Borderlands 4 opened with franchise-best numbers on Steam, but it did not take long for that momentum to evaporate. Just a couple of months after launch, more than 95% of the game’s all-time peak active players have vanished from Valve’s platform, leaving only a small fraction of the audience that rushed in on day one.

At release, around 304,000 concurrent Steam users jumped into Borderlands 4, setting a new all-time record for the series. In stark contrast, the most recent 24-hour peak topped out at just 13,800 players, a dramatic comedown from those early highs. On paper, the launch was a success, with record-breaking milestones and plenty of buzz, but much of that shine has worn off quickly thanks to a series of post-launch problems, missteps, and controversies.

Within only two months and twenty days, the shooter has bled away more than 95% of its all-time Steam peak, and the daily population now appears to sit in the low thousands. That is an enormous drop from the game’s former glory. The situation looks especially awkward given Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford’s early confidence in the project, as the historic launch is already starting to feel like a footnote rather than a lasting achievement.

According to data tracked by SteamDB, Borderlands 4 has fallen from a 304,398 concurrent player peak to a recent 24-hour high of just 13,815. This gulf makes it clear that the RPG-style looter-shooter has shed nearly all of its launch-day crowd. Some might argue that a decline is inevitable for a heavily story-driven experience, but other single-player and co-op RPGs in a similar price bracket have managed to retain far more players over the years, never mind within the first two months.

Pricing has been another sore spot. Many fans felt that Borderlands 4 cost too much compared to previous entries in the franchise, which hurt its value perception and accelerated the drop-off in both sales and active users once the initial wave of hype faded. Negative word of mouth, ongoing debates, and lukewarm recommendations all combined to drag the numbers down even further.

Performance Problems And Weak Post-Launch Support

Borderlands 4 has also taken flak for its performance. Across multiple platforms, the RPG was bogged down by frame rate issues, stuttering and other technical headaches that left parts of the audience feeling like the game was barely playable at launch. On top of that, a relatively thin slate of post-launch content meant there were few compelling reasons for players to stick around once they had finished the main story and sampled the endgame.

Looking ahead, the project will likely only see a meaningful bump in player numbers if the major DLC packs planned for next year land well and deliver the sort of substantial additions fans have been asking for. Without that kind of course correction, Borderlands 4 risks being remembered as both the series’ biggest Steam launch and one of its most dramatic player-count collapses.

Source: tech4gamer