Borderlands 4 gets an earlier release date, as accidentally revealed by Randy Pitchford

First-person "comedy" shooter Borderlands 4 will be released sooner than previously expected, according to a video accidentally tweeted too early by Randy Pitchford. The original date of September 23rd is being shifted in some sort of bizarre anti-delay. "Everything is going kinda the best case scenario," says the Gearbox CEO, "and so the launch date for Borderlands 4 is changing. We're moving it forward."

The new date is September 12th, said Pitchford in the video, and there's going to be more of the looter shooter on show during the upcoming PlayStation State of Play. But Pitchford posted the video early by accident, it seems, quickly deleting it as soon as he realised his error. A follow-up post reads: "Oops - time zones… Reposting momentarily". But it's too late, Randy, the news is out. The video was saved and reposted by other users. Noted industry rumourmonger Wario64 has a copy, if you'd like to watch a studio executive do a weirdly breathless piece to camera.

Despite the Gearbox boss' excitement in this video, and his assurances that the team are "cooking", the date change may not simply be down to speedy development and executive confidence. When extraction shooter Marathon recently announced their release date too, Bungie did an interesting thing: they chose the same day as Borderlands 4 had already planned: September 23rd.

In business terms, it might seem weird to place yourself aggressively next to another shooter in autumn, but there is a weird logic to it if you step back. Borderlands 4 is published by Take-Two, and that previous release date was the one day Bungie and Sony could reasonably guess would be spaced far away from the release date for Take-Two's other big hitter, Grand Theft Auto 6. They were essentially stepping into the elevator with a gassy teenager to avoid the other elevator coming down that might contain the obnoxious startup bro. Or at least this is what it looks like through my fun speculation specs. Who knows, it could all just be coincidence.

I don't know if any more release date chicken will continue now that Borderlands 4 has shifted its weight slightly to the left and disappeared in a green cloud of farts, but we'll see what happens. Anyway, in the time it took me to write this post, Randy has reposted the original video, alongside a State of Play schedule.