Borderlands 4 will now launch earlier, but where does it leave Grand Theft Auto VI?
Gearbox Software has officially announced that Borderlands 4 is now launching on 12 September, 2025, more than a week earlier than its original release date of 23 September, 2025. While the move came with little explanation, one can surmise that publisher 2K Games is simply making space for another video game it has coming out this fall: Grand Theft Auto VI.
Borderlands 4 will now launch earlier in September
Game developer Gearbox Software has exciting news to share for fans of the Borderlands franchise. First, its upcoming sequel Borderlands 4 will now launch 11 days earlier than originally planned. Second, Gearbox is holding a PlayStation State of Play livestream tomorrow to dive deeper into its gameplay and mechanics.
According to the PlayStation Blog, the Borderlands 4 State of Play will stream on 30 April, at 2PM PT/5PM ET/11PM CEST. The State of Play will feature “20 minutes of developer-guided gameplay, including missions, killer weapons, exciting Action Skills, new and returning characters, and more.”
Borderlands 4’s story campaign kicks off on a planet named Kairos, the protective barrier of which has been destroyed by Pandora’s moon Elpis. Players will take the role of Vault Hunters leading a resistance effort against a dictator named the Timekeeper on Kairos. However, this is a Borderlands game, so expect lots of treasure-hunting in between your rebellious efforts.
But what does this mean for GTA VI’s release date?
Take-Two Interactive’s CEO Strauss Zelnick spoke on Borderlands 4 and GTA VI launching in close proximity to one another back in February, amid fears that both games would cannibalise each other’s sales. Take-Two owns both 2K Games and Rockstar Games, the respective publishers of both games. At the time, Zelnick confirmed:
“[...] 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.”
GTA VI and Borderlands 4 are both set to launch this Autumn. Seeing as Borderlands 4’s release date has been moved up, and Take-Two wants to avoid both games coming out next to each other, one can assume that GTA VI is now set for an October release date or beyond. That would keep the game within its planned fall launch window.
Rockstar Games has leaned on the October time window for game releases before, having launched its most recent title Red Dead Redemption 2 in late October. If GTA VI launches in October, that would put it in competition with only one other game: PlayStation Studios’ Ghost Of Yōtei, which launches on 2 October, 2025.
