Borderlands Series Surpasses 100 Million Copies Sold as Gearbox Teases Más Borderlands 4 Content for Next Year

The Borderlands series has sold more than 100m copies across all games, developer Gearbox Software has announced. No surprise, then – the studio also said it’s cooking up “big plans” for the evergreen looter shooter’s future.

“The Borderlands franchise has officially crossed 100 million units sold,” Gearbox boasted in a blog post published today. “There aren’t many franchises that have ever hit that milestone, and we certainly didn’t get here on our own. For us, it started with that first Borderlands in 2009, and we’ve been excited about everyone who has joined us in the Borderlands along the way. Borderlands has always had an incredibly passionate community. We’ve been through a lot together, and your feedback pushes us to make even greater games.”

So, where can Vault Hunters expect to go next? Gearbox just finished up on Borderlands 4’s Year One roadmap – which included two new playable characters, two Story Packs and more – and it’s now “cooking hard on more Borderlands 4 content for next year.” There’s no concrete information about what that looks like for now, but the studio promised Weekly Activity refreshes and Community Challenges will chug on in the meantime.

“We’re also taking a bigger look at the franchise as a whole. Where can we take it next? What characters do you want to spend more time with? What stories deserve a payoff? A huge part of that is listening to you,” the studio wrote. “All that said, big plans take time, and we need some room to work. You can trust that we’ll talk more when the time is right. Now is your chance to influence what we’ll say.”

Borderlands 4 itself experienced a “softer” than expected launch, thanks partly to the game’s wonky PC performance, though it seems to have been a success in the long run. A promised Switch 2 port was also indefinitely delayed earlier in the year. We haven’t heard much about that handheld version since, but Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick did say the team were focusing on getting Borderlands 4 into tip-top shape before trying to bring it elsewhere.

In Eurogamer’s Borderlands 4 review, Rick Lane said the shooter bought a “more sensible script and a true open world to its pseudo-cel-shaded gun-show, but these moderate improvements are undermined by frustrating exploration and combat that takes too long to properly shine.”

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Nagoshi Studio has officially shut down and its first game, Gang of Dragon, is seemingly no more, months after publisher NetEase pulled funding from the Yakuza-like project.

Toshihiro Nagoshi (often cited as the creator of the brilliant Yakuza and Like A Dragon game series) opened his new studio in 2021 and announced his next game with a very familiar title almost one year ago. Now, the Tokyo-based developer has closed its doors, as confirmed in the Japanese government gazette Kanpo.

The news comes months after employees were told that the studio’s future was at risk due to NetEase’s funding cuts. Nagoshi Studio reportedly needed another £33.1 million (about $44.4m at the time) to get Gang of Dragon past the finish line – a paycheck NetEase purportedly didn’t want to cough up.

The China-based Marvel Rivals and Where Winds Meet publisher has been significantly scaling back on international investments these past few years. Visions of Mana developer Ouka Studios was shut down just after launching its gorgeous action game, Worlds Untold (a studio formed by Mass Effect veteran Mac Walters) had to pause operations to find a new partner, and Halo Infinite lead Jerry Hook’s studio also ran into very similar issues last year.

Some developers have been a little luckier. Suda51’s Grasshopper Manufacture saved itself with a management buyout and now operates as an independent developer, for one.

Not much is known about Gang of Dragon, but its debut trailer featured the violent crime and high drama you’d expect from Nagoshi’s previous work. The game also starred Ma Dong-seok, the acclaimed actor you might recognise from films such as Train to Busan and Marvel’s Eternals.

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Gang of Dragon