Not even two months after its launch to a large fanfare, Borderlands 4 has snagged itself an unfortunate franchise record on Steam: the steepest decline by percentage of number of player-retention counts compared to its mainline predecessors. This relatively rapid exodus is signifying an increasingly dissatisfied player base within the PC community itself, overshadowing the game’s phenomenal early performances.
From data gathered from Steam Charts, the latest release from Gearbox Software peaked at 19,800 concurrent players for a 24-hour duration on November 10, 2025. This value is compared against the all-time launch peak of 304,398 concurrent users, equating to a staggering active player-base loss of 93%. This measure indeed surpasses retention challenges for previous titles in the series and is understandably indicative of problems associated with keeping such a title a live-service one.
The history gives a very stark contrast, however. Over the same first two months since the launch of the respective games, Borderlands 2 and Borderlands 3 received an 82% drop on the peaks. Although Borderlands 4 began with a much more grandiose opening audience-the factor that makes the sheer volume of decrease-but much higher percentage loss suggests that the core offering is struggling to maintain player interest. The fact that the latest title has dumped off more than ten percent of its base than earlier releases thus signals a fundamental failure in post-launch engagement.
According to the community, the reasons for the downturn are multifactorial. While old-timers may argue that the live-service gimmicks get into the way of the fun and make the player lose interest, the understandable reason was the actual performance of the PC port of the title. Widespread complaints about the performance and optimization woes since it was released have certainly turned players off from investing a lot of time and energy into the game and probably even contributed to a hasty fall from concurrent users.
By community sentiment, the game currently does not track well among the audiences. Whether or not the new “How Rush Saved Mercenary Day” Bounty Pack DLC would move the needle toward stabilizing the player base and coaxing it back into the fray is the question hanging above the title’s immediate future.
