfranchise after the disastrous Borderlands movie.

Yesterday atGamescom Opening Night Live, the showcase kicked off byrevealing Borderlands 4 with a 2025 release windowfrom developer Gearbox. This wasn’t exactly the best-kept secret in gaming - just earlier this year,publisher 2K confirmed Borderlands 4 was in active developmentand just one of “numerous projects” on the way from developer Gearbox.

This was all well before Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford very confidently saidBorderlands 4 was the “greatest thing” the studio has ever done. There’s dancing around something, then there’s whatever Pitchford was doing here.

Oddly, it seems the Borderlands 4 announcement is being taken by series fans to be a brilliant bit of a distraction from the Borderlands movie. The$90 million flop is reportedly heading to streaming serviceslater this month, barely three months after it opened in theatres and failed to recoup a significant amount of its reported $110 million budget - let alone the entire thing.

“Big Brain Move: Give movie rights to your franchise to a group that will butcher it… distraction technique! Follow up: Release un-leaked announcement!” reads oneRedditcomment reacting to the game announcement. “Damage control at it’s finest” chimes in another comment.

Obviously, cinematic trailers like the one accompanying Borderlands 4’s announcement take a long time to make and don’t just happen overnight as damage control for a bad movie. No one here is saying that - they’re more angling comments around the weird timing of the trailer arriving as a distraction technique for the movie.

In fact, it’s worth pointing out that the Borderlands movie already appears to have had a positive effect on the games it takes inspiration from.Borderlands 3 rocketed up Steam’s best-sellers chartlast week for example, while Borderlands 2 has also seen a huge influx of players. Even if people didn’t love the movie, it’s good that they’re still trying out Gearbox’s games.

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Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.

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