Borderlands 2 current player numbers suggest Borderlands 3 is going to be huge
Gaiging the temperature.
If the excitement surrounding Borderlands 3's announcement hadn't already shown you the scale of the hype behind this game, look no further than past entries in the Borderlands series. Despite Borderlands 2 having been released all the way back in 2012, the game still has a surprisingly large player base - with over a million unique users playing the game every month.
The figures come from Take-Two Interactive's latest quarterly earnings report, which along with details on Red Dead Online has provided us with some neat information on the Borderlands series. Along with the stat on monthly player numbers, Take-Two revealed the Borderlands series has sold-in 43m copies, with 20m of these made up by Borderlands 2.
Sold-in, by the way, means units sent to retail - so this figure includes game copies currently sat in shops.
The remaining 23m seemingly consists of the original Borderlands (in all its editions) and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel - although it's unclear whether licensed games such as Tales from the Borderlands are included in this figure. We do know Telltale's offering didn't sell that well, unfortunately.
Take-Two didn't provide any specific details regarding its projected sales for Borderlands 3, but CFO Lainie Goldstein did add that the publisher has "really high expectations and [is] really excited about the title". Take-Two anticipates it will be one of its biggest recurrent earners this year - alongside titles such as Red Dead Online, NBA 2K and GTA Online. In other words, Take-Two's expecting a fair bob from Borderlands 3's microtransactions (yes, they are microtransactions).
Meanwhile, in response to a question on Borderlands 3's controversial timed exclusivity deal on the Epic Games Store, Goldstein reiterated that Take-Two stands by the decision and believes "more distribution is a good thing".
"While it's rare that we'll do exclusives for any period of time, we will continue to support Steam with our title, with catalogue," Goldstein added. "These titles will be going to steam relatively quickly after their initial availability exclusively on the Epic Game Store."
Despite the backlash over Epic Game Store exclusivity and Randy Pitchford's best efforts to derail all conversation surrounding the title, the continuing popularity of Borderlands 2 bodes well for Borderlands 3, and I expect there'll be some big sales figures when the game releases on 13th September.