Gearbox and 2K have put a big number on the board: the Borderlands series has passed 100 million units sold. The milestone arrived in a community post on Borderlands 4's Steam news feed on 2 November (US time), which also closes the book on the game's first year of post-launch content and sets up The Hunt, a long-running community charity event, from 6 November.
The 100 million figure
In the Steam post, the Borderlands team says the franchise "has officially crossed 100 million units sold", notes that not many franchises have ever reached that mark, and traces the run back to the first Borderlands in 2009. Inven Global, reporting the same announcement, credits it to 2K and ties it to Borderlands 4's first anniversary.
The post doesn't break the total down by game, and it doesn't say how many of those units are Borderlands 4.
Borderlands 4's first year, done
According to the post, it has been "just more than 12 months" since Borderlands 4 launched. Over that year, the team says, players got two Story Packs, five Bounty Packs and two new Vault Hunters, plus a number of new features and activities. Inven Global adds that the year also brought two free raid boss battles and an endgame raid called Takedown.
The most recent patch was Version 1.11 on 22 October. The October "This Month on Kairos" post on the same Steam feed says it updated Story Pack 2, FL4K and the Last Resort, and made balance changes to Loveless the Hacker, the newest Vault Hunter, as well as to other Vault Hunters.
The Year 1 roadmap is now wrapped, and the team says it is "cooking hard" on more Borderlands 4 content for next year. Weekly Activity refreshes and Community Challenges carry on in the meantime.
Beyond that, the post is deliberately light on detail. Gearbox says it is "taking a bigger look at the franchise as a whole", asks players which characters and stories they want more of, and points them to its social channels and the Gearbox Devcast for feedback. It also says big plans take time and that it will talk more "when the time is right". So there's no new game or DLC announcement here, just a promise that more is coming.
The Hunt, with a matched donation
The Hunt is a community fundraising event for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, run by the Borderlands Community Fundraising Team. According to the October Kairos post, this round, The Hunt: All Aboard!, runs from 6 to 15 November and is the first to take place across Borderlands 2, Borderlands 3 and Borderlands 4. The same post says the event has raised more than US$750,000 in total so far.
The previous Hunt set a record of US$118,995.80. This time, the November post says, 2K Foundations (2K's social impact arm) and Gearbox will match every dollar donated up to that record amount, which could push the total past US$230,000.
There's a sale, too
A separate post on the same feed announced a Borderlands Franchise Sale on Steam, with limited-time discounts on base games and DLC across the series until 16 November, plus new Steam bundles that group several Borderlands games together. Borderlands 4 itself is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC through Steam and the Epic Games Store, Inven Global notes.
Beau's take: A hundred million is a serious number for a series built on co-op chaos and silly guns, and it's nice to see it paired with something more useful than a victory lap. The matched donation is the headline for me: if you were already planning to jump into The Hunt, your dollar goes twice as far until the match cap is reached, and running it across three games means you can join in with whichever Borderlands you've got installed. The "we'll talk when the time is right" bit is fair enough. I'd rather Gearbox take its time than rush a Year 2 plan out the door.
Reporting notes
